|
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
09-16-2018, 02:52 AM | #16 | |
cacoethes scribendi
Posts: 5,809
Karma: 137770742
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Australia
Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650
|
Quote:
I think we risk over-generalising when we don't like a book - I do it as much as (or more than) the next person. When we are enjoying a book we are happy to forgive a lot, but when a book fails to get us in, the faults (and all books have them) stand out. |
|
09-16-2018, 03:24 AM | #17 | |
cacoethes scribendi
Posts: 5,809
Karma: 137770742
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Australia
Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650
|
Quote:
The very lack of detailed explanation is one reason why (I thought) it was clear that cloning and organ donation were not the subject of this story. Regarding the "just accept" bit above. We can be more inclined to do so with a known/trusted author. A new author cannot always get away with pushing their readers quite this far. Reputation and experience have to count for something. |
|
Advert | |
|
09-16-2018, 03:32 AM | #18 | |
cacoethes scribendi
Posts: 5,809
Karma: 137770742
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Australia
Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650
|
Quote:
|
|
09-16-2018, 03:37 AM | #19 | |
cacoethes scribendi
Posts: 5,809
Karma: 137770742
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Australia
Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650
|
Quote:
Some books can inspire a lot of thought, and for me this was one of them. I believe it is a book that isn't trying to tell you what to think, it's just asking that you do. ... And it can be difficult to put this sort of stuff into short and succinct summaries. |
|
09-16-2018, 04:13 AM | #20 | ||
Wizard
Posts: 3,108
Karma: 60231510
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Australia
Device: Kobo Aura H2O, Kindle Oasis, Huwei Ascend Mate 7
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
Advert | |
|
09-16-2018, 01:49 PM | #21 | |
(he/him/his)
Posts: 12,163
Karma: 79742714
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Sunshine Coast, BC
Device: Oasis (Gen3),Paperwhite (Gen10), Voyage, Paperwhite(orig), Fire HD 8
|
Quote:
|
|
09-16-2018, 01:56 PM | #22 | |
(he/him/his)
Posts: 12,163
Karma: 79742714
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Sunshine Coast, BC
Device: Oasis (Gen3),Paperwhite (Gen10), Voyage, Paperwhite(orig), Fire HD 8
|
Quote:
|
|
09-16-2018, 02:01 PM | #23 | ||
(he/him/his)
Posts: 12,163
Karma: 79742714
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Sunshine Coast, BC
Device: Oasis (Gen3),Paperwhite (Gen10), Voyage, Paperwhite(orig), Fire HD 8
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
09-16-2018, 02:42 PM | #24 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,265
Karma: 10203040
Join Date: Dec 2011
Device: a variety (mostly kindles and kobos)
|
I haven't re-read it this time around but I did read it a few years back and enjoyed it with some reservations.
It is a little frustrating that some of the "why?" questions aren't better dealt with, as they would be in "good" SciFi but Ishiguro isn't really interested in the SciFi aspects of the book, it's just a device, a metaphor to allow him to talk about mortality. And he does that rather well, with well-drawn characters and affecting relationships. Here's Ishiguro talking about the novel when the movie came out. |
09-16-2018, 07:03 PM | #25 |
E-reader Enthusiast
Posts: 4,871
Karma: 36507503
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Southwest, USA
Device: Kindle Oasis 3; Kobo Aura One; iPad Mini 5
|
Never Let Me Go (2005) is the third novel by Ishiguro that I have read. The Literary Club read The Remains of the Day (1989) which won the Man Booker Award, and I also have read his latest book The Buried Giant (2015). I haven’t been able to identify exactly why they don’t live up to my expectations. However, they keep me thinking about them long after I turn the last page, so I persist to read his books.
