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Nandakishore Mridula's Reviews > Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go
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I loved this novel not so much for its gothic darkness, but for the questions it raised. It seems chillingly plausible that any cruelty, carried on long enough, will be accepted as the norm by humanity-especially if it benefits the majority (like providing an endless supply of organs). We manage this by dehumanising the victims. India's untouchables and America's slaves are just two of the examples. Even when we, as "enlightened" human beings, look back in disgust at such historical injustices, shouldn't we ask ourselves the question: "Am I any different?" I constantly do, and am frightened by the answer sometimes...
The writing of the novel is weak compared to "Remains of the Day", and the main plot device (art and literature providing evidence for the "soul") is rather trite, but Ishiguro must be congratulated in creating a future which is a dystopia only from the main protagonists' point of view, and drawing us into the same and making us feel the horror. The novel is science fiction in a sense, and gothic in another, but I would hesitate to include it under either category because ultimately it addresses the ephemeral nature of human existence from the viewpoint of a doomed character, and thus grows beyond any genre categorisation.
I would recommend it wholeheartedly to any lover of serious literature.
The writing of the novel is weak compared to "Remains of the Day", and the main plot device (art and literature providing evidence for the "soul") is rather trite, but Ishiguro must be congratulated in creating a future which is a dystopia only from the main protagonists' point of view, and drawing us into the same and making us feel the horror. The novel is science fiction in a sense, and gothic in another, but I would hesitate to include it under either category because ultimately it addresses the ephemeral nature of human existence from the viewpoint of a doomed character, and thus grows beyond any genre categorisation.
I would recommend it wholeheartedly to any lover of serious literature.
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Reading Progress
September 28, 2011
– Shelved
October 1, 2011
– Shelved as:
general-fiction
October 29, 2011
–
Started Reading
November 1, 2011
–
Finished Reading
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Nandakishore
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rated it 4 stars
Jan 08, 2012 09:13AM
Thanks, Petra X.
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An excellent review. Thank you for your perceptive insight. Your review should encourage many others to read this fine novel.
will be accepted as the norm by humanity-especially if it benefits the majority So true! Like child labor. I remember some people defending it saying “we are helping them earn their living�. No matter how many laws you make, that is one evil which is so glaringly present in India, and people have just grown used to it.
Btw, you have beautifully described the book. It is one of my favorite. I have yet to read Remains of the Day and I have great expectations from it.
Thanks for all the likes!
Thanks, Alondra.
Your reviews are always insightful. I have to choose between NLMG and TROD. Which one should I buy first?
I do agree with you. I think that societies just have a way of following traditions and routines, even when they can't possibly bring anyone any benefit ( for example the practice FGM in Africa). When one group of people has an immediate benefit from exploiding another group, it is almost impossible to stop it.
I likewise enjoy the book for the questions it raises. The writing is weak, and there are some issues with the story, but the book has given me a lot to stew over.
Six years since you wrote this, Nandakishore, do you feel like we are already more or less arrived at that point, where soon most humans will be nothing more than organ donors for the super elite. The technology looks like it is already there for making humans nothing but receptacles of organs.
"any cruelty, carried on long enough, will be accepted as the norm"In the context of your thoughtful review, that's worryingly plausible. And yet one of my many objections to The Hunger Games was the implausibility (as it seemed to me) of a child-murdering tournament continuing for three generations. Then again, as the entrants were randomly chosen, children weren't dehumanised as a group in the way that slaves and untouchables have been.
Cecily wrote: ""any cruelty, carried on long enough, will be accepted as the norm"In the context of your thoughtful review, that's worryingly plausible. And yet one of my many objections to The Hunger Games was..."
I think that simply seeing bad stuff people do to each other these days relentlessly online as well as a level of explicit detail in movies that wasn't always present is enough to have that effect.
I haven't read HG, but is murdering children like this any different in terms of its being accepted as human sacrifices have been in the past?
notgettingenough wrote: "I haven't read HG, but is murdering children like this any different in terms of its being accepted as human sacrifices have been in the past?"Good question, but I thought it was very different. Some who commented on my review disagreed. The way it works in HG is an annual tournament for children to kill each other, until only one survives. And corporations compete to sponsor it! One child randomly selected from each district, as a national punishment for unrest long ago. No appeasement of gods. No clean death. Corporate entertainment. For 75 years.
Cecily wrote: "Corporate entertainment."Well, who would have thought that US elections would go quite as far as this last one has demonstrated. I think it is really interesting the extent to which real life is becoming a reflection of what we see on screens. Most recently, I have been following a horrifying case of a man in South Australia who took two foreign backpackers to the countryside of SA (they did this much voluntarily, thinking they were on their way to Melbourne). He then did appalling things to them which read like a horror movie and the testimony in court of the two girls who survived the ordeal was that they got the ideas of how to deal with the situation from how people try to escape in horror movies. It was all too surreal.
notgettingenough wrote: "Well, who would have thought that US elections would go quite as far as this last one has demonstrated"Indeed. And Nandu's observation that I quoted in my first comment immediately made me think of a corollary about how demonstrable lies carried on long enough evidently become accepted as the norm.
