Never Let Me Go

I've re-read The People's Act of Love twice, but it feels like both more and less. This is the book that shook my already quivering soul (for more perfectly justified hyperbole just click here), but I can never quite remember the plot. Each time I read it, I feel more immersed in it, like that's my real life and this life, the one where I'm typing away at a keyboard, is the fantasy. But I cannot tell you the names of the main characters without a quick Google search to jog my memory. 

Does it matter, a part of me pipes up? I'm not writing an essay on it! Well, not exactly...

My point is that I could read The People's Act of Love over and over and make new discoveries every time (like the plot and the characters' names, you quip), like an entomologist in the depths of the Amazon rainforest (you know, assuming we haven't cut or burnt the entire thing down by the time I finally publish this post).

That kind of constant epiphany was what I was expecting when I started re-reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. After all, any first reading of an Ishiguro is the slow (dare I say glacial) unveiling of a mystery that usually kicks off dominoes of existential questions that leave you reeling. In Never Let Me Go, those dominoes begin with the ethics of human cloning and tick on over in neat rows to what makes one human and deserving of human rights. 

So, on my second reading, I was looking forward to the literary equivalent of knowing winks from the author to me, the kind that make me want to be a better writer. But what I got was a novel where I already knew the ending -- which is, yes, stating the obvious -- and where very very little happens, because that's kind of the point, but that made getting to said ending very tedious. 

Perhaps the real issue is Ishiguro Fatigue. I had just finished reading Klara and the Sun, which covers some of the same ground as Never Let Me Go at a similar pace. The narrator of Klara and the Sun is a kind of android known as an AF (Artificial Friend), which as the name suggests is usually purchased as a companion for children. Her otherness allows for plenty of opportunities for reflection on a world both familiar and unfamiliar, but I confess that at points I was bored.

Given that, why return to the scene of, well, not the same crime, but a similar one? I rarely re-read books, there being so many books that I want to read that the list may as well be infinite. But I was looking for the equivalent of a warm duvet on cold rainy night; I was looking for comfort and I was sure I'd find it in Never Let Me Go.

I'm being hard on good ol' Ishiguro. Both Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day are great novels -- the best adjective I can think of is 'haunting'. But I made the mistake of going back to the haunted house in the daylight, when things generally look less fantastical and more ... previously lived in. If you haven't read them, do so. Now. If you already have, Klara and the Sun should be your next read -- but be forewarned: this is a slow stroll rather than a fast-paced adventure.

The Buried Giant

What follows here is a blogpost I wrote but never finished and so never published. It's a pity because I'm interested to see where I was going with this, especially since I recently re-read Never Let Me Go and I have thoughts.

Kazuo Ishiguro is a one-trick pony. The trick happens to be the equivalent of a naturally born unicorn-pegasus hybrid (apparently known as an alicorn (or even hornipeg, thank you Wikipedia but that cannot possibly be correct, can it?) but which I will call a princess twilight sparkle and await a copyright infringement suit from Hasbro). Now that I have set the tone of my return to the blogosphere, I ask you: Who doesn’t like ponies?

A little while ago, I read an article about intelligent animals that appear to count or answer questions, but are really responding to subtle cues in the examiner's behaviour. Like Clever Hans, a pony that could do simple addition with single-digit numbers, but was really responding to an unconscious tic his owner tacked when stating the correct answer.

Clever Hans and his owner

This article reminded me of the week that I briefly, but with the best of intentions, adopted two puppies. My flatmate’s girlfriend had found a litter of strays playing in the street, but could only catch two of them. Since it was December, and my flatmate and co were visiting family for two weeks, the pups were mine to house-train. So, a few times a day, the pups and I would walk outside and I would pretend not to watch them do their business, but because I was watching them, once they had done their business, I would praise them to make sure it stuck that peeing outside was almost as good as being a princess twilight sparkle.

But then, once inside again, the female would immediately pee on the carpet. E-v-e-r-y t-i-m-e. I started to suspect she was messing with me. I watched her like a hawk to see whether I could find some clue in her behaviour as to her behaviour. Each time she peed inside I would discipline her by lowering my voice and repeating her name, and each time she peed outside I would praise her by raising my voice and repeating her name. But, still, she peed inside. E-v-e-r-y t-i-m-e.

Then I realised that she was just squatting outside and not actually doing her business, but because I was praising her thinking she was doing her business, she thought she was supposed to just squat outside and, since she still needed to pee, would do her business inside even though it led to her being called by name in an ominous tone of voice. She also hollowed out the couch from underneath, so that she could nap inside the couch, and hid the stuffing.

Ishiguro's novel The Buried Giant is about an elderly couple named Axl and Beatrice who are on a journey to visit their son. Their journey takes place in sixth-century Britain, a period I confess I know very little about. The highlights according to Wikipedia are: plague, famine and drought.  The highlights according to the novel are that the Romans are gone, and the Saxons and Britons have been at war, but the Saxons have won, and there is a kind of tense truce between them. Ogres are real, but not a problem "provided one did not provoke them". After all "in those days there was so much else to worry about. How to get food out of the hard ground; how not to run out of firewood..."

The one-trick pony that is Ishiguro's writing style physically takes form in the novel as a "mist" that is erasing the corners of people's memories and a dragon named Querig (which is dragon for princess twilight sparkle thank you very much). The main characters share a Alzheimer's-like amnesia of their own lives that affects even their memories of their son and where he lives, so that their entire journey is tinged with anxiety. Along their tense journey, the elderly couple meet villagers, children, soldiers and miscellaneous ferrymen, all affected by the mist.

This pony has been called many names by many readers, including "level banality" and "rhetoric in search of a form", an insult so snide it hisses. But let's call it Clever Hans princess twilight sparkle here. All of Ishiguro's stories slowly, so slowly that it's almost painful, unveil their secrets in layers as they speak, as they act, as they reason, as they dream. In Ishiguro's other novels, this amnesia that slowly builds a model of itself protects and hides secrets, both historical and intimate. In Never Let Me Go, the dilemma is the ethics of cloning. In Artist of a Floating World, it is Japanese actions during World War II. (I am not even going to pretend I understood The Unconsoled, however,)

On another level, the novel is a good analogy for its author’s style - here the metaphor becomes a bit strained...

And? And ...? I guess I'll never know now. To avoid cross-contamination, I'll blog my thoughts about Never Let Me Go in a different post.