To Bare One's Soul Could Take More than Just a Drawing

Never Let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Set in England in the late 1990’s, we meet Kathy H. as a carer for over 11years. We learn that Kathy loves her job, but has plenty of time to look back over her short life of 31 years. Her job has hard parts but is still fulfilling to her, even while she has no choice. As Kathy looks back, the audience goes with her back to her childhood, we get to know her and her friends that she grows up with. We learn about the odd ideas that are taught to them at Hailsham, the place where they grew up. We meet Ruth and Tommy and grow with the deep connection that the characters feel.

This author did an amazing job. The writing style was breath taking. I enjoyed thoroughly how he would introduce an idea, an idea that the audience has never heard of before, helps us learn to accept the idea, then plainly states what we were starting to understand when he first introduced it to us. There is no easy way to explain this, you will just have to read it to see what I mean. I would love to write some day, but I know that I could never write like this. I would get to excited, and I would ruin the whole thing by a couple of misplaced words.

I also loved that this book was not set in the future, but in the not so distant past. The ideas that were thrown around were not easy to swallow and the thought that this was happening across the ocean less than five years ago and had been going on since the fifties was a fantastic edge to the story.

With all of the parts of this story that I liked, I absolutely loved the idea of Norfolk, the place where all of the lost items are found. It was comical to me that when they were children, they made such a big deal out of the little area on the coast just because the guardian teaching social studies didn’t have a picture of it. Then you bring this idea to real life and I think of lost items of my own, items so dear to me that even 9 years later it still brings a crushing feeling to my chest. I wish there was a place like Norfolk that we could all go to and find the lost items of our lives. In the story, I loved Tommy and Kathy finding that tape in Norfolk. Most of all, my favorite was the very last paragraph of the book.

On a printing style thought, I didn’t understand the designation of the “parts” of the story. Usually there is something artistic about dividing a book up, but if there was something there, I missed it. The only thing I can come up with is that part one was Hailsham, part two is the Cottages, and part three is the ending. If I got it right, there doesn’t seem to be anything artistic in it and I may need to slow down and re-read.

Thank you for reading. I enjoyed the June book club’s choice and I was excited to go to my second meeting. Leave me a comment, if you have any thoughts!