More Books into Movies

Another relatively recent book made into a movie was Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro.  I read it last summer (or earlier?) but my book club is reading it so it’s up for discussion.  I almost didn’t read this one because I’d read The Remains of the Day and hated it.  Everyone I knew loved that book but I had to struggle to get through it (I did finish it though!).  The story was told indirectly by the uptight and very proper English butler (a classic unreliable narrator) as the world (England during the war) changes around him.  It turns out his boss is a Nazi sympathizer.  Believe me, I got it, I just didn’t particularly like it.  

So it was with some reluctance that I picked up Never Let Me Go.  I think what intrigued me was that it was classified as sci-fi (which it so isn’t) and it seemed like such a departure for the author.  I much preferred this book.  For one thing, the characters are a lot more sympathetic - although this doesn’t have to be the case for me to enjoy a book, it helps.  (It's hard to care much about a Nazi sympathizer and his sycophantic butler.)  Also, the dystopian plot was more intriguing.  A group of children are cloistered at what appears to be an idyllic English boarding school, with Kathy (the narrator) and her two friends Ruth and Tommy, navigating the journey from child to adult.  There is lots of teen-aged angst - Kathy likes Tommy, who likes Ruth, who is kind of bitchy.  So a normal coming-of-age novel, right?  Except that something is not quite right at this boarding school - the kids are never allowed to leave until they reach adulthood, and they spend a lot of time making art.  It turns out that they are clones, created to donate their organs one by one, until they have no more organs to give.  It’s never spelled out how it is done, everything is spoken of in euphemistic terms, but you can imagine - first a kidney, then when you recuperate from that maybe you donate your corneas, or else part of your liver, but eventually you’ve got to give up the second kidney, the heart and the lungs, and it’s over.  The horror of their fate slowly creeps up on you.

This has to be one of the saddest books I’ve ever read.  It’s much more similar to The Remains of the Day than I first thought - the story is told indirectly through the (naive or unreliable) narrator and it’s about the English class system.  One of the mysteries of the book is why the characters simply accept their fate and never rebel against it.  They never try to escape from Hailsham to live in the outside world.  They never fight their caretakers, they never take their plight to the media and demand change.  They are taught that they are less than human and don't deserve anything better, so they know their place in society, and don’t question it.  Much like the lower/working classes in England, once upon a time.  Quite a moving book, and one that stays with you for a while.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but here’s the movie link:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1334260/

In other books into movie news - now I have to read Sarah’s Key and The Help, too.  Both movies look good, but I always have to read the book first.  Fortunately I already read Hunger Games - I’m looking forward to that one on the big screen.