BOOK REPORT: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Title:                                          Never Let Me Go

Author:                                      Kazuo Ishiguro

Original Copyright Date:        2006

My Rating:      3.5 out of 5 stars  
             ( Not what I was expecting, but good )

Backcover Description
     From Booker Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss.
     As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Halisham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules -- and teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.
    Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life, and for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them so special -- and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.  Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is another classic by the author of The Remains of the Day.

My Thoughts

If you read the above description you don't get the feeling that you'll step into an alternate version of England where things just aren't quite the same, a world which allows for places like Halisham.  The veil is slowly lifted as the story progresses as to the reasons Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth were "special" growing up and how being "special" will ultimately affect them. It was interesting being this ignorant of the general plot line going in, and I don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much if I was on top of everything from page one.  If you do want a slight hint as to the setting and tone, the summary on the Time Magazines writeup in the
100 best novels I really don't want to say too much more about the story line, because, if someone reading this decides to read the book, I don't want to ruin the experience.

Expectations aside, this is a very well written story.  I told Maggie during the early chapters that I could see my self trying to write like this. A first person narrative where the lines of yesteryear and today are blurred and subtle.  Similar to listening to a close friend look back to a pivotal time in their lives when you were not a part of it. How they spend just a bit of time explaining who or what something was after they've realized you may not know, jumping around a bit as they go to follow where the memories take them.  A clarification: I have no notions of be successful at it, i could just see myself attempting it.  

Kazuo Ishiguro crafted Never Let Me Go; everything about it was deliberate and the perfect words were chosen for the sublte but powerful drama that plays out in this interesting world. The further I step away from this book, the more I admire what Ishiguro did with it.