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Jun. 17th, 2008 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
decemberthirtyI finished Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go recently, but I can't quite figure out my feelings about it. It was a quick read (or would have been, if I hadn't gotten interrupted halfway through by Ms. E's getting burned and my suddenly having to become her nursemaid), but I kept feeling like there was some key element missing from the book yet was never able to put my finger on what. Perhaps it was just because my expectations were very high based on my love of The Remains of the Day, and there are few books indeed that can stand up to that one, but I couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed in this book.
It's funny, but many of the characteristics that made The Remains of the Day so brilliant are also present in Never Let Me Go--I can't figure out why the same things that came together so perfectly in one book would fall so flat in another. Both books are told through reminiscence, both feature pinpoint control of tone and voice, both are narrated by characters who are careful observers of other people...the list could probably go on. Perhaps the thing that Remains of the Day has that this book lacks is intensity. That's an odd thing to think because Never Let Me Go has much more drama in its plot than a butler going for a drive, but the drama didn't seem to penetrate--it's like the two books are mirror images of each other: Remains of the Day still and quiet on the surface but smoldering below, and Never Let Me Go full of much more intensity on the surface and empty underneath.
But I shouldn't just compare this book to Remains of the Day; I should think about it as its own thing. My favorite character was Tommy--I liked the teenaged Tommy so much that I was disappointed that the adult version of Tommy wasn't developed more fully. I must confess, though, that it was a little strange to read the book because the character Tommy reminded me so strongly of my cat Tommy. And not just because of their names! Like my cat, the character seems developmentally behind his peers, slow to catch on to things, easy to laugh at... The book opens with a storyline about Tommy being mildly bullied at school, and I found it very hard to read because I kept thinking that those mean children were teasing my poor helpless kitty.
Kathy, the narrator, is a strange character. There's something about her that doesn't click, something artificial about her. Several times I found myself responding to her recollections by thinking that people just don't act like that. It reminded me of a friend I had in high school who, I learned, had a very different perspective from mine. Whenever he and I would talk about something that had occurred among our group of friends, our perceptions were so far removed from each other that I would find myself wondering if we were talking about the same people and the same event. Ishiguro does acknowledge this sort of subjectivity in his narrative--Kathy is forever mentioning that one of her friends had a different interpretation of a particular instance, or that someone else remembered a story in a different way than she did--but this acknowledgment doesn't seem to amount to much.
I think the thing that disappointed me most was the ending of the book. The conclusion is a bit foregone--we know the characters can't get the thing they want--but even so it seems to happen rather abruptly, with a great deal of mystery and suspense all dispelled at a stroke. I guess in the end my problem is that I can't seem to figure out why Ishiguro wrote this particular book. The book has some science fiction-ish elements, and some coming of age elements, and a great deal of interpersonal drama elements, but all of these various elements don't seem to gel with each other, and I'm left wondering what exactly he was trying to accomplish.
Sigh. I feel like I might be being a bit too harsh here. It's an engaging enough book, and there were a few moments of nicely managed tension. I don't know. Has anyone else read this one? I would very much like to hear others' thoughts.
In totally unrelated news, I harvested my first zucchini today! And when I say first, I mean that these are the first zucchini I've grown EVER, as in my whole life. Very exciting! Now I've just got to figure out how I'm going to use them.
It's funny, but many of the characteristics that made The Remains of the Day so brilliant are also present in Never Let Me Go--I can't figure out why the same things that came together so perfectly in one book would fall so flat in another. Both books are told through reminiscence, both feature pinpoint control of tone and voice, both are narrated by characters who are careful observers of other people...the list could probably go on. Perhaps the thing that Remains of the Day has that this book lacks is intensity. That's an odd thing to think because Never Let Me Go has much more drama in its plot than a butler going for a drive, but the drama didn't seem to penetrate--it's like the two books are mirror images of each other: Remains of the Day still and quiet on the surface but smoldering below, and Never Let Me Go full of much more intensity on the surface and empty underneath.
But I shouldn't just compare this book to Remains of the Day; I should think about it as its own thing. My favorite character was Tommy--I liked the teenaged Tommy so much that I was disappointed that the adult version of Tommy wasn't developed more fully. I must confess, though, that it was a little strange to read the book because the character Tommy reminded me so strongly of my cat Tommy. And not just because of their names! Like my cat, the character seems developmentally behind his peers, slow to catch on to things, easy to laugh at... The book opens with a storyline about Tommy being mildly bullied at school, and I found it very hard to read because I kept thinking that those mean children were teasing my poor helpless kitty.
Kathy, the narrator, is a strange character. There's something about her that doesn't click, something artificial about her. Several times I found myself responding to her recollections by thinking that people just don't act like that. It reminded me of a friend I had in high school who, I learned, had a very different perspective from mine. Whenever he and I would talk about something that had occurred among our group of friends, our perceptions were so far removed from each other that I would find myself wondering if we were talking about the same people and the same event. Ishiguro does acknowledge this sort of subjectivity in his narrative--Kathy is forever mentioning that one of her friends had a different interpretation of a particular instance, or that someone else remembered a story in a different way than she did--but this acknowledgment doesn't seem to amount to much.
