PulpLit.net

never let me go

I'm sitting in the most beautiful hotel in Hanoi, and I just finished reading the most beautiful book in the world (over a most beautiful breakfast). If you know me at all, you probably are sounding a skepticism bell, as I am known to exaggerate, and to proclaim "favorite", "best ever", and "all-time-greatest" with alarming frequency. But in this case, I think I can honestly say I've just finished one of the most fragile, beautiful novels I've ever come across.

And so, I highly recommend Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I've read another lovely novel by him, An Artist of the Floating World, which is similarly haunting. I remain amazed that Ishiguro is a middle-aged man. In reading Artist, I believed it was an autobiography of an old man, reminiscing about WWII, until Steve filled me in: it was fiction. And in this novel, Ishiguro's voice as 30-year old Kathy H. is so convincing that I am a bit dazed to have closed the pages and know that she's not living and breathing somewhere nearby.

While Artist certainly stuck with me, this novel, Never Let Me Go, taps into a different realm of understanding. It's simply stunning. I couldn't live with myself if I gave anything away (to the point that I was shielding the wandering eyes of Steve and Theo, both sitting next to me on the plane, actually afraid for their own well-being if the mystery was revealed), but more than that, I couldn't imagine if you all, whoever you are, didn't go out immediately and start reading it.

It's everything you could want from a book: it draws you in and grips you, up until and even after you've finished; its settings are dangerously familiar and unfamiliar at once; the characters are perfectly realized, both in their faults and their goodness. But it is the language, the easy-going, conversational tone, slowly revealing more and more of the truth, in such an aware and peaceful way, that makes it truly special.

I don't think you can come away from a novel like this without thinking about the world a bit differently. It's rare that a book gets into my head and wiggles itself around until it has actually changed the landscape. And I'm not sure why this one did: it's such a page-turner that it would be a guilty pleasure if it weren't so heart-breakingly beautiful and smart. It's almost as though it's not a book, but a sudden realisation about how close something so different, so sad, actually might be.

If you read this entry, please go out and get Never Let Me Go from the library or your local bookshop. And then come back here and let me know how you liked it. And in the meantime, recommend to me some books that have changed your brain's shape.

Rest assured that the Mollie's adventures in Barthelona and in a wee town in Switzerland were nothing short of a trip to a perfect memory lane. Dinner at 10, fresh mountain air, great friends and great wine, narrow laneways, funky little boutiques with size 35 shoes, and cheese for breakfast. Barthelona is officially on the list of Great Cities, and if you go, I highly recommend staying at the Hotel Banys Orientals, in the Gothic Quarter, an area full of cafes, one-of-a-kind boutiques, and such teeny-tiny, walkable streets that you'll never find your way out (nor would you want to).

Genf was also pure delight, with the most perfect of weather, even better croissants, and most importantly, the most achingly perfect friends. I can't lie and say that I'm not having severe pangs of the Genf of yesteryear -- such a beautiful, easy city, full of such completely lovely people. Getting back to Bangkok was a shock to the newly cleaned out system. It's good that we've returned to Euro-influences in Hanoi, at least for a brief stay of execution.

But in better news, I'm waiting anxiously to hear from the Masters program to which I've applied, and all in all things are looking up for the next few months. And after reading this book Never Let Me Go (and the new Harry Potter before it), I am feeling re-inspired to write. So I'm trying to get a bit more scaffolding on my days, and I do believe that will improve my gloomy state immensely much. So while Genf was a bit of a blow, I'm keeping the chin well up.