pantsfarm

Last Tuesday somebody recalled the copy of [tag]Kazuo Ishiguro[/tag]‘s [tag]Never Let Me Go[/tag] I had checked out from the library. So, as I had a week to read it before I’d have to wait in the recall line again, I decided to try and read it.

I was originally inspired to read it because I had started, though not finished, and enjoyed When We Were Orphans, also by Mr. Ishiguro. It’s still sitting on my shelf, but I never get around to reading it because I own it. Anyhow, in addition to having remembered liking When We Were Orphans, I had read in a review of the movie The Island (2005) some reference to it. Apparently this was some great spoiler as when Annie read Never Let Me Go, it came as a big surprise to her what was going on. In spite of the fun of that experience being lost on me, I read it anyway. Frankly I don’t think it ruined much, they spell it out pretty clearly in the first 80 pages (the edition I’m reading is 288 total). Now, some [tag]quotes[/tag]:

He’d done it, he claimed, as a kind of joke. I quizzed him a lot on this point and I suspect the truth was that it was like a lot of things at that age: you don’t have any clear reason, you just do it. You do it because you think it might get a laugh, or because you want to see if it’ll cause a stir. And when you’re asked to explain it afterwards, it doesn’t seem to make any sense. We’ve all done things like that.
19

Tommy shrugged. “I’ve grown up a bit, I suppose. And maybe everyone else has too. Can’t keep on with the same stuff all the time. Gets boring.”
23

All the same, some of it must go in somewhere. It must go in, because by the time a moment like that comes along, there’s a part of you that’s been waiting. Maybe from as early as when you’re five or six, there’s been a whisper going at the back of your head saying: “One day, maybe not so long from now, you’ll get to know how it feels.” So you’re waiting, even if you don’t quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you — of how you were brought into this world and why — and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it’s a cold moment. It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.
36

Then suddenly, with the skeleton in an obscene heap on the desktop, she turned away and began telling us how we had to be careful who we had sex with. Not just because of the diseases, but because, she said, “sex affects emotions in ways you’d never expect.”
83

I basically stopped taking quotes at this point because I was too busy trying to finish it before late fees accumulated. I’m not really sure what I think about it yet. I’m going to give it some time to sink in first.