When I found out that one of my Extended Essay students was thinking of basing her essay on Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go I felt a curious yet distinct reluctance to re-read the novel. I was surprised as it's a very fine book by a very fine writer and I'd enjoyed it immensely the first time round. Now having read it for a second time I've figured out where the reluctance came from.
Yes it's enjoyable, and very easy to read, typically so of Ishiguro, but it's also broodingly unsettling as you read, and even more so once you put it down. It's partly the subject matter, of course, the stuff of sci-fi horror, but it's also the way that horror is transmuted by the very quietness of the novel, its strange ordinariness, into real horror. And the fact that the important questions are not just not answered but not even raised means you can't get the darn book out of your head. Take a simple one, possibly the simplest of all: Why is it that none of the 'specials', as it were, attempt to run away from their fates, or even think of doing so? Even on a re-reading I kept expecting Ishiguro to at least nod mildly in that direction. No, nothing. Just a dreadful, awful gap in consciousness.
I really don't want to think about this too much more, at least for the moment. But I know I'll have to go back.
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