If you are familiar with his works, then it is obvious that they have the similar theme of memory (remembering and forgetting and concealed truths). His books do not follow a specific time/action moving plot line. The emphasis is on the characters and on human relationships (in particular friendships and love in the face of mortality). Ishiguro’s writing process is that he focuses on the characters and the themes first. The setting comes last. He does not think consciously about genre. Ishiguro writes literary fiction, but he doesn’t see himself boxed into a category of either serious, snobby high-brow literature or mainstream genre definitions. To him science fiction elements like the dystopian dimension (or fantasy elements in The Buried Giant) are techniques in his writer’s toolbox to enhance the story in a way he could not if he wrote strictly realist fiction. It is not intended to be a science fiction genre novel, and therefore the science is intentionally vague and incidental. He has said in interviews that he considers this book to be an alternate history concept. For 15 years he was developing these student characters and the idea to do a campus novel with some sort of strange fate hanging over their heads but couldn’t figure out what. Then he was listening to a biotechnical program on the radio, and he realized the missing puzzle piece to define their fate. The setting of the book is a bleak, cold and grey England set in rural landscape and seaside towns. It is dreary and adds to the depressing atmosphere when you realize the character’s fate and contrasts with the few happy memories of childhood innocence and the hope that true soulmate love may allow one to escape their fate. Ishiguro has said that his settings of Japan and England in his books are completely stylized to match his own imagination and a more mythical ideal rather than a detailed reality. He has said that part of his struggle with setting is because of his personal immigrant experience. He was born in Japan and moved to England when was young always thinking that his family would move back to Japan but never did. I have many more thoughts, but I will start with that for now. |
09-16-2018, 07:45 PM | #26 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,638
Karma: 28483498
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Ottawa Canada
Device: Sony PRS-T3, Galaxy (Aldiko, Kobo app)
|
The use of "complete" as an intransitive verb was brilliant; in the sense of the Nazi's usage of "Final Solution" as extreme euphemism - a hint of the larger society that we never see in the novel.
|
09-16-2018, 09:40 PM | #27 |
Wizard
Posts: 3,108
Karma: 60231510
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Australia
Device: Kobo Aura H2O, Kindle Oasis, Huwei Ascend Mate 7
|
|
09-16-2018, 09:59 PM | #28 | |
cacoethes scribendi
Posts: 5,809
Karma: 137770742
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Australia
Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650
|
Quote:
With such a bleak tale I think we feel a certain pressure to believe that there should be more, that there should be a positive or a morality, that the characters should have been trying to escape their destiny. It feels wrong to us because we can see what they are facing, and it seems so unfair. But what is more difficult for us - the reader - is to realise that they (the protagonists in this story) don't see it the same way. They have been told but not told. They know but they don't see or accept any alternative. And this aspect of the story feels all too real to me. |
|
09-16-2018, 10:31 PM | #29 | ||
cacoethes scribendi
Posts: 5,809
Karma: 137770742
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Australia
Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650
|
Quote:
Quote:
I've been saying that I enjoyed Never Let Me Go, but fascinated by it is probably more accurate. It quickly became apparent that it would not be a happy tale and so a certain amount of dread accompanied the experience, and there is little to lighten or alleviate that feeling. This makes it hard to espouse unreserved enthusiasm for the book. It's more, "I think this is a really good book but ..." |
||
09-16-2018, 10:47 PM | #30 | |
Wizard
Posts: 3,108
Karma: 60231510
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Australia
Device: Kobo Aura H2O, Kindle Oasis, Huwei Ascend Mate 7
|
@Bookworm_Girl. I liked your comments, probably because you take a completely different approach to what I have. I like a work to stand alone unless of course it is one of a particular series. The less I know about the author before reading a book the happier I am. That is not to say that it is in any way invalid to look at an authors work as a whole whether in conjunction with their life history or not. But that for me is a different exercise to reading a single book or series.
This is the only book by Ishiguro I have read, and quite possibly the only one I ever will read. Personally I didn't see memory as a major theme. To me, memory was the device used to tell the "story", such as it was, but not a major theme in itself. Perhaps I would see things differently had I read some of his other works? But if this work is intended as a stand-alone novel yet a major theme is not apparent from the novel alone, then has the novel failed to at least some extent? Or is memory a major theme of the authors work as opposed to any particular book? I also agree with you about the incidental nature of the science elements. To quote briefly from your post: Quote:
I also agree that his focus is on the development of characters and relationships. Unfortunately, as with much literary fiction, this comes at the cost of dispensing with a meaningful plot. Personally I don't like most fiction of this type, though I certainly appreciate that others do. |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Kazuo Ishiguro Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature | astrangerhere | News | 25 | 10-17-2017 10:53 PM |
MobileRead September 2015 Discussion: Candide (spoilers) | WT Sharpe | Book Clubs | 16 | 09-27-2015 12:38 PM |
Literary The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro | sun surfer | Book Clubs | 30 | 02-13-2015 12:36 AM |
MobileRead September 2014 Discussion: The Grapes of Wrath (spoilers) | WT Sharpe | Book Clubs | 18 | 10-26-2014 02:37 PM |
Literary The MobileRead Literary Book Club September 2011 Discussion: Unbroken | sun surfer | Book Clubs | 12 | 10-14-2011 04:24 PM |