Magic is when you’re reading one thing, but something much deeper is going into your head.
Reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s NEVER LET ME GO, I was first caught up in the story details, the intimate memories of the main character, Kathy, and the vivid pictures Kathy paints of her childhood, her friends, her teachers - and the mystery that surrounds them all.
As the story moves along, I find I’m unable to put the book down, even though Kathy is still describing her life’s memories. There’s something about Ishiguro that makes her memories become something more. (I can’t give details because of a spoiler situation.)
I can say that Kathy is a true innocent. And when she tells us of her life, we can only see the more global picture later on, as the picture widens. The profound implications of Kathy’s life don’t hit us right away. And because we see the world through her innocence, the final, nightmarish impact is even more shocking.
This was my first Kazuo Ishiguro book, and now I intend to read them all!
That’s a great book.
I highly recommend The Remains of the Day as that is not only my favorite Ishiguro book, but one of my all-time favorite books ever. Don’t let the premise dissuade you from reading it because it’s about an English butler. His story is an extremely powerful and moving one.
The Remains of the Day also features a very astute and observant narrator like Kathy H. in Never Let Me Go.
Because they are so hyper-sensitive and observant, it ironically can occasionally cause blind spots, not of the world they see, but in how they see themselves. They have a hard time reversing their astute narrative eye toward their own physical body and toward their one inner self – which is a kind of subtle subversion of the unreliable narrative trope.
They are actually extremely reliable narrators, but they have trouble looking at themselves with the same kind of intense gaze because it’s like staring into the sun – it’s hard to do that for too long because it burns and hurts.
That’s why they must indirectly look at themselves, like using mirrors to look at the sun.
You often see them focused on looking at mirrors or reflections, or noticing how someone, or themselves, are framed by something, like a doorway, or a window which highlights the other person’s gaze at them, or their own gaze looking at themselves or how they gaze at someone else. Both books really focus on perception and the acting of looking.
A person staring at you can also act like an emotional mirror, revealing what they really think of you, especially when they think you are unaware that they are looking at you.
In Never Let Me Go, Kathy H. often notices how people look at her, sometimes from afar away window.
In one big moment, Kathy H catches the true reaction of someone’s reaction toward her by catching their gaze in a mirror.
This is a kind of doubling of mirrors. The physical mirror showing the woman looking at Kathy H. Also the emotional mirror of the person’s look of horror on their face revealing what they really see when looking at Kathy H. I forget, but maybe the women might have also been standing in a doorway too, which adds another layer of emphasis to the woman’s gaze at Kathy H.
BTW, Never Let Me Go is heavily influenced by Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, as Flaubert makes heavy using of framing and reflections, like even using someone’s eyes as a literal mirror for the self.
Some of the scenes, the way they are constructed, in Never Let Me Go almost seem to be taken directly from the Madame Bovary which was intentional. I don’t know if you’ll like Flaubert’s novel, as it’s a very unusual novel, and the characters aren’t necessarily likable, but it’s amazingly modernist for such an old book.
I enjoyed reading it as a companion piece to Never Let Me Go, as it made me appreciate both books on a deeper level.
Here’s a great interview with Ishiguro on the Bookwom podcast talking about Never Let Me Go (as well as some connections to Madame Bovary). (FYI, the play button for the podcast can be sort easy to miss on the website, so just look for the play button icon with the word “listen” underneath it).
I love both but I don’t know that I would have ever put them together myself, thank you so much!!
I read NLMG first too, and loved it so much I decided to give Remains of the Day a shot even though I didn’t think I’d enjoy it, being a period piece. I adored it. Top 3 all time favourite book of mine. Ishiguro is a true genius.
The first 30 pages or so of The Remains of the Day were a bit slow and felt like a guide to being a butler. Once I realized what the book was doing it was fantastic. One of the best books I ever read.
I think I had the same initial reaction. Honestly don’t remember why I kept reading, as I kept asking myself why this book was so critically acclaimed. Who wants to read the recollections of a butler on a leisurely drive through the countryside?
Then, like you said, it sort of clicks and I was just pulled into the story. It was gradual subtle thing, much like Ishiguro’s subtle restrained writing style that tries not to call attention to itself, much like how the butler is trying to restrain himself and always stay calm and measured. By the end, however, I was flipping pages like an action-thriller, reading non-stop wondering what would happen next. This happened to me with some Jane Austen novels too.
Which book would you recommend to someone who has read both Remains and Never Let me Go? I read both the books after seeing a post on this subreddit and both have left me wanting for more.
It depends on what you liked about those books.
If you want more Ishiguro, then maybe try his first book A Pale View of Hills so you can see how he started, or Klara and the Sun, his most recent book which was well received. I haven’t read it though but I plan too.
Some other works are more experimental / surreal though like The Unconsoled and Buried Giant, so they are polarizing, but I like that kind of writing too. If you decide to read Unconsoled, try reading/listening to Ishiguro’s short story first, which I linked in this comment here. Be sure to listen to the post-story discussion as it’ll help you prepare to read The Unconsoled.
What I particularly like about Ishiguro is his exploration of narration in fiction (how the story is told to you by a narrator, in Isiguro’s case, it’s usually a 1st-person narrator), and that the"truth" that they see is just a kind of story that can be easily altered by memory and by one own subjectivity (how they interpret those events). These narrators often have a kind of flaw.
Try Blind Assassin or Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood with are both fantastic books. Atwood often plays with narration and uses language in interesting ways. Both books involve an attempt at organizing the past, similar to Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day.
In Oryx and Crake, Atwood mixes both present-tense first-person narration with omniscient third-person narration. It portrays a man in a post-apocalyptic future trying to tell himself a story about his own past. When inside his mind, the narration shifts to him as a storyteller and it switches to third-person narration. There are also people within his narration that tell their own story of the past occasionally, so the book has many layers.
Blind Assassin is a great mix of different genres: gothic mystery, romance, adventure and a touch of sci-fi. The book deals with narration and storytelling as well. Atwood likes to play with language in more overt ways than Ishiguro but she’s just as powerful. Maybe try this book first.
The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje is similar to The Remains of the Day because it also has a flawed narrator. It’s about a boy setting sail from Sri Lanka to England, and the story shifts between the ship and his adult years. I haven’t read this yet, but it’s been on my to-read list for a long time, and it’s often suggested as similar to Ishiguro’s books.
Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes is also good as well, and also has a narrator trying to make sense of the past through his recollections. It’s a short read, almost like a novella rather than a novel.
“A Bullet in the Head” by Tobias Wolff is one of my favorite short stories ever. It’s about a man recounting his entire life in a split second. This story hits you hard. You can find it in his short story collection The Night In Question: Stories but it’s also been included in many “best of” anthologies.
“Death by Landscape” by Margaret Atwood – I know I’ve mentioned her often, but this is another story that absolutely blew me away. It also deals with recollections, about how this one painting conjures up all these memories for the narrator, in a very haunting and evocative way. It starts slow but like The Remains of the Day, it gradually builds up the tension. You can find the story in many anthologies as well, and also in her Wilderness Tips collection.
For something more conventional, try:
Of Human Bondage by William Somerset Maugham
Like Water Like Elephants by Sara Gruen
I was really moved by both novels. Gruen’s book alternates between the past and present, and you learn a lot about Depression-era America. It’s an interesting combination of history, adventure and light romance.
Maugham’s book is really old but it still resonated with me: a story of a young man’s life in the early late 1800s / early 1900s, a rare peak at what life was truly like in those times in the US and Europe.