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Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is the March 2020 read. It won by a landslide with the most votes we've seen lately, so we should have a great discussion.

I think I will start my February group reads with this one. I've read some beautiful slow books in the last months, I hope for another one here.

I liked it, was afraid it being too complicated, but that wasn't the case at all. Through the whole book however there was something bothering me that I would like to discuss when you're ready.

I think there is a big "surprise" at some point in this story, so try not to reveal it too early! Though I think most of us know what that surprise is already.

I will start this today or tomorrow. I loved the film "Remains of the Day", but the only Kazuo Ishiguro I've actually read is Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, which didn't impress me.

I sure hope something interesting happens soon. I'm 1/4 of the way through & bored. I'm not terribly surprised because the book description says it's 'atmospheric'. I think I know what's going on & hope that I'm wrong because the obvious won't be satisfying at all. I'm going to try to stick it out a little longer, but it doesn't have much longer.

Jim wrote: "I sure hope something interesting happens soon. I'm 1/4 of the way through & bored. ..."

Ha! I ate up 100 pages in one gulp. Loving it!

Hmmm. Now I'm also getting tired of the slow pace. Still liking it, but wish it would pick up a bit.

I think I was wrong about some big surprise that could be a spoiler. We actually seem to get a good idea of what's going on from the very beginning. It just isn't spelled out completely and they use euphemistic words to describe unpleasant things.

Our experience as readers is similar to the kids in the Hailshom school. They've been told everything, but yet they haven't been told enough, if that makes sense. It's like little kids being told that someday they will grow up and have to get a job and earn money and pay bills, but it seems so far removed from their current lives that it doesn't really sink in.

I'm 4 chapters in and I like it so far.

I finished it, but wouldn't have if this wasn't a group read. The slow pace & slower reveal never changes. What I suspected from the beginning is indeed the way it turned out, although there are some gaping holes that make no sense to me.

I'll write up a review later. Right now, I have to take The Boss out to dinner for her birthday with 2 of the kids.

Here's my 2 star review:
/review/show...

How is it a group read if some people are already done?!
I'm about to start it...

I think it's only Jim who's finished yet.

I'm at a third now and it is definitely one of those slow kind of books I appreciate a lot.

I finished it early, and the question I wanted to discuss is right in the spoiler brackets of Jim's review. I'm not that bothered by the slowness. In fact I really appreciate how the author captures the way people are conversating.

Anna wrote: "How is it a group read if some people are already done?!
I'm about to start it..."

Read at your own pace. We'll use spoiler brackets until most people have finished.

I rarely get off to such a blazing start, but it worked out this time. I didn't get my copy of our January BoTM until early in Feb, though. We do the best we can with what we've got.

Leo wrote: "I finished it early, and the question I wanted to discuss is right in the spoiler brackets of Jim's review. I'm not that bothered by the slowness. In fact I really appreciate how the author capture..."

It was a question early on, but when they got to the cottages, it became a constant concern. (view spoiler)[ It seems they didn't have much money, but I kept waiting for them to do something to break away. They didn't. (hide spoiler)] That added to my dislike of the slow pace & pedestrian concerns. (view spoiler)[I was concerned. I wanted them to rebel, but it was never even a thought. (hide spoiler)] That's just unreal for that many people. It was the elephant in the room - no beauty, just a stinking mess.

This is one of the great dystopia novels. Yes the pacing is slow, but that was by design to drag the reader along with the mundane. When it hits what is actually happening, I was knocked flat. This is about (view spoiler)[the little things. The book even tells that reader that when it mentions what everyone really wants at the end. The trinket that means nothing to anyone else, but everything to the the one. (hide spoiler)].

Papaphilly wrote: "This is one of the great dystopia novels. Yes the pacing is slow, but that was by design to drag the reader along with the mundane. When it hits what is actually happening, I was knocked flat. This..."

