Never Let Me Go
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Review
'Opressively brilliant... Ishiguro's most profound statement of the endurance of human relationships... the most exact and affecting of his books to date.' --Tim Adams, Observer
'A master stoyteller ... In this deceptively sad novel, he simply uses a science-fiction framework to throw light on ordinary human life, the human soul, human sexuality, love, creativity and childhood innocence. He does so with devastating effect.' --Independent
'A clear frontrunner to be the year's most extraordinary novel... Not since The Remains of the Day has Ishiguro written about wasted lives with such finely gauged forlornness.' --Peter Kemp, Sunday Times --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
'A master stoyteller ... In this deceptively sad novel, he simply uses a science-fiction framework to throw light on ordinary human life, the human soul, human sexuality, love, creativity and childhood innocence. He does so with devastating effect.' --Independent
'A clear frontrunner to be the year's most extraordinary novel... Not since The Remains of the Day has Ishiguro written about wasted lives with such finely gauged forlornness.' --Peter Kemp, Sunday Times --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Review
"'Ishiguro is the best and most original novelist of his generation.' Susan Hill, Mail on Sunday"
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
139 of 145 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Never Let Me Go is in some ways more straightforward than most of Kazuo Ishiguro's novels, and more fully comprehensible than any since his masterpiece The Remains of the Day. And yet there is still enough lightness of detail and wealth of moral ambiguity to justify much strokey-chin thought after the last page has been closed, and even to warrant an early re-read.
The setting of the book is "England, late 1990s," but not as we know it. We can tell this even from the limited narrative offered by Kathy, who tells us very little of the real world outside her immediate (and past) environs. There are words dropped innocently but sinisterly: donations, carers, completing, none of which have the meanings we understand. Kathy was a student at Hailsham, a residential institution for children which educated them and encouraged creative expression, but was not quite a school... They are being prepared for lives as 'carers' and 'donors', and they are a form of experiment made possible by advances in technology which, in this parallel world, came in the 1950s but which we are only seeing now.
To say more than this would ruin the story, as there are two mighty coups of revelation delivered about a quarter and halfway through the book, which resonate through the rest of the story and are quite impossible to free from your mind. The impression I get, however, is that Ishiguro is less interested in the sci-fi aspect of this than in using it as an allegory for us all, the stunted limitations of many of our lives, and our blithe acceptance of our ultimate fate.
Although the book has much to say, occasionally - even for this Ishiguro-lover - the saying was a little too restrained, and I was left feeling I had missed something important - why were Tommy's temper tantrums relevant? What about this, or that, or the other, interminable description of a tiny unimportant incident? For that reason I would suggest that Never Let Me Go is not ideal for newcomers to Ishiguro's work, who should begin with The Remains of the Day. Nonetheless, here Ishiguro has delivered another reliably fine confection, perhaps without the pixel-perfect wondrousness of The Remains of the Day, or the mad beauty of The Unconsoled, but with more accessibility than any of his other books and, despite the unruffled surface, a cast iron certainty to perform open heart surgery on any reader who's got one to give.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book deeply disturbing and was unsettled for a long time after reading this novel.
The story concerns a group of children who appear to live an idyllic life in school in the country, but an evil fate awaits them the implications of which slowly become clear.
I am very enthusiastic about Ishiguro's prose style, he writes simply and boldly, and the result is not stark but rather beautiful storytelling; each paragraph has an intensity worth savouring. The horror of their situation is revealed calmly, without any fuss or melodrama. The characters have only the language of euphemism to describe the fate which awaits them, and this helps keep the dreadful fate awaiting them a secret. I don't wish to spoil the surprise, by telling anything more explicitly, but suffice to say this is a story of a whole society's evil being visited on a group of people, and how the victims cope or don't.
I recommend this story whole-heartedly.
The story concerns a group of children who appear to live an idyllic life in school in the country, but an evil fate awaits them the implications of which slowly become clear.
I am very enthusiastic about Ishiguro's prose style, he writes simply and boldly, and the result is not stark but rather beautiful storytelling; each paragraph has an intensity worth savouring. The horror of their situation is revealed calmly, without any fuss or melodrama. The characters have only the language of euphemism to describe the fate which awaits them, and this helps keep the dreadful fate awaiting them a secret. I don't wish to spoil the surprise, by telling anything more explicitly, but suffice to say this is a story of a whole society's evil being visited on a group of people, and how the victims cope or don't.
I recommend this story whole-heartedly.
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The genius of this book is the way a group of seemingly normal children (normal in their petty rivalries, small affections and sometimes cruelties) go through an evolution of events with a sinister undercurrent that leaves a feeling of suspense even once you have realised the nature of the central theme. It is set in a society that condones the practice of human cloning for organ harvest obviously because of the vital vested interests as perceived by "normal" human beings, a society that in in its total loss of values would ressemble that of the Nazi regime and the silent majority's silent acceptance of the "Final Solution". Allusions to the war are made but remain undefined and the story could be an imaginative one on the theme "what if cloning had been a priority research field during WWII" or it could be set in the second half of the current century on the assumption that by the middle of it we will witness another WW catastrophe accompanied by major technological progress. In the third and final part of the book the quasi-informal tone with its dark undercurrent of the first two parts evolves into an emotional crescendo of beautiful simplicity.
The Remains of the Day left me with a feeling of beauty, When we were orphans with a feeling of wonder, but Never let me go left me emotionally devastated.
The Remains of the Day left me with a feeling of beauty, When we were orphans with a feeling of wonder, but Never let me go left me emotionally devastated.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Shell-shocked
Contains spoilers.
My wife's reading group chose this book but didn't like it. Then they had a film evening, watched the screen version and didn't like that either. Read more
My wife's reading group chose this book but didn't like it. Then they had a film evening, watched the screen version and didn't like that either. Read more
Published 11 hours ago by Build another bookcase
Tear Jerking Genius
I was not captured by the first line, or paragraph, not even the first few pages. But this was bought for me as an xmas present and so eventually I forced myself to read two pages... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Glasses
Brilliant
A beautifully written thought provoking book. This book is not science fiction or about the rights or wrongs of cloning. Read more
Published 23 days ago by maggie
Easy to say, but don't read with 'expectations'.
It's always rather trite and patronising to claim with a particular piece of art that someone doesn't 'get it', however having read the negative reviews of 'Never Let Me Go' I... Read more
Published 26 days ago by Shipbuilder
Must be taken on its own terms
I read this just after reading Julian Barnes' Sense of an Ending which has some similarities; I found Ishiguro's style superior in every respect. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Dr. Peter G. Upton
Amazing book
I found this book amazing.... It is a little uneven in parts but much of the prose is breath taking. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ken Hickey
A disappointment
I was very disappointed in this novel. I saw the film first and felt there was something lacking, unexplained perhaps, which reading the book would reveal. But no. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Terry Bond, author
A fair exploration of the subject
Is it ethical to clone people to harvest organs?
This is the question that is explored in this novel. Read more
This is the question that is explored in this novel. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Alison Fable
Thoroughly enjoyable
I completely misunderstood when I bought this book, thinking it was a biography of Siamese twins. It isn't - but I thoroughly enjoyed it nevertheless.
Published 2 months ago by wendy jones
A clone of The Island?
Not too bad, but it left me wondering if the author had taken the idea for his book from the movie The Island. Although the novel was more serious, there were many similar themes. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Avid Reader
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