Never Let Me Go

Currently in a strange but not-too-unfamiliar funk after finishing reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go: reflective, melancholy, a little bit restless and feeling as if my perspective and the boundaries of my life could do with some stretching and expanding.


The book (Spoilers in this section!)

The book is great, an absorbing read but very subtle and restrained. Events unfold with wistful inevitability, and the reveal of the central science fiction element (the characters are clones created to be organ donors) is gradual and done quite straightforwardly and without fanfare, as the focus is instead on the characters dealing the best they can with their situation, trying to live their lives the best way they know how.

The inherent tragedy of their existence only serves to deepen the already-significant pathos of the strange interdependent love triangle between the main characters. Following their stories from being sheltered at the boarding-school-like Hailsham through to their eventual fates was delightfully bittersweet.

I also liked Kathy's narration. The adjective "impassive" pops up in my head but I'm not really sure that's the right way to describe it. Straightforward, matter-of-fact. Or perhaps the word I'm looking for is just how natural and easy it seemed to get inside her head.


The funk

Although I do find myself getting into a quiet, reflective mood upon finishing a good book, melancholy ones such as this induce such a mood much more easily and intensely. I'm still reeling a little even now, almost two hours after.

The first feeling I remember was one of narrow-mindedness or lack of perspective. I suppose this is something common to most good books and literature -- they do tend to (are supposed to?) show things in new lights and induce new ways of thinking about the same (important) things. In this particular case, I felt distinctly unknowledgeable in the matter of friendships and relationships and dealing with people. And to think that I don't have any tragic fate to contend with!

The next was a momentary feeling of loneliness and inevitability, but thankfully it quickly passed into this final urge to finally fully think about and do something about my own life, which is much less complicated or fraught. Perhaps "thinking fully" about my life is an unrealistic pipe dream, but I do feel as if there's a threshold I've been afraid to or too lazy to cross. I haven't been pushing myself hard enough to be honest and unafraid, to confront the truth. (And now I get a flashforward to that future time when I finally do so only to realize that I've been afraid of stupidly pathetic realizations all this time.)

In any case, planning to try my best to make this mood useful and actually get some thinking done, but I think I may be too tired (and still a little hungover) from carousing last night. (Oh, my tragic tragic life.)