I quote from Bol's English bookssite (too lazy to type it myself):
"From the acclaimed author of "The "Remains of the Day and "When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love.
As a child, Kathy-now thirty-one years old, lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.
And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed-even comforted-by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham's nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood-and about their lives now.
A tale of deceptive simplicity, "Never Let Me Go slowly reveals an extraordinary emotional depth and resonance-and" takes its place among Kazuo Ishiguro's finest work." Says Bol.

All Ishiguro's books - this one too - have the same effect on me: I can't stop reading. When I finish the book (especially this one) I'm slightly disappointed and in less than two days the book keeps haunting me. I think this book is basically a book about hopes and dreams, that in the end never come true. That's depressing. The end is rather peculiar. This is a weird book en I would like to know what others think about it. So, I'll start a Dutch bookring with the book.

Participants were:
Savourypastie
Suzy26
MaaikeB
iiwi
Plinius
Olifant
dutch-flybaby

The ring is now closed and it's a pc-book again.

I received the book from yvonnep at OBCZ Cafe Lef. I am looking forward to reading this one. It will go the the top of my TBR list

I was surprised when I started reading this book, having only read 'When We Were Orphans', at it's subject matter. Without giving too much of the plot away to our fellow bookring readers, I didn't expect the author to tackle the ethics of a controversial topic.

However, I did enjoy this book a lot. I agree with yvonnep that this book is about hopes and dreams being unfulfilled. I think Ishiguru succeeds because the characters he describes are seemingly ordinary; children growing up and living their lives in a way that we are all able to relate to. The circumstances are unusual, but the emotions they experience are the same.

By creating characters who are almost overly human, he raises questions about identity, and what it is that defines us as humans.

Although depressing, I think it makes us question the ethics of the purpose of these characters lives. I think it reminds us of the fragility of life and the importance of making the most of the time that we have.

Popped in the post for Suzy26 today.

Found in my mailbox yesterday. Thanks for sending it to me, savourypastie. I will start on it right away. Thanks for ringing it, yvonnep.

It is very difficult to say something about this novel without giving too much of the plot away. Although it is very well written, the story itself is quite disturbing. How do you live your life, how do you form relationships with a future like that ahead of you? Why did not anyone protest against what was happening? The book is still haunting my mind even though I finished reading it two days ago.

I will send the book to MaaikeB tomorrow.

Received the book. Thanks!

Yesterday night I finished this book and woke up at 5 am because of a terrible nightmare about being on a gurney while a nurse tapped on my side to indicate the spot where the kidney or liver should be taken out. So much for the haunting quality of this novel! I really like books in which the author explores an idea like this. 'How would someone live in this world if...' The book I read before this one was Marlen Haushofers Die Wand, in which a woman has to survive on her own after she had been shut off from the rest of the world by an invisible wall behind which all living creatures died. An extremely haunting story as well.
However, I liked the idea and the subject matter better than the way in which the story was written. Sometimes it just dragged on and then I felt almost tempted to skip some pages to reach the end somewhat sooner. I didn't, though, and I am glad that I could join this ring. I'm sure this story will stay with me for some time, but I hope I won't dream about it anymore. Thanks, yvonnep, for starting this ring.

Received.

Ik had nog nooit iets van Ishiguro gelezen, voor dit boek. Ik vond het een prachtig boek, liefdevol geschreven, waarin de schrijver zijn personages alle rust en ruimte laat om zichzelf te zijn. Ik heb mensen horen vertellen dat ze Ishiguro afstandelijk vinden schrijven. Ik vind dat niet. Beschouwend, ja, maar zeer zeker niet afstandelijk.
Het verhaal ging voor mij over dromen en het niet bereiken van dromen. Hoe kinderen langzaam maar zeker losgelaten worden in de harde werkelijkheid, hoe je droomt en die dromen laat varen, omdat er logische bezwaren zijn, vriendschappen zijn, omdat je je een houding moet geven, het je natuur niet is, of omdat je gewoon niet echt doorzet, zonder te weten waarom precies. Het kloon-gegeven van het boek, zat me eerder in de weg dan dat het voor mij een meerwaarde had in het verhaal. Het verhaal over liefde en sterfelijkheid had ook zonder gekund vond ik, en het ik weet nog steeds niet wat hij er mee wilde bereiken. Het meevoelen met zijn karakters werd voor mij, door de wereld waarin zij leefden bemoeilijkt, alsof het verhaal over dromen en het niet bereiken daarvan niet voor ons normale mensen geldt.

