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56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Something strange in the mirror, 5 Sep 2006
First off, let's get this out of the way: this is NOT a book about the ethics of human cloning; nor is it (in any conventional sense) "Science Fiction". Not that there is anything wrong with Sci-Fi: I've read and enjoyed a lot of it over the years. However, this definitely isn't it - it has much more in common with Kafka than with Philip K. Dick.
Ishiguro's tale is both moving and sinister from the start, and gets increasingly so as it goes on. In a darkly dreamlike Parallel England, a self-styled "ex-student" at what initially seems to be a boarding school deep in the country is recounting (in a deliberately flat, almost Enid-Blytonesque style) the childhood experiences of herself and her best friends. However, Ishiguro makes it abundantly clear from the first couple of pages onwards that all of the "students" are destined for a sticky end: indeed, one of the main points of the book is that the students are fully aware of their eventual fate even from a young age. They understand this information on a factual level, and even make crude jokes about it, but they have never properly internalised the full implications. For this reason among others, they passively accept the inhuman horror that awaits them.
For me, Ishiguro clearly intends the book as a sort of dream-parable to say various things about the human condition in general. Firstly, if we grow up with a horror (nuclear weapons, say, or Third World poverty - Ishiguro silently invites the reader to make his or her own list), then human nature is to take it for granted as an immutable Fact of Life and just accept it. The eventual fate of the Hailsham "students" is one that no sane person could possibly endorse: and that's exactly the point. (There's no "Ethics of Cloning" debate here - it's surely an open and shut case - and Ishiguro deliberately leaves the science of what is going on very sketchy.)
Many aspects of Kathy's tale are true for all of us. Like her contemporaries at Hailsham, we all know that we will inevitably die one day, and nothing - not True Love, High Art or whatever - will make one blind bit of difference. What, then, is the point of it all? Ishiguro's answer is initially a surprising one: "the little things" - the small change of human friendships and kindnesses; a favourite T-shirt; a "special" song off a second-hand cassette. This is what ultimately makes Kathy's tale so heartbreaking, and what makes the book ring so true emotionally.
At a key point in her childhood, Kathy describes a chilling realisation about one of the teachers or "guardians" as being like "seeing something strange and unexpected in the corner of a mirror you walk past every day" (I don't have the book to hand at present, so apologies if this isn't quite word-for-word.) This could well stand as a superscription to all of Ishiguro's fiction from "A Pale View of Hills" onwards, but is particularly appropriate as regards this unique and extremely unsettling book.
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57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moving and Tense, 9 Nov 2006
I am compelled to write here in response to the various reviews preceding mine which complain that the book is not sufficiently 'believable' to be merited.
These readers question such things as how the 'donors' would be able to donate vital organs up to four times and survive. I dont personally think that this is at all important. Maybe their metabolism was different? Maybe they had different renewing capabilities to a 'normal' human? Maybe the term vital organ also incorporates such things as bone marrow. Does it matter? Reading should not be about the author delivering everything to the reader on a plate but a partnership between author and reader.
Some readers also say they wanted rebellion. Yet for me it is the tacit unquestioning acceptance of the students to their fate that makes this novel so unbearably heart breaking and stay with you for long after you have put it down.
The plot is dark, and sinister which is emphasised through the juxtapostition of the youth and innocence of the characters and Ishiguro's childlike sylistic approach and the use of Kathy, as his narrator.
Use of language as well also adds to the darkness of this novel. For me one of the sadest aspects of the whole story was that the donors "completed". They didn't "die", they simply had a task to do, and when it was done they had completed it.
The trip for Ruth's 'possible', the army to protect Miss Geraldine, are similarly wrenching moments in the story. Poignant demonstations of a young child yearning a sense of belonging from a family she had never known and would never have.
This is NOT a book about science, this is a disturbing and unsettling book about people, about life, about emotion and about environmental influence.
I would give it as many stars as were available. Unfortunately I am limited to five.
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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Subtle, convincing and ulitmately emotionally shattering , 11 May 2006
This is the fourth book by Kazuo Ishiguro I've read and whilst I enjoyed "An Artist of the Floating World", found the "Unconsoled" intriguing and "The Remains of the Day" a wonderful character study, I think that with this book the author has far exceeded all those works. Others on this site have already said enough about the plot and the characterization and some have complained about its apparently mundane nature. It's true that nothing much happens on the surface yet this pathos is an essential part of the point. The great skill of the author is to make a series of apparently simple reminiscences interesting and convincing, and to build them into a totally compelling picture of a bizarre love triangle.
There is as much horror in what is unsaid as in what is said.
If you aren't moved by the simple but stunning ending, so beautifully written despite its inevitability, you have no heart. A masterpiece and one I shall remember forever.
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