Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

The second book I read was Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.

The first time I saw this book was in a library in England in 2007. I was hesitating between that book, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, and John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let The Right One In.

I'm terrified of spiders and I well knew about Anansi from my Caribbean parents so I quickly put Anansi Boys back down without reading the synopsis too carefully (Or if I did, I forgot it by the time I did read the book). For some reason I never really pinned down the genre of Never Let Me Go from the synopsis, it seemed so...I dunno but I wasn't intrigued enough.
I went with Lindqvist because I love vampire books and his seemed original and perverted enough to redeem the genre (if I were a vampire these days, I'd be turning in my grave).

I finished Never Let Me Go today which means I've now read all three books.

After some thought I feel like Never Let Me Go is a not-quite book.
It's not-quite dystopian, not-quite sci-fi, it's not-quite dark, not-quite literary.
The entire time I was reading the book I wasn't sure how I felt about it, if I liked it or not. I kept reading on because it felt like the story was about to pick up and give me the answers I was looking. In the end it didn't, at least not quite.

You figure out pretty soon that the kids at Hailsham are clones that are essentially being grown to become donors for originals, which is to say non-clone people. And...that's it. From the start the narrator seems relatively uncertain about her memories, uncertain in her memories and pretty passive. Things happen and she accepts them. Even on the rare occasions she rises up and shows some character she pretty quickly backs down and goes back to her previous state. She's a not-quite human with not-quite emotions and a not-quite life.

Things and events that seem important, that seem to provide some hope, eventually end up being meaningless. The love story doesn't happen as you think it will and it doesn't end as you think it will. In fact the book ends with a sort of fizzle like it isn't quite done. Someone described the book as being one of quiet desperation. I see that, you read it and feel like there's no hope but I think I wasn't expecting the quiet desperation to be unerring and unswerving. There isn't really ever any contrasting emotion to bring out this desperation. It just is.

I don't know what I think of the book because I'm not quite sure what it is I read. I sometimes felt sorry for these kids but also felt that wasn't the point of the book. Also the book is essentially a long monologue and doesn't have much action or dialogue so it reads with no real ups and downs. At the same time I didn't not like the book and read it well into the night and reached for it first thing this morning to finish it. Interestingly the book makes much of the kids being 'told but not told' what's going on and that's basically what happens to the reader. You get it and don't get it at the same time. Like I said, it's a not-quite book or at least, it's a book that you kind of have to figure out on your own.


I saw the trailer for the movie which necessarily has to be a bit more action-driven so I'll see that and see if I pick up on anything else.

We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver

I bought two books ten days ago, thinking it would take me a month to read them and that I'd have one for my flight on November 3rd.
I sorely underestimated myself. I guess I thought I was busier.

The first book I bought was We Need To Talk About Kevin. I'd just seen the movie based on the book starring Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller and I was blown away by how good it was. I tend to get obsessive about my passions so I couldn't stop thinking about this movie and wanted to know everything about it. I saw it based on Lionel Shriver's book of the same name.

Reading the book after seeing the movie is clearly the way to go. The opposite invariably makes me feel cheated when I see all the nuances that have been omitted or flat-out spooned out to the audience, all the scenes and characters that have been changed or left by the wayside. Reading the book after is like being given a treasure chest and discovering all the jewels you couldn't see before. So for me the experience was great.

For what it's worth, the trailers do not do the movie or the book justice, although now that Britain has got the movie, maybe the trailers will be revisited. Had I seen them before I would have written it off immediately. As it is I sort of wandered into the theater with a hazy synopsis - A mother must come to terms with her son's "irreparable act". Not particularly enticing, to be honest but I get free tickets so I figured why not.

The movie and book deals with the dark dynamic between a mother who resents her son for 'ruining' her previously adventurous baby-free life, and said son's subsequent feelings of rejection and how it affects him as he grows up. More than that, it deals with a mother's inability to understand her son, who quite probably doesn't understand himself either, nor does he understand the world around him. The result is akin to watching a sociopath grow and evolve, and understanding how he came to be like that, if not why. (Or do I mean why, if not how?)

The story appealed to that part of me that adores the dystopian, the deranged, the disturbed, the darkly enticing. Truth be told I sometimes saw Kevin as a possible alternate for myself. I understood, more instinctively than rationally how he could and would do some of the things he did. I know I empathised with him perhaps far more than I should have. Also knowing what I did, there was an odd sensation of feeling like the mother distrusted her kid too damn much and never gave him a chance and thinking well...did he give her a chance to act differently?

In the movie three actors play Kevin - a toddler, a pre-teen and a teen - all of whom were amazingly at creating a cohesive thread and making Kevin come to life. I had their images in mind, and Tilda's for the mother, when reading the book which made the book's universe that much more immersive for me.


I will say that the first part of the book is frustrating because the mother/Shriver takes so long to get down to it. I read on because I knew what was coming next and knew I'd love it. I wasn't disappointed but I did have to bear with those first few chapters. Would it have been the same had I read the book first? *shrug*


Either way I definitely recommend the book and the movie, though I'd say watch the movie first. 

I find interesting that he is in blue and she is in red. I would have gone with him in red to represent his unending rage and her in blue to represent her distance and cold demeanour. At the same time, his blue also suggests a calculating and chilling intensity while her red is the turmoil of confusion and jumbled emotions. It works but it does tip the scale in her favour I think.