I think the thing that disappointed me most was the ending of the book. The conclusion is a bit foregone--we know the characters can't get the thing they want--but even so it seems to happen rather abruptly, with a great deal of mystery and suspense all dispelled at a stroke. I guess in the end my problem is that I can't seem to figure out why Ishiguro wrote this particular book. The book has some science fiction-ish elements, and some coming of age elements, and a great deal of interpersonal drama elements, but all of these various elements don't seem to gel with each other, and I'm left wondering what exactly he was trying to accomplish.
Sigh. I feel like I might be being a bit too harsh here. It's an engaging enough book, and there were a few moments of nicely managed tension. I don't know. Has anyone else read this one? I would very much like to hear others' thoughts.
In totally unrelated news, I harvested my first zucchini today! And when I say first, I mean that these are the first zucchini I've grown EVER, as in my whole life. Very exciting! Now I've just got to figure out how I'm going to use them.
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Date: 2008-06-17 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-20 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 10:14 pm (UTC)the issues with kathy are something you mention that i think are very important and very troubling. i don't believe she is a reliable narrator. i don't trust her and i don't trust her interpretation of some events. what this then leads me to is the why, and i always find myself wondering about the psychological and physical effects of what makes her special (trying not to give away anything here). it's almost as though she's trying to construct a narrative and ishiguro is using her narrative as part of a larger one. i agree it doesn't completely coalesce, but i've found a lot of sustainable thought in that question.
also, i teach it after brave new world and the handmaid's tale, and the handmaid's tale is also told in reminiscence, which opens up some of the same questions about reliability and also about the effect of a dystopian system on a person's ability to interpret relationships and events. NLMG is a micro-dystopia in that it's about a small population, whereas brave new world is more of a macro-dystopia.
now i'm kind of rambling. for me, the weakest part of the book is the whole bit about Madame's collection. it's far less interesting than the relationships between the students. that day where they all go to the shore town to look for kathy's, oh damn, i'm not remembering the term, but you know what i mean, is beautifully drawn and written and i never can get too mad at ishiguro when he successfully (to me) manages to bring to life this sort of adolescent longfusion / conlonging (mixture of confusing and longing) -- and those emotions are the sort of thing that no narrator is going to be particularly adept at articulating, so it follows that kathy's version is suspiciously unreliable.
wow. ramble on. i should have e-mailed you. anyway.
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Date: 2008-06-20 02:45 am (UTC)Also, I definitely agree that the trip to Norfolk is really great--that whole section was really the highlight of the book for me. Especially the scenes that come after Tommy and Kathy have split from the rest of the group to look for Kathy's lost tape. That was just about the only part of the book in which I really felt the connection between Tommy and Kathy that was the basis for all that stuff about their being in love that became such a big deal later.
When you talk about the effects of what makes Kathy special, do you mean the thing that makes her different from you and me, or whatever it is that makes her special even within her own milieu (i.e. her being such an extra-good carer, etc)? I'm not sure whether that makes a difference or not (perhaps because I don't know exactly what it is that makes her stand out even amongst other of her own kind--just skill, or something else?). I guess my issue is that while Kathy's unreliability as a narrator is perhaps intellectually interesting, the actual story is just not compelling enough to make me care about all the hows and whys of her and her unreliability. I think the foregone conclusion may be at fault here. Maybe I'm just hardhearted, but I never for a moment thought that they were actually going to get a deferral, so I lost some of my involvement with the book that way.
I wonder whether you'd like The Remains of the Day. I loved it, of course, which could be the kiss of death for you... Many people find it boring because nothing seems to happen, but I think it's subtle and beautiful and heartbreaking. Very very British, though. Very.
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Date: 2008-06-20 01:36 pm (UTC)I agree about the deferral suspense being completely non-existant. There was not an ounce of tone in that book that suggested that would ever happen.
I definitely want to read The Remains of the Day. It's on my summer list so we'll see.
And, thanks for the compliment about longfusion. I like it very much myself.
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Date: 2008-06-24 02:18 pm (UTC)I read Never Let Me Go the other year and loved it. I read Remains on the strength of that and felt it was much weaker in comparison. As in heaps weaker. I thought Never Let Me Go had greater emotional depth and breadth and much better pacing; Remains was a one trick pony than didn't surprise or draw out all the emotional potential it had.
I actually found Remains more boring, so it's odd that you think the reverse. Perhaps the fact that they are so similar (which I agree, they are) means that the one we read second is destined to fall flat in some way.
However I think the thing that makes NLMG the better book is the lack of clarity it has in comparison. Remains is a well crafted story but for me it is too neat, it has no vagaries and unexplained edges, it just leave too much polish in the mouth.
I think key scene is Tommy in the field, it is one of my favourite parts from any book I have read in the last 10 years. It made me cry and makes me emotional just thinking about it. What a love for life is conjured up in that moment; that power it has for us that it can draw out such anguish from is aborted potential. Remains does it also, but NLMG gives it action and energy rather than craft, and this strikes me as being all the more real because of it.
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Date: 2008-06-24 02:20 pm (UTC)