Please elaborate on your spoiler. I guess I missed something. Didn't it bother you that (view spoiler)[no one ever tried to break free from their assigned destiny? That was just too glaring & ridiculous to me. (hide spoiler)]

Jim wrote: "Papaphilly wrote: "This is one of the great dystopia novels. Yes the pacing is slow, but that was by design to drag the reader along with the mundane. When it hits what is actually happening, I was..."

To answer your spoiler, no it does not bother me. It is the setting and that is what makes it so horrifying. (view spoiler)[ When I talk about the mundane, this is what I mean. Everything is ordinary and then, bam! It is a flourishing society. This is normal for everyone. To the point of my comment, it is the little things that matter and that was the point on the idea of the trinkets. It is a tossed off comment, but it has major larger implications to the society. The idea for the horror is that it is normal and society accepts it. Even the children being raised like cattle joke about it. Think about it this way, there is a question if these children even have souls. There are plenty of hints that the other children in other facilities are not so lucky in their circumstances. (hide spoiler)]

Papaphilly wrote: "To answer your spoiler, no it does not bother me. It is the setting..."

I'm not getting the trinkets, I think. (view spoiler)[ I get that it's a normal society & these kids are divorced from it, not even thought of as human. They don't have any parents & their ideas along those lines are rough. The trinkets are a way of anchoring themselves in the world, right? Is there more to them than that?

Where I can't suspend my disbelief is that they are human, no matter what society says. They have the same attitudes, selfishness, & other quirks of humans. We didn't evolve to go quietly into death. If there had been some control over them, I could have dealt with it, but there was none. I can't find any horror in someone just resigning themselves to death without any sort of fight & can't believe they would all do it.

I kept waiting for some sign of rebellion. They are capable of it, as proved by ignoring the rules & hunting down the old teacher, but they never even think about taking the logical step of running away. Why not? (hide spoiler)]

The main thread of the alma mater, friendships, & such was OK, but it was done better in A Separate Peace, IMO. Anyone else read that?

Jim wrote: "Papaphilly wrote: "To answer your spoiler, no it does not bother me. It is the setting..."

I'm not getting the trinkets, I think. I get that it's a normal society & these kids are divorced from i..."

I hated A Separate Peace. It was the bane of my existence in High School. As for your other question (view spoiler)[ the trinket was nothing more to show the importance of the mundane and how they are human. Think of any childhood thing you still have when looked up on as something trivial. However, to you, it is very important. Ultimately, when one is dying, it is the little things that truly matter. You mention about rising up, it is not like that. This is normal for them. All of them, even the donators, this is their destiny and they accept it. That is what makes it a dystopia. The baseline is that they would never even think about rebel because there is nothing to rise up about. (hide spoiler)]. Part of this book that seems to be perplexing is what you mention as well as others. In this case, the premise must be accepted on its face as hard as that seems. The reader has to agree to the terms of the writing. In this case, the terms are what is giving everyone fits because they cannot get their proverbial heads around it.

Papaphilly wrote: "In this case, the premise must be accepted on its face as hard as that seems. The reader has to agree to the terms of the writing...."

I went to a boarding school. (view spoiler)[ Having something special was a big deal & that's how I saw the trinkets. It was something to hold on to, often from home, to ease the feeling of abandonment & lend a sense of uniqueness in a regimented system. (hide spoiler)]
I thought the author captured that part well.

(view spoiler)[So we're supposed to think of them as human & yet pretend that the most basic of all human drives, that of survival, doesn't exist to 'get' the story? (hide spoiler)] I don't think it can be the case. It just doesn't make any sense. (view spoiler)[ Survival is why the rest of humanity is using them. If they're not human, society is correct in using them since they're busted biological machines. Still, if that were the case, why spend the entire novel humanizing them? (hide spoiler)] No, the author can't have seriously meant to have it both ways. It's too illogical.

Jim wrote: "Papaphilly wrote: "In this case, the premise must be accepted on its face as hard as that seems. The reader has to agree to the terms of the writing...."

I went to a boarding school. [spoilers rem..."

