Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a beautifully unsettling novel structured around deliberate non-resolution. Its slow, retrospective interior monologue narration leads you chapter by chapter from one unresolved question to the next. The author immerses the reader in a memory-like hazy reality, almost identical to the one many of us grew up in or close by. However, now and then the chilly feeling that something is off runs down your spine. In those moments, the questions begin to surface and you just can’t shake them off anymore.
Here is a list of nine recurring questions that have stayed with me ever since reading this book:
A bonus question: How many times did Kazuo Ishiguro use the word ”shrugged” throughout the novel? More than a hundred?
Personal footnote: In retrospect, I see distinct parallels between the plot of Never Let Me Go and my own life. I am exactly the same age as the main character and, just like her, I find myself at yet another turning point—a life curve, a narrative twist.
This book was recommended to me—significantly—by my childhood friend, with whom I recently reconnected in Dublin.
Mirroring the beginning of Ishiguro’s story, Ksenia U. and I were in the same class from elementary school until ninth grade, shared extracurriculars, trips, and artsy memories.
Then adulthood led us apart: universities, immigration, marriages, careers…
Finally, a third chapter arrived, merging memory, reconnection and this book into a single moment of reflection. A spiral of bittersweet reminiscence followed by the realization of time’s passage and mortality. Rising questions about the nature of early friendship and its accidentality.
Ishiguro’s work struck deep and with surgical precision. Maybe because it came to me at the right time. Or maybe because some questions are more significant than ready-made answers.
