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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
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.