The Problem With Never Let Me Go

If you’ve ever chanced upon Kazuo Ishiguro’s work, you’ve likely come across one of his most renowned books, Never Let Me Go. Regarded by many critics as Ishiguro’s magnum opus, you may have been hounded into picking it up or purchasing it. Personally, I read it as part of my English class. Despite spending a month’s worth of lessons on the book, its meaning and value escaped me and as such, I feel compelled to write an honest review of this book that has utterly plagued me thus far. 

Firstly, the storyline itself is just not particularly remarkable or engaging. Never Let Me Go is about three friends who are individuals that have been cloned for organ harvesting. The UK-based story follows these three as they are first raised in Hailsham (a boarding school-esque institution), then move on to their designated pathways. Of the three, Kathy becomes a nurse/carer, while Tommy and Ruth become organ donors. Perhaps this is me coming from a contemporary viewpoint at a time where cloning is not especially novel, but I did not think Ishiguro’s plot was uniquely interesting. It could also be that Ishiguro found a way to portray what would otherwise be a brilliant storyline in a lacklustre and dull manner. 

Secondly, for such a character-based book, you would expect the characters to at least be mildly tolerable. Let’s examine the three primary characters. For starters, Ruth. Ruth is the typical, run-of-the-mill mean girl archetype. Ishiguro conveniently slots her into this typecast with little subtlety, and the instances in which Ruth is portrayed to be anything more than an unlikeable despot are few and far between. Alternatively, Tommy is completely different but his personality doesn’t fare much better. Tommy is the “loser” of the lot, and he is oddly pathetic, oscillating between bursts of rage and being picked on. While he is granted some emotional maturity by the end of the book, this changes little. Last and arguably worst, Kathy. Kathy is a notoriously unreliable narrator that is seemingly able to position herself as both inculpable and the victim of virtually any situation. Kathy spreads other people’s secrets, is embarrassingly desperate for Ruth’s validation, and always keen to bring Tommy down. To be clear, it’s not that all characters featured in a book have to be likeable for me to read it, but that if the premise of your book and the events within it centre around said characters, it’d do well for at least one of them to be more than mildly tolerable. 

Thirdly, I take issue with Ishiguro’s style of writing. His narrative style and nature of description is very subtle and withheld, never leaping to extremes or strong vocabulary. While I can appreciate that this understated style of description occasionally has its moments of glory, once you’ve read 300 pages of the stuff your eyes begin to twitch. I’m not asking for Ishiguro to smack me in the face with description, but for someone to let him know he’s allowed to produce more than just dithering and prosaic writing. 

Lastly, the ending is the stuff of nightmares. Generally for a storyline that is overall uneventful, you’d hope that at least the ending has some substance to it, or at the very least a concise and effective conclusion to events. However, Ishiguro flounders once again in a mire of ambiguity, as we are left with Kathy on a highway, looking off into the distance and that’s it. There is no final climax, no moment of catharsis, no peak of momentum, no conclusion. 

Ultimately, this book left me confused more than anything. I felt as though I was missing out on what everyone was singing praise for, wondering if I’d accidentally skipped a chapter or misread some part. I wondered if I was just too obtuse to glean some underlying deeper meaning, or if I was too heartlessly unfeeling for the book to garner emotions out of me. One thing’s for sure, I will not be checking out Ishiguro’s other books.