Never Let Me Go

 

It was a rainy summer evening. I had heard very sad news about a close family friend earlier that day and wanted something to distract myself from my grey mood. And that’s how my journey with Kazuo Ishiguro began.

A few chapters into Never Let Me Go, I found myself pleasantly surprised at how inconspicuously my mind had calmed down. The words flowed out of the book, taking me with them. It is a slow, easy read, especially up till 2/3rds of the book. Initially, I found Ishiguro’s writing to be a blend of Murakami and Ruskin Bond, but soon realised that this man is in a league of his own. However, similar to Murakami and Bond’s writings, Ishiguro’s story too must be read from your soul, rather than your mind.

 

Ah! Memories! Strange aren’t they? You never exactly know when something from ages ago will strike you, like a lightning from the sky, and leave you in a state of emotional upheaval. And more often than not, the feelings they evoke in you are never the same when that moment occurred. Recalling a happy moment can make you sad, and reliving an embarrassing scene can make you laugh. Moreover, memories are so unpredictable that the same moment can bring out a different set of emotions at different stages in your life. Nonetheless, we can never truly stop reminiscing about our past, much like our protagonist Kathy H. Delightful or despondent, our lives would feel empty without our memories, without having something to look back at; without having something to hold on to. It is a series of such memories of dear Kathy that make up this poignant story.

As she drives around the country, her thoughts drift during the long, lonely journey, and slowly she introduces you to Ruth and Tommy and to Hailsham - the world of guardians and Madame, Sales and Exchanges, models and possibilities, carers and donors. There’s a curiosity the author brings as Kathy narrates her growing up years at Hailsham and after, and this feeling of wanting to know more slowly creeps into you. You soon realise that there’s something more to the merry school environment at the isolated Hailsham. Something grey, something sombre, hidden in the depths of Kathy’s memory lanes. Page by page, along with Kathy, we inch closer to the truth. But Kathy’s in no hurry, and nor is Ishiguro. You need to be patient and give Kathy time; time for herself to reconcile with her memories of Hailsham, time to make sense of it all. It is very clear from the beginning that this is not a thriller or mystery. This is a story of human relations, of petty fights and strong bonds, of disagreements and make-ups, and of amusing fantasies and troubling truths. 

On the surface, this is a memorable story of 3 friends and their friendship. But as you dive deeper into the story, you cannot miss the feeling of something being amiss, a sense of foreboding. The more watch Kathy, Ruth and Tommy recall their ‘good old times’, the more they feel like aged persons and not the 20-something youngsters they actually are. You wonder why these young bloods are talking about death, when they have their entire life ahead of them. Ishiguro slowly reveals the whole picture in a beautiful, graceful way, never once deviating from the natural flow of story. His writing skills are remarkable to say the least. He is able to coalesce numerous genres, from coming-of-age to science fiction, into a moving story. He takes you down memory lane as effortlessly as he breaks you into pieces. There were many times during the course of this book, I found myself going back to my own schooldays, listening to our Principal’s New Year speech at the assembly right after our Christmas vacation, savouring my friends’ lunch under the jackfruit tree, admiring Shiny Mam during reading class, enacting Cinderella under the mango tree…

And there were also times when I was heartbroken, devastated, speechless. As I read the last word of the book, I felt like a bulldozer had run over me. Like Tommy, I wanted to scream my lungs out. I wanted to run away from the ending. I was in a state of nothingness for a long time after I had completed the book. The spirits of Kathy, Ruth and Tommy hung around me for days, and that’s one of the reasons I am writing this review so long after completing the book.

Now that I have had some time, there are some questions I have been pondering on. Putting out only a few here to avoid spoilers.

What is your purpose in life? How do you find meaning? If one didn’t have a purpose, would life’s meaning evaporate? If you didn’t mean anything to anyone, would you still want to explore this world? How would you feel if you knew our lives in this barren world is ultimately meaningless and futile and that we are all replaceable? Would you still be hopeful? Would you still believe in this world, still believe that our lives do matter, that we aren’t all just machines and there’s more to us than mere bodily functions?

Do mull over it, but first, read the book. Cheers!