Never Let me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro
Kathy is 31 years old, and for the third time her life is about to change drastically: By the end of the year she will not be a carer anymore. So, this is the perfect time to revisit and reminiscence on her life.
The first part of it she spent in the English country side, in the boarding school Hailsham, where she lived from her earliest childhood. There she is one corner of a triangle of friendship comprising also Ruth and Tommy. While Kathy is the most reserved one, Ruth is outspoken and bold and Tommy struggles violently with his lack of creativity.
When school ends the three of them are sent to the “cottages”, an old farm a group of former students from different schools have to maintain. It is kind of intermediate station on the way to adulthood, which Kathy must leave first, leaving Ruth and Tommy, now a couple, behind.
Only years later, when Tommy and Ruth have both become donors, the three see each other again and together they try to at least delay the inevitable…
I struggled whether I should post this book as Japanese literature, since Kazuo Ishiguro, although born in Nagasaki in 1958, moved to England when he was five and is now a British citizen. Also, the book itself does not have anything to do with Japan: It is set in the English country side, and we follow typical British kids coming of age in a Western world.
And still, in the way many things about this dystopian world are always present but hardly mentioned, the writing is highly influenced by Japanese culture, where everybody is supposed to know things that remain ever unspoken. At the denouement in the end, when everything falls into place and yet no real explanation is given, you feel like a part of Ishiguro’s world. And even a Japanese friend of mine says that of the modern writers, his style is probably the most Japanese of all of them.
So, judge for yourself and check this book out on amazon