so, i've never read _the remains of the day_, and therefore can't comment on the comparison. the first time i read _never let me go_ (NLMG) i left feeling sort of "meh." for me, it just wasn't creepy enough. i wanted it to have a little bit more of a creepy edge, i guess. then i decided to teach it in the dystopian class and reread it as i planned to teach it and again as i taught it.
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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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.