The author can have it both ways. It is the very point of the novel. (view spoiler)[It is how society sees them, necessary but not equal. It is the very idea of dehumanizing them that all societies perform to keep some given group on the bottom. They are not seen as equal for whatever reason. That is how humans are sold as chattel. Now [author:Kazuo Ishiguro|4280] paints the story of these very human children and the society that they see as normal. The society does not see them as equal. As a matter of fact, they do not see them as even having a soul. Yet we know they do have feelings; they care for each other and fall in love. That is the very point of the writing, the society does not see them as human, but the author is showing the reader they are very much human with the same questions we all have with life. (hide spoiler)]. This novel is also a critique of societal class. The rich and powerful living off the down trodden.

Anna wrote: "How is it a group read if some people are already done?! ..."

I started one day early. I rarely do that, but I had some time available. I enjoyed it so much I read 1/3 of it in one go. But I'm going slower now.

Like Jim, I'm also having trouble suspending my disbelief about the way the kids behave. But I also know that kids brought up in all kinds of weird situations will often see it as normal.

I'm also really annoyed by Ruth. She is so obnoxious.

One question I have is, why is this set in the 1990s?

Papaphilly wrote: "The author can have it both ways...."

He can try, if he wants to write badly. I might have to drop this to one star if that's really what he meant to do. I'll be curious to see what others have to say.

(view spoiler)[Dehumanizing a human is horrible. The way we've treated animals is bad & we once believed they had no souls. But treating a machine that looks like a human badly isn't horrible. If someone kicked their android around, I might think it was stupid, but not horrible.

Even if he had specified that they were bred without a survival instinct, I don't think I could swallow it. They had some rebellion & seemed normal about sex. The narrator even pretended to have a baby to cuddle. I don't see how such things can be divorced from a survival instinct. They're all part of the same thing. (hide spoiler)]

Jim wrote: "Papaphilly wrote: "The author can have it both ways...."

He can try, if he wants to write badly. I might have to drop this to one star if that's really what he meant to do. I'll be curious to see..."

Uh, you do realize that you are talking about a Nobel laureate?

BTW, you are not the only person having trouble with this particular novel. There has been plenty of ink spilled over this book and nobody seems to think about it the same way. This is not a fight the system novel and it is not meant to be either. The novel is deeply metaphorical. I never saw this particular one as a Science Fiction novel, although it does have plenty of elements. I once read it called Horror and believe it or not, a coming of age novel. I also think both are right and wrong. I just see this one as great literature.

(view spoiler)[I can see you struggling with the novel. I am not quibbling with what your opinion is either. It is well thought out. My point is it does not matter on the plot holes or the children's response. The real story is not about the children, so it does not matter about their response. This is more about not seeing the forest for all the trees. (hide spoiler)]

Jim,

I think this can answer your questions directly from the Author's mouth.

(view spoiler)[




(hide spoiler)]

Interesting, I can hear him say that he's not interested in 'that kind of story'. But that doesn't make it more believable. I'm afraid that leaves me in the corner of the people who don't get the story. That's ok of course, humble me did not win a nobel prize up until today. And his 'kind of story' is certainly an interesting one.

Leo wrote: "Interesting, I can hear him say that he's not interested in 'that kind of story'. But that doesn't make it more believable. I'm afraid that leaves me in the corner of the people who don't get the s..."

this might a story for you like The Catcher in the Rye is for me. I just do not quite get it. It is certainly well written, but for me it is not the be all of end all.

Papaphilly wrote: "Uh, you do realize that you are talking about a Nobel laureate?..."

I read for my own pleasure which has nothing to do with awards. Being uninterested in 'that kind of story' or keeping logic within it is his prerogative. It's mine to berate him for it, though. Making the story more logical would have helped it immeasurably. Any story that lacks internal logic suffers for it, IMO.

Instead of horror, I kept looking for a reason. Not finding one, I have no empathy for the characters. I've seen too many people try hard in this life only to be knocked down over & over to have a lick of sympathy for anyone who just accepts a bad deal. I've seen plenty of that sort, too. I have no use for them.

