Daily Blague

It is much too soon to write intelligently about Kazuo Ishiguro's overwhelming new book, Never Let Me Go (Knopf, 2005). When I opened the novel this morning, I knew what narrator's classmates were in for, but if ever there was a novel that is not about what it is "about," this is the one, and to discuss the book's real significance, the wellsprings of its greatness, requires completely spoiling the suspense - which for me was enormous, even if I "knew." I didn't know. You can't know until you've read the book. Then you can talk about it. Then I can talk about it. Fine as The Remains of the Day is, Never Let Me Go is a masterpiece.

Mr Ishiguro is a writer of immense precision, but this is the first time, to my mind, that he has completely synchronized his precision with his objectives in such a way that the latter are always made clear. As the tone deepens and the "horror movie stuff" looms menacingly, it becomes apparent - palpable, actually - that this is a mightily redemptive book about the mortality that faces us all, not the freak show that it might have been. The publishers (if not the author himself) must have followed the agony of Terri Schiavo with nervous incredulity. No sooner do we shake off the aftermath of that creepy affair than we're deluged by an even more powerful wave from the same salt sea.

It should be noted that, if Never Let Me Go might be considered a work of science fiction, that fiction has been set to tell not of something that might happen in the future, but of omething that might have happened in the past; Mr Ishiguro has dyed his novel in colors that are complete familiar and even somewhat passé.

The title is taken from an old pop song. It might just as well have been taken from Brahms's Song of Destiny.

Putting off writing completely and candidly about this book would drive me mad. Consider this a "spoiler alert" - don't follow this link to Portico if you don't want to know the true dimensions of Never Let Me Go.