Thinking back now, I can see we were just  at that age when we knew a few things about ourselves - about who we were, how we were different from our guardians, from the people outside - but hadn't yet understood what any of it meant.

 

I can't remember where I first heard about Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never let me go", but couple of days ago I happened to walk into a bookstore... I know, I'm not suppose to buy any new book before I have read the old ones and bla bla… but there I was, in the middle of bookstore and I saw this book. For some reason I knew right away that this one I wanted to read. I have already one Ishiguro waiting in my bookshelf, but I haven't had any interest to read that one. Still when I saw "Never let me go" I had to buy it.

My blog was very quiet this week and that's because I used all my free time (and there isn't that much of it right now) to read this book. "Never let me go" is one of those books that you just have to read without pauses. I read while brushing my teeth, while walking on the street and of course late at night when I was suppose to be sleeping. I just had to know what was behind all this. I had to get to the end of the book to find out if there were any hope after all, if there were any kind of comfort or forgiveness coming.

And after reading this book I have dreamt about these characters and I have been thinking about them a lot. I think I have to see the film adaptation too one day. I'm not saying that "Never let me go" is the best book in the history, there were also times when I was very much irritated buy the book, but it is a very powerful and touching book and definitely one of the most heartbreaking stories I have ever read.

I can't tell you too much about this book, because I think you should read it, if possible, without expectations. The story reveals itself little by little. "You've been told and not told", like they say in the book. The book starts like everything would be obvious to the reader. The main character Kathy H. is telling her story to you like you would be one of them. Every now and then she says "I don't know how it was there where you grew up, but at Hailsham…" and then she goes on telling about her childhood in this beautiful and cosy boarding school where she and her two best friends Ruth and Tommy grew up. You hear what kind of games they played and what kind of secrets they shared but little by little you start to realize that there is more. There is something that everybody knows but nobody talks about, because everybody has been told and not told.

"Never let me go" is a dystopia. I doesn't tell about the future, but about the parallel reality. In the beginning of the book Ishiguro tells that the story takes place in England, the late 1990s. The world is almost like ours, but in this world people have found a cure for a cancer and many other diseases. But at what price?

"Never let me go" is a heartbreaking and sad book, but it doesn't make you cry. To the main character this is her life, her world. She doesn't ask for anything more, she doesn't cry so why should you? And that's exactly what gives you shivers. The quiet acceptation is worse than shouting and screaming. Actually when one of the main characters in the end of the book starts to shout it feels very good and cathartic. 

The book raises very many interesting philosophical questions, but it's hard to write about them here without telling too much. How can we reveal that we have a soul? What makes us unique? Why does the humankind create art? Why do we keep dreaming and hoping in the most desperate situations? How is it possible to grow up to accept that someone else has decided your future for you? Is it better to give someone a happy childhood than a happy future? If you get a little bit happiness do you naturally start to ask more? And how can we fight back when society seems to become colder and harder?

I would like to say that I'm happy this dystopia is far away from our own world. But the truth is that we are already doing horrible things to each others, only because we want to live our lives as comfortable as possible. Somebody somewhere is already suffering so that we can have things we assume to be our right, for example our coffee and our shoes. We kind of know that those are not made in the perfect circumstances, but it's so easy to forget and think about something else instead. Seeing how we live our lives now it's not impossible to think that this Ishiguro's parallel universe could be true one day.

But at the same time, this book doesn't preach. As much as a dystopia it is a love story, a story about friendship and companionship. A beautiful and important book. Heartbreaking in it's own quiet way. Tragic and haunting. 

 

I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go.