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| Never Let Me Go | 
 enlarge | Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Category: Book
List Price: £16.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £16.98 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  63 reviews
Sales Rank: 96957
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.7 x 1
ISBN: 0571224113
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780571224111
ASIN: 0571224113
Publication Date: March 3, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 58 more reviews...
 A premise which stretches things a bit too far? December 13, 2007
I am a huge fan of "The Remains of the Day," and so I had big hopes for this book. It created considerable talk on its release. But the fact that it has taken me over a year to read, that it spent most of that time at my feet while I picked up other books, tells just what I though of it.
Shame, as it is so well crafted - the detailed language of the narrator, Kathy, is perfectly that of a young girl (without resorting to slang). She is sensitive and aware, and her reminisces about school days - the cliques, the secrets, the gossip, the manipulation, etc., brought back memories to me. But in the book there is a sinister twist to all this - these children have been brought into existence as clones with the sole intention of sacrificing their body parts (and lives) to save others with medical problems. They (and we the reader) are kept largely ignorant of the mechanism of all this, put faith in rumours and wild assumptions, while at the same time gently accepting their one future path - that of "carer" followed by "donor," leading to "completion" - meaning death!
And that is where I had a problem - these are intelligent, normal children who at some point must have realized they are exceptional, which would surely led them to explore by all means possible just how they differed from other 'normal' children and to some kind of revolt at their limited prospects!
It is not until late in the day, on page 237, that the question "Why?" is asked, and then only "Why all the trouble to educate us?" Then it becomes clear that this has gone beyond some experiment, it is a nationwide system sanctioned by the authorities and supported by the populace. It is a case of the few being allowed to suffer for the good of the many. It helps ease consciouses by regarding the few are not real people. Immediately slavery and the Holocaust come to mind, only here there are no guns to keep the victims in line, so still no explanation why these lambs happily walk to their own slaughter.
The author has tackled a big subject in an oblique manner. Without realizing it, all children are vulnerable to the moral authorities around them, more so those raised by institutions. History has many examples of governments not acting in the best interests of their citizens - how could that be prevented? How are inequalities established and maintained? How do we regard a slave-owner, who on his own cannot change the system, but who treats his slaves well? Should scientific inquiry be bounded by moral or ethical judgment, and how?
With so much stuff already out there, why create a premise which stretches things a bit too far?
 Will no-one blow the whistle on Ishiguro? November 8, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The prose is incompetent, the plot is Mills & Boon, the cloning issue is a red herring, the narration is clumsy ... Have I left anything out?
Tobias Hill's review in The Times includes the line "He is like a cook with a sense of taste so acute that his dishes lack flavour." Or like an emperor with clothes so fine that they are invisible?
 I loved it June 20, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the best book I have read for a long time, and it comes all down to the entrancing narrator. As you are reading you feel so close to Kathy, the books narrator, as she depicts her lifestyle and its cruel twist.
Unsettled March 27, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book is unsettling but not just because of the obvious reasons of breeding people for the purpose of organ donations but because of the parallels that Ishiguro is drawing with our own lives. You can't help asking yourself why the characters don't rebel against the lives mapped out for them. But that is what the author wants you to ask. He could have written a Hollywood style ending and have the characters escape their fate or bring down the system. But that's not the point. The book is about conformity and our unquestioning acceptance of our lives. In the last paragraph as the main character comes to terms with the loss of all that she loved: Tommy, Ruth, Hailsham - everything that means anything to her she cries but not uncontrollably, not like Tommy. She still believes she has her dignity. A running theme is conforming to behavioural norms and no matter how bad life gets not to lose control and behave like Tommy. The purpose of their lives is to provide replaceable body parts just as ours is to be the replaceable wheels and cogs in society.
 bewildered March 6, 2007
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
I have a high regard for Ishiguro whose writing style is much to be admired. The theme of the book as it unravelled did not come as a surprise for it is not unusual for him to write something that stretches the mind - read The Unconsoled. But this book left me feeling empty though I did feel a sense of sadness. Why did Kathy and Tommy feel the need to ask for permission for time together, why was there an acceptance that they had no choice with their lives, why did they feel a sense of achievement come their fourth donation when all it signified was completion - a euphemism for death?
It is a book that will certainly make you think, but not in a positive way. More worryingly is that it would not come as any surprise that this way of life may already be a way of life for some people.
Need to read something more uplifting now....
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