Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This author is one whom I have read before with his work When We Were Orphans. He is also the author of Remains of the Day.

His literary style is very detached, and the characters often seem to be emotionless despite quite dreadful experiences through the course of their narratives.



This novel is a perfect example of this style, and while it is an appropriate choice given the circumstances of his characters lives, I found the disengaged narration distracting and frustrating. In order to engage fully in a story, you want to be able to relate and even empathize with each character. That proved difficult with the narrator's borderline pathological distance from everyone in her life. Perhaps the indifference reflected by her tone is in fact a self-preserving mechanism given the future she anticipates, but again, the author's choice here leaves this reader as uncaring about the inevitabilities playing out in the off-page storyline as the unseen forces that have created such a predicament.



Honestly, the preview of the film version has more emotional intrigue than the novel was able to inspire in me.



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