Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go is the story of three adults; Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, whose fates and strange circumstances we learn progressively, through Kathy’s narration. At the beginning, we don’t really understand what the novel is about. We know that Kathy is a carer, that she lives a lonely life and drives around a lot. Although her job seems very tough and exhausting, she has a lot of time to remember. In her memories, she likes to go back to the time when she was a student at Hailsham, an idyllic pension for young people like her, where they are sheltered from the rest of the world and taught by people they refer to as "guardians". As the story develops however, we understand who the children are exactly and what their terrible fate is…
Of course, what makes this story entirely original is not the subject matter, which has been treated before, both in novels and movies, but the point of view, which is, for once, an insider’s point of view. Very often, in what is referred as fantastic or sci-fi fiction, the narrator is someone who observes the "freak", it is not often told by the "freak" itself. In this way, Never Let Me Go reminded me of Frankenstein. Instead of making us to think coldly about implications of science without conscience, Never Let Me Go allows us to empathize with the characters. I don’t agree with reviewers who found the main characters flat. Their shallow side is a direct consequence of their unusual upbringing, and a very good inference on the part of the author.
I think Kazuo Ishiguro did a wonderful job imagining what life as someone such as Kathy can be. This novel is very subtle, beautifully written and truthful. I don’t care if, as some reviewers noted, the scientific part is not realistic. It is peripheral anyway, and knowing if such a think could have happened when it is meant to have happened is completely beside the point. At the end of the novel, we remain with some questions unanswered, but I think Ishiguro was right resisting giving us more information. After all, we are meant to know as much as Kathy, who has a limited access to information.
What shocked me in the novel was the complete acceptance of the situation, the lack of rebellion from the main characters. But thinking back, I think we have been led to expect a resolution because we are influenced by a pretty recent Hollywood movie about a similar subject (I can’t say more without giving away too much…). Thinking back and knowing what happened with some terrible events in history (in the concentration camps for instance), we know that when men are dehumanized enough (or, in the case of the children of this novel, taught from early childhood about what their fate is to be), they do not rebel. And like in many circumstances where human beings are treated in a unspeakable way, language adapts to the situation, and euphemisms, as well as half or unspoken truth appear. Therefore, someone doesn’t die but "completes", in Never Let Me Go.
More than a story with sci-fi undertones, Never Let Me Go is a story about human nature. From early childhood, Kathy, Tommy and Ruth have ambiguous relationships. Kathy and Ruth are friends but Ruth, a group leader, occasionally shows her taste for power by including or shunning Kathy depending on her mood. Kathy learns quickly from her. Tommy and Ruth are best friends, true confidents, but Tommy also becomes Ruth’s boyfriend when they are teenagers. Never Let Me Go is a story about love, betrayal, and atonement. Finally, despite the particular circumstances of these characters, we end up thinking, a little uncomfortably, that their fates is not so dissimilar from ours, and that the lessons we can learn from their lives apply to all of us.
As I was reading the novel, I wondered how the same author could have written two stories as different as Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day (the only other I have read so far), but after turning the last page, I realized that there was much more in common between Stevens (the Butler from The Remains of the Day) and Kathy. Both characters have lived part if not most of their lives in a sheltered environment, which made them blind to the larger world, and also naive. Both can obsess over little details (like Ruth’s red pencil case or Stevens’s father’s dripping nose) because they have nothing else to worry about but their own confined environment. Also, both of them are so ignorant of the way of the people and of the world, that they can completely misread people’s reactions…
Never Let Me Go is an excellent novel that I recommend if you don’t mind introspective, slow-going stories. However, beware, the novel is very pessimistic and will not cheer one up…
Rating: 4,5/5
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