NEVER LET ME GO, KAZUO ISHIGURO

Yet another xmas book. ‘Bout a bunch of organ closets. Er, clones. Bred to donate organs. Sent to ritzy private schools. They tell me this is literature, but it seems like more secret scifi.

Done

Interesting book. Tragic, bittersweet, moving, all those dust-jacket adjectives. It doesn’t really matter if you know the premise of the novel going in. In fact, I think it makes it all the more poignant. You follow the narrator and her cadre of friends through school, friends, relationships, petty dramas, with occasional glimpses of the larger world, but it’s all very conversational. The prose is natural, filled with pauses and flashbacks and addendums, which at times seems very dull, like the reasonably well-written blog of an exceedingly ordinary person. But you can always feel that lingering horror a couple steps behind, whether or not you knew it going in. Even if you know it, the writing makes you forget, except for that strange echo of pain. Then, in the end, it comes spilling out, not in high drama or anything, but in a very odd bit of pseudo-soliloquy. Odd because it’s so unnatural. The raw exposition doesn’t fit, and I’m not sure if that’s intentional or what. It seemed awkward. And even then, it’s sort of like a core sample into the darker world of universally sanctioned human cloning for the purpose of organ harvesting. You don’t feel the breadth. Or perhaps you shy away from it.

This is unlike any other dystopian novel I’ve read. Instead of heros realizing their imprisonment and attempting to break free, these characters are informed of their status and destiny from early on, and even when they try to learn more about their fate, they almost never think to escape it. I think most dystopian heros escape only to realize their escape was planned and was really just another function of their imprisonment, which is pretty tragic. But this book seems even worse. Maybe it’s because the characters seem so childish, even when grown, or perhaps just innocent. Frank. Undoubting. Faithful. But still conscious of something grossly amiss.

I’m not sure I actually enjoyed this one, per se, but I do recommend it.