NEVER LET ME GO (Vintage International)

After a long time, I read a fiction that gripped me till the end. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go performed that bewitching magical spell on me. Written in a naturally simple style and language, the novel did not force me even once to refer to a dictionary–the language that simple from a Nobel laureate speaks of a rare achievement. What holds us in a thrall in the novel? Ishiguro has employed the technique of gradual disclosures of the fate and condition of the novel’s young characters. Words like ‘carer’, ‘donor’ and ‘completing’ make us curious about the young characters who appear normal, yet strange. Where are their parents? Why do artworks play a significant role in their lives? Why can’t they live a normal life of aspirations? Why do some people keep a distance from them? The search of answers to these questions compel us to turning the pages. For long, the novel seems to be nothing but a typical novel that charmingly reminisces the school days of girlhood/boyhood and the sexual awakening of adolescence. Once we learn that the apparently normal boys and girls are cloned creatures meant to be ‘harvested’ for the health and longevity of the mainstream populace, our hearts begin to give away layer after layer, sinking us in a mucky, choking sadness. Even as the characters–Kathy, Tommy and Ruth–know their fates, they fall in love and hope for an extension of life. But neither love nor art can redeem them from the inevitable fate that the supremely sophisticated medical science has invented for them. Ruth completes her role and so does Tommy; Kathy lives on to tell us the tale without anger or frustration. She longs for Tommy’s love, but does not utter words of complain about those who made them like that. The last paragraph of the novel reveals the absurdity of the days gone and of vagueness of the days yet to be lived: ”I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I’d ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I’d see it was Tommy, and he’d wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that—I didn’t let it—and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn’t sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.” It could be read as a novel about all of us: we all live as if life is forever, fully aware that the end can be any moment. Yet we never stop hoping for brightness, creating the beautiful and lusting after the sensual. A strongly recommended book.

No spoilers!! Thoughts Its one of the best first person narrative I have ever read, written with absolute fluency, gives off a sense of conversation to you rather then merely telling. The book seems very simple on the surface, if you go only by the storyline, there is no such great plot twists,action or some heart touching romance, but what there is immense depth, it is deep to the extent that one engages even with the smallest of happenings, smallest of events, making this book even though appear plain superficially, a great reflection of our own selves. There is a caution though, the beauty of the book is on its characters and internal buildups, if you like happening book, if you want something that serves you everything up right, you don't have the sense to explore characters besides there dialogues and written narratives, I think, it might be difficult for such folk to appreciate the book. If You have in you that thing to find in those characters and story the unspoken, the unwritten, you will definitely like it. About the story and Feel The book has 3 parts each a dedication to 3 phases of life at 3 different places, of a Girl named Kathy. It's super diluted science fiction with romance, friendship and just simply life, which by the way even tho seemingly normal is actually the opposite. Most of the books doesn't even feels like anything wrong or science fictional, but there always is kinda a sense of lost or depression prevailing, hanging in the somewhat at first mysterious world of the book. I believe if you enjoy peculiarities of human nature, diluted romance, mystery and science fiction,you would definitely enjoy this opportunity.

Easy reading. Dystopian novel that will bring tears in your eyes

Grim and haunting; I couldn't go through the last pages without taking a break, emotionally exhausted as I was. It is one of the best dystopia that I have read.

The product quality - binding, paper and print - are good. The book is a science fiction which is quite believable. It takes you into a dystopian world where human clones are treated as guinea pigs. The books shuffles between the Utilitarian perspectives of Bentham and Mill. Is it all acceptable to condemn few to eternal damnation for the benefit of many? Or, while ensuring the greatest happiness of greatest number one has to respect liberty of all human beings? But are human clones sufficiently human or are they sub-human created only to supply organs to the naturally born humans and complete themselves off (die) when they no more can make the supplies (of organs) available? The book starts slow with a boarding school Hailsham. However once the reader gets over first 50 or so pages, the reader is soaked into the story, feeling connected with the characters. The Characters are treated humanely. Despite the characters being human clones, the reader feels absorbed into their world, feel what the characters feel, make the reader root for them , reach cresendo and concludes at anti climax. You know from the beginning how the story would run its course yet it keeps the reader hooked, driving into melancholy and finishing off with depair and loneliness. After finishing the book the reader is left with the thought that whether it is better to know about one's fate and accept it is better or being oblivious to the destiny is better to live a more fulfilling life. The book is worth giving a shot. Go for it!

Good reading

原作がカズオ イシグロと知らずにドラマを見て、ドラマの方も興味深かったので、原作をぜひ読んでみたいと思いました。実はずっと読んでみたかった作家。なかなか機会がなくて、やっとでしたが、とにかくどんどん読み進めてしまう、とても引き込まれる作品でした。他の作品もぜひ読みたいと思いました。話の内容は重たい部分も多いのですが、個人的には著者の英語表現がすごく好きでした。

23:00 da verdiğimiz sipariş sabah 9:00 da gelmesi. Müthiş kargo hizmeti. Teşekkür ederim

As another reviewer also experienced (maybe more?) 38 pages were missing, and it started on page 139 seemingly with content from another book. Really poor. I have noticed many others complaining of similar problems with the printing of this book. This edition should be no longer made available.

Somehow never heavy despite the inevitability of this melancholy world. Such simple writing yet so captivating. Amazing storytelling, one of the best novels I've read.