I was too late in reading this one. And I
almost did not read it. For the in the first page the narrator says ,’I am a
carer’ and I was a bit repulsed, thinking- hospitals beds and lingering sickness.
However I finished the page and then the book didn't let me go. I am glad I
stayed till the end of the page. Otherwise I would've missed one of the best reading
experiences of my biblio-life.
So , if this book is not about hospital and
illness then what is it about? It’s about childhood and memories of childhood, about friendships and betrayals,about moving on and about love. That’s what Ishiguro makes you think until he reveals what’s beneath all this –a horrific ,terrible truth that the characters
know , yet do not and have to grow up to embrace it.
This is the story of Kathy, our narrator,
Ruth and Tommy growing up in a dystopian
contemporary England. And through Kathy we
hear their stories and discover this terrible future that awaits them
outside their school.
Ishiguro of course delivers his story
beautifully, slipping in bits of the truth like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. You
file them away impatiently- yes, yes , but tell me what happened the them? Then
when the penny drops, you hiss with an in drawn breath and all of a sudden you
have tumultuous reaction as you deal with this revelation, which you realize
you kind of knew all along and with the story of the lives of the people you had been
steeped in.
In the end, I was not and still not sure
what I am carrying around with me- the sorrow of the relationships or the import of
this terrible truth.
Finally? Never let this book go. And that
says it all.
