I do enjoy Mr Ishiguro’s simple and leading style of writing. He takes everyday language and binds it with a sense of wonder. Not the kind that is associated with spectacle but the kind that comes from finding the divine between the colours of a butterfly’s wings. Or the veins of a leaf, verdant green in spring or burnt orange in autumn. The everyday and mundane are imbued with a sense of wonder.
In this book it seems at first that he is taking the reader through the stories of children raised in the type of communal home where they do not have parents but only guardians. It doesn’t take being raised in that kind of scenario to understand the detriment adults are affected by when they had shitty or non-attentive parents when they were kids. The older I get and the more human adults I meet, I become more convinced that grown humans are simply big children.
How those big children behave is a factor of their nature and the way they were nurtured. These are the kinds of examples I saw throughout the book. But it is not just an exposition on the frailty of human rearing but also a fine science fiction. Gritty rather than grand. Giving it a sense of believability that Ishiguro does so well. Klara and the sun is another good example.
The person who shared the book with me said that they thought all the characters were awful people. When I read the book this thought ruminated throughout. I found that as bad as the people may have been, it was their world that was worse. It was their world that was truly horrific.
Like a clever film director the worst parts are kept from direct view. A vivid imagination can concoct scenes of gruesome events from a few mentioned sentences. But the book itself does not dwell on the macabre as much as the mysterious. Particularly the mysteries of human (and perhaps not-so-human) nature. It’s not a difficult read but it might be a little disturbing to the very sensitive.
There are no monsters or murders but there is an undercurrent of uncomfortable darkness that is revealed in the end to be an all enveloping darkness that none of the characters in the book can escape. It is the fate of their being, in their individual context. In a different world they may have had a happier ending but in the world of ‘Never Let Me Go’ it seemed bound to be tragic from the sombre first scenes that play out at Hailsham.
It may not be the author’s best work but it’s not bad enough to write off of a reading list. If it comes across your path, consider giving it a chance.