Ed wrote: "... One question I have is, why is this set in the 1990s? ..."

Great question, Ed!

One possibility is the lack of the internet. Would the kids have found more information on the net? Maybe even find or form a resistance online?

I'm still only a little more than halfway through. But as far as I recall, nobody has ever mentioned the fact that any land or humans exist outside of Britain. Are other countries doing the same sorts of things?

Jim wrote: "Papaphilly wrote: "Uh, you do realize that you are talking about a Nobel laureate?..."

I read for my own pleasure which has nothing to do with awards. Being uninterested in 'that kind of story' or..."

Telling a Nobel Laureate that he writes lousy is like telling Michael Jordon he could have scored more points.

Ed wrote: "Ed wrote: "... One question I have is, why is this set in the 1990s? ..."

Great question, Ed!

One possibility is the lack of the internet. Would the kids have found more information on the net? M..."

I put down the lack of tech as one of his devices, just part of the world & never tried to assign a date. It's a bubble universe, I guess. Dating it is kind of cool, though.

Papaphilly wrote: "Telling a Nobel Laureate that he writes lousy is like telling Michael Jordon he could have scored more points."

I don't follow sports & don't think it's an apt comparison. It's the author's responsibility to reach me with their message. He didn't & it feels to me like the logical lapse was lazy. I don't care for authors who pass off crap trading on past success & many have. I haven't read any of his other works, so can't say if that's the case this time or not. After reading this, I don't plan to read anything else by him.

Thank you for making me figure out what I really detested about this book. It's at the end of #29. (view spoiler)[Life is our most precious possession, yet these folks are giving it up in their 30s because someone told them they should. My kids are in their 30s, so I find the idea disgusting.

Have you ever read Shibumi? It's supposed to be a Japanese word that means something like 'acceptance of fate or destiny', IIRC. Hel embraces it at the end, but he had a hell of a run. These folks haven't done much & should have a full life ahead of them, but they meekly submit. Yuck. (hide spoiler)]

Jim wrote: "Papaphilly wrote: "Telling a Nobel Laureate that he writes lousy is like telling Michael Jordon he could have scored more points."

I don't follow sports & don't think it's an apt comparison. It's ..."

It is neither the author's responsibility to reach you nor yours to understand the message. Not all books are going to reach all readers.

Yes I read Shibumi. Excellent book. You may not like what the word implies, but that does not make the word wrong or the esthetic it represents.

I hope you take a few moments to watch the the links I posted because it explains his choices well.

I've started the book yesterday and it is rather short so I plan to discuss in detail within a day or two

Ed wrote: "Ed wrote: "... One question I have is, why is this set in the 1990s? ..."

Great question, Ed!

One possibility is the lack of the internet. Would the kids have found more information on the net? M..."

:D I've always found that the best one to talk to is oneself :D - joking aside: While reading I was wondering in which time the story takes place. The use of tapes felt so nostalgic. Your musings about the non-availability of the internet makes sense, Ed. (view spoiler)[ This way the guardians could give the relative freedom Hailsham was supposed to stand for. In a time of internet there would have been the necessity of more restrictions to keep the children away from finding out too much too soon. (hide spoiler)]

I've finished now as well. I see the same problem Jim did, even though it didn't irritate me to the same amount. I guess I will end up with 3 stars. I loved (view spoiler)[ the slow pace and the overall writing and the coming of age part of the story. Since the 'revelation' was literally stated in the opening chapter there was no building up to some solution. This was more about following the children growing up to an inhumane fate the reader already knows about.
I can go with the knowing-nothing-else-and-therefore-trodding-along mentality of the children as explanation of the lack of open rebellion, but the lack of being at odds with their fate as they got older was more than I was inclined to believe. The only aspects were Ruth's longing for an office job and Lucy's show of conscience. (hide spoiler)]

They never mentioned 8 tracks or CDs, did they? The racks they went through had LPs & cassettes only. The Walkman was big in the 80s & into the 90s with CDs taking over in the mid 90s, I think. That's why I tended toward the bubble universe theory. They seemed a bit stuck in the 80s.

