Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

CaroGirl

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I just finished this one and found it intriguing. Has anyone else read it and wants to discuss it?

What I found most interesting was that he uses literally NO physical description for any of his characters, beyond "she looked older" or "he'd gained weight" and it doesn't harm the story at all. In fact, I can picture everything quite clearly. It's fascinating how my imagination has filled in the gaps.

Never Let Me Go is a great read (and quite short!). I highly recommend it.
 

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I have heard of this one and I can't remember what I head, except that it was quite positive. I'll check it out!
 

CaroGirl

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Well done, Ray! Yup, he won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. It's only 259 pages, but it's a great read. And unexpected. I haven't read Remains of the Day, but I saw the movie. This is totally different. Very unexpected. Even the blurb on the back didn't prepare me for what it actually is.
 
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No he didn't; he was shortlisted. The winner of the 2005 Booker was John Banville for The Sea. Ishiguro, apparently, lost out by one vote and I say he was robbed. He's a god on my bookshelves. Plus, Banville lives in Dublin which, to my recollection, is outside the Commonwealth (an essential qualification for nomination).

(KI did win for TRotD though; think that was 1989).
 

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You're kidding! The front of my book lied to me, the bastard!

I'll have to reread the cover, actually. I must have misinterpreted it. Thanks for the correction, scarlet!
 
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Oh, they do that all the time...You'll see all of Salman Rushdie's books have 'Booker Winner' on them, which is surprising until you realise, it's the author who wins, not the book, so that'll be what they're referring to.

The UK copy of NLMG says 'Shortlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize', so it's slightly less misleading. But if you read 'Booker winner' you'd naturally think it refers to the book you're holding, not the actual author.
 

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I just finished the book this weekend. Bawled my eyes out toward the end.

In general, I have mixed feelings about it. For a while I considered giving up on it; the action described felt mundane to me at times, focused too much on the trivial, and I kept wanting the secrets to be revealed faster. However, once I realized Tommy and Kathy only had a few years left, and sickly ones at that, I was overwhelmed with sadness. The slow build-up was devastating, especially when I realized they *had* to focus on the "mundane" because their lives were so short.

I was frustrated that none of the kids tried to run away. The vagueness of the donors and the entire system made it difficult for me to understand, but then again, ingrained systems like that rarely have a satisfying explanation in real life, either.

For a little while, I thought they were robots!

The character voices felt pretty authentic to me, and I too could picture the students and Hailsham clearly despite scarce physical descriptions.

A melancholy read, that's for sure.
 

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Reanimating a twelve-year-old thread. This remains one of my all-time favorite novels. When someone asks about literary science-fiction, I bring this book up. I had forgotten about the lack of character descriptions. That was something I was thinking about doing in a recent story but chickened out. I might have to revisit this soon.