Flagpole Magazine: Colorbearer of Athens, GA Shifting Gears
Jun 8, 2005
Book Review
The Unexamined Life
The 31-year-old narrator of Kazuo Ishiguro's brutally sad Never Let Me Go (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2005) has a voice of such pained emotional constipation that it would require a Costco-esque haul of Ex-Lax, Liquid Drano and Dr. Phil to induce the slightest semblance of what we might call a hissy fit.
But this is good. For what Kathy H. lacks in control of her destiny, she more than recompenses in the airtight letting of her story. Reared at an institution reverently known as Hailsham, Kathy's life is sheltered, but hardly privileged. With its pastoral fields and lakes, the school appears cut from the cloth of Eton until we realize its students never discuss parents or vacations.
Never Let Me Go's fantastic premise would normally place it squarely in the sci-fi bailiwick, yet to mistake this, Ishiguro's sixth novel, for a glib commentary on genetic science is to miss the sheep for the clone. Prudence prevents me from disclosing too much, but suffice it to say this is a haunting and enveloping story made all the more terrifying by the authentic tenor of Kathy H.'s voice and a selective shielding of a big picture context.
The real-time narrative takes place in the England of the late 1990s, though there's scant mention of Tony Blair or New Labor. Kathy H. is looking back on her life at the age of 31, though she reflects with the seen-it-all authority, but not arrogance, of a soul much older. Like many of Ishiguro's narrators, she's sympathetic, remarkably lucid and not wholly reliable.
For Kathy and her close friends Tommy and Ruth, life's parameters are fixed in social cum scientific constructs beyond their grasp. Growing up at Hailsham, they knew they were "different," but the extent of it was never explained to them, at least not directly.
Like other Ishiguro novels (The Remains of the Day, A Pale View of the Hills), Never Let Me Go functions on two levels. There's the stark and complex emotional landscape provided by Kathy H.'s monologue and a narrative crossword puzzle that challenges us to figure out exactly what her predicament really is. The experience is not unlike a cinematic slow reveal. Think of Rosemary's Baby when we stared in abject horror at Mia Farrow staring in abject horror at the demon child she'd just shat out. We never see her baby, of course, and that's why it was so terrifying.
Like everyone at Hailsham, Kathy H. knows she's destined to become a "carer," then a "veteran" and finally, a "donor." After three or four donations, she'll "complete." We never see this happening, yet its inevitability underscores all of the narrative present.
During Kathy's Hailsham years, which consume the lion's share of her story, the future is the question that dare not speak its name but can't be avoided. Hailshamites who probe too hard as to the nature of their nature are treated like pariahs: not from the adults, but from their peers, even though they equally yearn for answers. Why, they wonder, is it so much more horrific if they smoke than others? Why can they have sex without the usual consequences? Why are they encouraged toward artistic creation? Why do many of their so-called "care givers" appear so forlorn and reticent with these questions? In short, what are they hiding?
If Never Let Me Go was a science fiction novel, or merely less disciplined, there'd certainly be a plot for liberation or a "see ya in hell" denouement. But it's not, of course, and Kathy H. and company are eerily resigned to their fate as though resistance is not merely futile, but spiritually tacky.
Despite Ishiguro's extraordinary premise, most of this novel is mired in the routine dramas of childhood - schisms among friends, jockeying for power within cliques, loves lost and thwarted. Never Let Me Go is like watching youth slowly, prematurely bleed into a drainpipe. This doesn't sound like fun, I know, but so what? Want fun? Get a trampoline. Don't read serious fiction.
It's not the will to turn pages that's the problem; Ishiguro is too talented a storyteller to bore us. What's troubling is how to feel when they're turned. I for one was inspired by a novelist at the top of his form. The controlled voice is so disciplined, it's all you can do to keep from clapping. In this case, the residual sadness begs another form of restraint: the kind that keeps you from playing in traffic. What more can a reader ask?
John Dicker
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