There was something about the cars that made them seem older to me, but I can't recall what it was. It might have been a lack of something, never mentioned.

Papaphilly wrote: "It is neither the author's responsibility to reach you nor yours to understand the message. Not all books are going to reach all readers. ..."

You're absolutely right that not all books are going to appeal to all readers. I think they need to follow some rules to reach most, though. I really need internal logic in a story. I can swallow just about any premise, but can't suspend my disbelief when the internal logic fails. Obviously it doesn't matter as much to others which is fine.

I liked Shibumi & it made sense in Hel's case. He was just tired & the world he'd worked so hard to construct was shattered. Surprisingly, Don Winslow did a creditable job writing about Hel's earlier life in Satori. I usually don't like that sort of thing, but it really worked for me. You might want to check it out if you haven't read it yet.

Gabi wrote: "While reading I was wondering in which time the story takes place. ..."

The first page explicitly states it is set in the late 1990s. Since it is mostly told in flashback, I think that means that the kids were growing up in the mid to late 80s.

I was also in a boarding school in the mid 80s. We kids there rebelled against all the rules much more than these kids do. Harry Potter is a more realistic depiction of boarding school life than this book is.

Ah, I saw this, but I didn't relate it to the story but to the dedication. Thanks, Ed.

Ed wrote: "The first page explicitly states it is set in the late 1990s. Since it is mostly told in flashback, I think tha..."

I missed/forgot that. I don't think it made much difference to the story.

I was in boarding school in the 70s & we rebelled a lot more, too. Somehow, I don't think time is a factor. Kids will be little monsters. Several of us got an old mare from the stables & put her in the old gym as a gag one night. Absolutely ruined the floor & the place stunk after that from the chemicals they used to try to remove the manure stains from the floor. That was just one of many such pranks.

Jim wrote: "That's why I tended toward the bubble universe theory. They seemed a bit stuck in the 80s...."

I honestly never thought about it. I wonder if it is the idea is a time close to the publication so that it felt right and not like it was in another era.

So I have been reading the posts on the idea of both the fail of internal logic and children's rebelliousness.

So I think it is obvious that I love this novel. IMHO it is truly one of the best written dystopia I have read. I do not expect anyone to like or hate it because I happen to love it. Everyone's opinion is as valid as mine. If you do not like it, you do not like it.

This book left me devastated. It is both incredibly complex and deeply metaphorical, yet a very simply written book. I read it ten years ago and still think about it. Nothing is directly talked about, but it is all there non-the-less.

When I enter a world written by another, I have no expectations. I accept their world as they wrote it. If water runs up hill here, so be it. (view spoiler)[In this case, the children are docile. They are being raised to be human cattle and led to slaughter (completion). The book mentions about how they must take care of their bodies. It would make sense that these children are docile and bred to be docile. If one can clone a human, they should be able to manipulate both the aggression factors and docility. That way they bodies are always cared for when it comes to keeping the stock healthy. They were bred to be that way by design. That is the internal logic for me. Think about this way, the logic would work even better if the children were being raised for food instead of spare parts. This is not a fight the system novel, they accept their fates and this society works. At best they only want a little more time because of love and when they mention this, it is with hope. (hide spoiler)] That is why this is so horrible to comprehend.

I was just discussing this with a friend at work & he came up with a way to make the logic work somewhat. (view spoiler)[ He pointed out that religious zealots often die & let their kids die rather than get medical help. So these clones believed they were stuck. All of them. And they lacked any curiosity about the rest of the world. It doesn't make me any more sympathetic toward them, but it does make this a little easier to swallow. Still pretty iffy.