I never read anything of Ishiguro before this novel. I like it very much, writen with affection, with the writer giving his characters the room and calm to be themselves. I heared people say the thought Ishiguro was distand in his writing. I do not agree, contamplative, yes, but not aloof.
The story was for me about dreams and not reaching them. How children are slowly set free in the hard reality, how you dream and not follow that dream, because of logic, because there are friendships, because you have to meantain a certain coolness, it's not your nature, or simply because you don't folow up the dream, not nowing exactly why.
The clone part of the book was more a barrier for me then something else. I thought the story could have been told without it, and I'm not sure what Isiguro goal was in this. It seemed that because of that story the story about dreams isn't true for us, normal people.

in the postbox today, thanks iiwi! Looks fascinating, am looking for a quiet moment...

When one of us dies early, or leads a damaged life, we wonder quietly: What sort of a life is that, without the home and the car and the two children, a life with a shorter life-expectancy and with a fixed future full of pain? Ishiguro compassionately describes how people may grow into such a life. And he shows it's a normal life, because we all try to live as best as we can and use all our possibilities, even if we have lots of limitations and unfulfilled dreams.
Then Kathy asks:"Why did you have to prove a thing like that, Miss Emily? Did someone think we didn't have souls?"
I think here is the central theme of the novel; Kathy’s question opens my eyes once more to a world full of people who profit by pretending not to hear and to see, and by wilful misunderstanding. To me this book is not only about the Hailsham children's sufferings, but also about the fate of people and animals in ‘our’ world, who suffer because of man-made and insignificant inequality.
In spite of all this, there’s life itself with everything that belongs to it, pettiness and magnanimity, horror and love, tears and joy, fear and acceptance. Wonderful!

Received by post from Plinius today with a beautiful postcard (Ploegende boer, 1898, Piet Mondriaan). Looking forward to this one!

The book is on its way to dutch-flybaby. Will write a journal later on. A novel which keeps you thinking. I find the image of a lost corner beautiful. For now two qoutes I wrote down when reading this book.


Ruth had been right: Madame was afraid of us. But she was afraid of us in the same way someone might be afraid of spiders. We hadn't been ready for that. It had never occurred to us to wonder how we would feel, being seen like that, being the spiders.


...Then after a while a van pulled up, maybe thirty yards ahead of me, and a man got out dressed as a clown. He opened the back of the van and took out a bunch of helium balloons, about a dozen of them, and for a moment, he was holding the balloons in one hand, while he bent down and rummaged about in his vehicle with the other. As I came closer, I could see the balloons had faces and shaped ears, and they looked like a little tribe, bobbing in the air above their owner, waiting for him.
Then the clown straightened, closed up his van and started walking, in the same direction I was walking, several paces ahead of me, a small suitcase in one hand, the balloons in the other.......... Every so often, I could see the man’s fist, where all the balloon strings converged, and I could see he had them securely twisted together and in a tight grip. Even so, I kept worrying that one of the strings would come unravelled and a single balloon would sail off up into that cloudy sky.


Edit: The lives of Kathy, Ruth and Tommy look so much like ours. They are just like human beings: they live, work, fight, love, die. The only difference is they can’t make their own choices in how they want to live their lifes, because Madame’s experiment determines that. It’s this ‘outside force’ who decides about your being which made me uncomfortable. This force is so strong, you forget/don’t risk to ask yourself the questions: “Why? Why do I live my life like this? And can I decide for another how they should live their lives?

Found this book in the mailbox today. Thanks Olifant for mailing it and for the beautiful postcard! Will read asap :-)

What an unusual book this was for me. At first I had doubts about reading this book any further, because I wanted to know what this carer was supposed to do and who they care for etc. etc. I was so focused on all these analytic parts of the story that I almost missed seeing that these people were placed in a certain position which lead to a certain way of life that they accepted because they did not know another way. I often feel I am lived because of my (life/family)history and the age and part of the world I was born into. I now realise these last years I have started to find my own way within these boundaries of time and place and I try to make the best of it, just like the people in the book. I'm sure this is not the last time I'll think about this book...

And 'Never let me go' is back home. Thanks to all of you for the beautiful comments you have made. It makes the book even more special. I count you all in for the next Ishiguro (and let's hope we don't have to wait too long).