All you need to know about the plot of this suspenseful book is the narrative style. A diary or memoir of a girl, perhaps a tape recording. The scenes flicker a little haphazardly, with leaps forward and backward, but still in an escalating progression from childhood to adolescence to adulthood.
A graduate of the Hailsham Special Institution, Cathy will act as a guide and, without stopping for a moment, tell you everything, leading you by the hand through three life lines: her line, her friend Ruth's line, and her buddy Tommy's line. The hardships, the sorrows, the joys, the secrets, the innuendos, the frank conversations, the grudges and the speculations will finally be shared and wrested from their voluntary captivity from the bottom of Katie Sch's troubled soul.
I think that's enough. Now on to the book itself, the author and his twisted tricks.
Sir Kazuo Ishiguro (カズオ・イシグロ or 石黒 一雄), OBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist of Japanese origin and Nobel Laureate in Literature (2017). His family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from the University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing course in 1980. He became a British citizen in 1982. He now lives in London.
Kazuo Ishiguro is first and foremost familiar to me from The Buried Giant, and I had already grasped his particular measured narrative style, full of the characters' feelings and thoughts, scattered here and there with riddles, miscommunications, and allusions. Still, I did not anticipate that a writer could so skillfully transform himself and produce a book written as if it were written by a woman. For a reason, the main character is a young girl, and the author's intent and experimentation are fully revealed in her. I have no dissonance between the hero, the narrative and the unseen author. Amazing!
Everything goes in favor of the pen - the diary style, Cathy's emotions, the "start from the word" syndrome, when the thought jumps from one event to another, from the first thought to a completely unrelated idea. The driving unit here is not even people and time, but relationships in the broadest sense. The relationship between the characters, between them and their tutors and peers. Relations to objects, art, their purpose and themselves in the present, the past and even the future.
The dystopian nature of the story lies in the spoilers, and although you can guess everything in the first thirty pages, I will not spoil the experience for you, if you do decide to read. And before you do, there's a lot to think about.
This is a very violent book. There is enough tension here, albeit greatly relieved by the resilience of the characters and the unseen presence of the author. Still, it's horrible to see how the plot flows, how people live without realizing they have no future. And it's even harder when they do understand, but they live anyway. Ishiguro knows where to push to hurt, where to press to squeeze a tear, and where to touch to disgust or sympathize, cringe or squeamishness.
The book's key conflicts can be divided into several categories.
Knowledge vs Rest. Throughout the narrative, the characters walk around, simultaneously curious about the unspoken, at times secret, while on the other hand fearful of finding out the answer. And in fact, this weak motivation is caused primarily by instinct, the lust for life. After all, knowledge can take away the meaning of life, while the blinders over the eyes provide enough happy and bright time to humble oneself and extinguish the flames of rebellion. But how cruel and heartless it is to deceive children, and how destructive the truth can be!
Me and You. Katie and Ruth have been friends since they were children. And while Cathy evokes neutral-friendly emotions for most of the book, Ruth is a rather unpleasant subject, cynical, selfish, duplicitous, and artificial from beginning to end. Endless innuendos, playing with public opinion, inveterate blackmailer techniques, vain outbursts and lies, deceptions, tons of lies. No, she's not a negative hero, she's just a living person, but a nasty one. And from that the conflict was born. Kathy is subconsciously aware of Ruth's nature, but still reaches out to her and gives her new chances day after day - to be angry again, not to talk, to compete, to fight, to make up and to learn secrets... Their whole life will be spent in this struggle. And how would life have changed if little K had not tried to gain little R's trust back in the sandbox?
Love and death. We are all mortal, suddenly mortal. But even the approach of an invincible enemy, an old woman with a scythe, cannot extinguish our best feelings and our love. Against all odds, living beings reach out to each other to snatch just a few hours or precious seconds close to the person they love. When we love, it seems to us that it will last forever, and everything is possible: we can defeat life and death, overcome the last barrier or delay the inevitable, or even meet over the last line to walk hand in hand on the moonlit path.
Childlessness vs. rebellion against the system. Yes, I believe that the inability to conceive can clip the wings of creatures who grew up in one large family, who fell in love without regard for an unsettling future, but who dared not even in their dreams hope to find immortality in children. Their struggle, if it had begun, would have ended in nothing but a brief reprieve, disappointment, and emptiness. To be with someone but have no offspring. Growing old alone, remaining an outcast in society. No, that's not what Katie, Tommy and Ruth were fighting for.
The creativity-soul pairing. Yes, many have probably heard about neural network experiments in the direction of creativity - drawings, music, poems, stories. But while the digital brethren are trying to catch up with the level of a preschool child, people of flesh and blood more or less skillfully pour their knowledge, feelings, desires, dreams and thoughts onto canvases and notebooks, turning the idea into a realization, showing their uniqueness and signing off on the existence of the soul. It is through creativity that the soul, our eternal engine and tireless collaborator, is confirmed.
"Don't Let Me Go" is a special book. It raises many questions, but not all of them are answered, and there is no single formula by which to divide concepts into "right" and "wrong. This dystopia is first and foremost the cry of the soul, the soul disturbed by the struggle of the new technological world with its seeming indifference and prosperity against the old world, limited in its possibilities, but kind and compassionate.
I see no way of predicting whether or not you will like the book, either based on your taste or on your reading experience, your age, the books Ishiguro has already read. "Don't Let Me Go" is so unusual that an introduction to it is unlikely to go smoothly. It may bestow rapture, it may be discreetly liked, or it may cause complete rejection and aversion. Neutrality will not happen. He is a Briton of Japanese descent, to intrigue and surprise.
This article was sponsored by Daniela Chicos
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