I'm sure a lot of my attitude comes from being raised on a farm where life & death were regular occurrences. We raised a lot of our own food including fowl, sheep, & cattle. I had a lot more respect of the crafty predators that we killed than I did the sheep or steers. (hide spoiler)]

I finished the book and caught up with spoilers. While my view is not as intended by the author I guess (view spoiler)[one can look at is as alt-history Nazi won, there are clear second-class citizens and a disregard for needs of an individual, incl. anti-religious attitudes. Both the UK and France are under the 3rd Reich and therefore "madame" in the story.

As time progressed the mores become more relax, there is a resurgence of an idea that people have inalienable rights. (hide spoiler)]

I finished and am conflicted. I can't tell whether the author succeeded at what he was trying to do because I can't tell what he was trying to do. The story doesn't really make sense to me. Real people wouldn't behave this way in this situation, or at least I think not. Or, at best, only some real people would go along so easily. (I'm not the best at understanding real people.) But maybe I'm not supposed to think of it like that. Maybe it is an allegory about how we react to (view spoiler)[mortality (hide spoiler)]. We know but don't really act like we believe it. If it is an allegory, then my complaints might be as silly as complaining about Animal Farm because horses can't really talk in the real world. (With one notable exception.)

So it kind of fails for me.

But.... I enjoyed the prose most of the time. The interactions of the three main characters were very realistic for everything not related to the main plot.

Jim wrote: "I was just discussing this with a friend at work & he came up with a way to make the logic work somewhat."

I can think of multiple reasons why some people would go along with the situation.(view spoiler)[
Some people are willing to sacrifice themselves to help others, or to improve their situation in the afterlife. Some will volunteer for war, or for suicide missions. Most people want something to live on after they die so their life will have purpose. For many, that will be children. These people cannot have children. So they may think the only way to give their life a purpose is to do what has been pre-decided for them. (hide spoiler)]

What is unbelievable is that nobody in this story protests in any way, not even briefly, except one scene where Tommy yells by himself for a few minutes. They never talk to each other about why they are going along with the situation.

Ed wrote: "They never talk to each other about why they are going along with the situation..."

That's exactly it. I think even only one scene with such a discussion would have been enough for me to go along with the author's premise. I was dearly missing this.

I agree with your points, Ed. Some would, but not all. That's why (view spoiler)[ I don't think they're human. They just look like it. They're more like lab animals or those creepy sex toys. Religious zealotry is the only other reason I can think of for a whole group of people to be so suicidal. I'm not talking about the quickie Kool Aid kind, but more like the Christian Scientists who will knowingly suffer for years & watch their kids die. (hide spoiler)]

OK Ed, I promised you my thoughts. Here they are (spoilers included, obviously, so don't be in a hurry to read this if you haven't finished the book yet):

(view spoiler)[First, the narrator was obnoxiously vapid. She drones on and on with self-indulgent stories about Billy and Jimmy and Sally and all her other boarding school pals. It got old fast. This trick with the narrator who lacks self-awareness about important plot elements worked great with Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (which is better even than the terrific film version) but it just doesn't work here.

We're aware right from the start of what's unusual about the kids. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out, which is why it's so irritating that the narrator never seems to get it. Maybe the author is making the point that we all accept certain ugly truths about our own lives and fail to struggle to overcome our own fates. Maybe that's the case, but it didn't make for a compelling read in the way it was presented.

And the plot drags unforgivably. And we're frustrated at the end. Sorry to sound like Homer Simpson here, but: "BOR-ING!" It had to be said.

Is it really that original of an idea: Children being raised for organ donation? Whether they are clones or just artificially inseminated, does it matter? I feel like I've explored this idea before although I admit I can't say exactly where or when. Ishiguro seems intent on exploring the humanity of those involved, which seems noble, but I don't feel as though his presentation felt emotionally compelling at all.

Setting the story in the present or recent past was interesting though, which I interpreted as a suggestion that this could actually be occurring somewhere in the world right now. That sounds like the basis for a Michael Crichton novel that was never written. (hide spoiler)]