Sure, there are some intense moments along the way, but it’s the final 1/8 that, retrospectively, illuminates the earlier parts. The truth is that much of the first, say, 7/8 of Never Let Me Go is remarkable in its banality what gives it momentum on a first read is the underlying eeriness, the creeping sense that something is awry with these children and their teachers and their situation, that there’s a mystery we need resolved. Subtlety is one of Ishiguro’s great gifts, of course, but his characteristic understatement actually demands a lot of his readers en route to its rewards, and on every other attempt I just couldn’t keep it up. Why? Because every time I have tried, I have found it too dull, too slow, too (to put a more positive spin on it) subtle. And yet I have never read it again until now-at least, not all the way through. Many people I know admire Never Let Me Go even more, so it has always seemed that it would be worth going back to, both to experience it in that fuller way you usually can on a rereading and to see if I might like to assign it some day. The Remains of the Day is one of my personal top 10 novels: I consider it pretty much perfect. I’ve tried several times since then to reread it. My copy of Never Let Me Go is a 2006 edition, and it may well have been in 2006 that I read it for the first time.
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