Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

4.25 stars

There may be spoilers!

How would you feel if someone came up to you and very calmly started reminiscing about the time when they had her fingers chopped off by this other person? There is no misery or fury or even regret in this person’s voice. They might as well be telling you about how someone spilled coke on them. I think that is what would make this person’s words scarier.

Kathy is exactly that kind of a narrator; she is excruciatingly calm and maddeningly passive. Perhaps that is why, especially after turning the last page, I feel the need to go back and read this novel all over again. That might be why I feel so shocked and sad.

Never Let Me Go starts with Kathy reminiscing about her time at Hailsham, especially the relationship that develops between her, Ruth, and Tommy. Ruth is the extrovert, domineering girl, while Tommy is the sensitive one with a bad temper and Kathy is the resigned one, the observer. There are heartbreaks, betrayals, friendship, loyalty, and amidst it all the omnipresent dread among the characters that, at the end of the day none of that will matter.

The language is simple and the overall tone lucid. Still, Ishiguro manages to convey such hard-hitting emotion and paints such a vivid image of Hailsham, its fields, the sales, the guardians. Many times his language made me forget that organ harvesting was fictional and I got all worked up about it. I felt like how Miss Lucy must have felt: helpless and furious.

The novel’s climax, especially Kathy’s acceptance of her fate is very very depressing. How can such subtle language and a narrator like Kathy move a person so much? Frankly, I have no idea. I am still in shock. Maybe I will read the last 2 chapters again.

Anyway, highly recommended!