Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
As I read the entire novel, I wanted to cry. I’m not sure why, but something about the title just pulls some heartstring and makes me want to weep for the emotional closeness that deep relationships bring. Ishiguro helped that feeling along with his writing; the way he revealed both plot and characters slowly, almost leisurely, throughout the novel kept the melancholia beneath the surface, right to the end, even though it was always present. But I’ll come to that later.
Kathy reminded me a bit of Nick in The Great Gatsby. By the end of the novel, she seemed almost pointless – a prop through whom to analyze Tommy and Ruth, the more interesting characters. I’m honestly not even sure whether I buy her as a woman, though maybe I’m just being harsh on Ishiguro. Keeping her emotions on an even keel, Kathy doesn’t make it easy for readers to analyze her – or, I sometimes felt, to get to know her the way I felt like I knew Tommy and Ruth. But, I will admit, by the end I was rather attached to her.
While the strongest feeling I got from the book was grief, the strangest feeling was one of familiarity. Hailsham was my high school. I don’t mean that we were all clones or anything. I wasn’t a boarding student, but the descriptions of the grounds and student life brought back lots of memories of rolling lawns and stately buildings, back gardens and dormitories. That was creepy. But also a beautiful reminder of my close-knit group of friends -- our core group remained strong for the full four years, and we did everything together.
This all leads me to my main point: to me, this is a book about chosen family, It’s a book about surrounding yourself with the people who make your life meaningful, taking the time you’re given to appreciate what you’ve got and whom you’ve got. Towards the end, Kathy mentions some regret – that she’s left things too late. From the way she tells the story, it doesn’t seem like she could have done much differently; her story has a logical flow. But it makes me think about the things I still want to do with my life that I keep putting off. Particularly when my anxiety and/or depression are acting up, I start panicking about how old I am, and how time keeps slipping away from me. Reading this book was another reminder that I am getting older, but that that if I start now, I still have time to accomplish my most important goals.
But it’s not just things I want to do; it’s people that I want to spend time with. The relationships that I value, and those I want to keep close to my heart. This book served as an affirmation for me of the necessity of chosen family. That’s how you get through life: loving and being loved by others. There is solitude, yes, and learning to live with yourself. There are long drives through the countryside of England. But then there are the bonds you form, and the memories you treasure, that get you through everything in the end.
There’s a loss that accompanies that part of life, too. Despite being relatively young, a number of people I was close to, of various ages, have died, and dealing with that pain and that remembrance is tricky, to say the least. That’s where the following quotation comes in.
But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t see them ever fading. I lost Ruth, then I lost Tommy, but I won’t lose my memories of them.
Through the mess of everyday life and anxiety and depression and minute distractions, I need to take a step back and remember the people who have made a difference in my life. To celebrate both those who are gone and those who are here, making every day a blessing for me. To my family, both by blood and choice, I love you.
