Talking It Out- Climax or Resolution

"We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all." -pg 260

Over all the blogs I have written on Never Let Me Go, I have been able to make quite a few connections between it and Brave New World. So for my very last blog, I found one more connection to wrap it all up (:D).

My penultimate blog on Brave New World was about the resolution and how it came about. In the resolution, the World Controller Mustapha Mond sat down with John the Savage and told him every little detail about the world and how it came to exist the way it did. After the riot cause by John the Savage, this was the resolution to the book. In Never Let Me Go, there is no riot. However,there is a situation where the main characters sit down with the people who orchestrated their entire lives and hash out all the detail of why things are the way they are. This all-revealing conversation was easily recognizable as the climax of the novel.

While both books used the more omniscient characters to explain to the characters and the audience exactly what the books were about, the conversations where this took place took on different roles.

Boating Symbolism

"'I wonder how it got here,' I said. I'd raised my voice to let it get to the others and had expected an echo. But the sound was surprisingly close, like I was in a carpeted room. Then I heard Tommy say behind me: 'Maybe this is what Hailsham looks like now. Do you think?" -pg 224

A boat is stranded in a marsh near Kingsfield. When Kathy becomes Ruth's carer, Ruth begs Kathy to take her to see it. This is partly because she is interested in the boat, but mostly because she is interested in seeing Tommy again in the Kingsfield center. The three unite for a car ride out to see the boat stranded in the marsh. The trek to the boat is hard for Ruth, but when they reach the boat, they all realize (along with the audience) that the journey to the boat was actually a symbolic of journey in memory back to Hailsham.

The primary characteristic of the boat is that it is stuck. Hailsham has been closed at this point and shares its uselessness trait with the boat. The characters recognize this. Something they don't mention is what else the boat symbolizes. I thought the boat could symbolize the relationships of the characters. Ruth, Tommy, and Kathy are now so close to the fate that they have been dwelling on for so long, that they cannot escape it. They are stuck with each other, stuck with their fate, and stuck with the past they shared.

Juxtaposition

"You can always hear traffic on the big roads beyond the fencing, and there's a general feeling they never properly finished converting the place. A lot of the donors' rooms you can't get to with a wheelchair, or else they're too stuff or too draughty....Later on, after the Kingsfield became the familiar and precious place it did, I was in one of the admin buildings and came across a framed black-and-white photo of the place the way it was before it was converted, when it was still a holiday camp for ordinary families." -pg 218

The first paragraph of the nineteenth chapter of Never Let Me Go describes the relatively poor conditions at Kingsfield medical center. The place is depicted as uncomfortable, badly made, and generally unhelpful to the needs of its patients. As a carer, Kathy should despise the place. It's her job to make her patients as comfortably as possible and Kingsfield hinders her ability to do this. However, the second paragraph, quoted above, Kathy claims she grew to the love the center. Putting the unfavorable description of Kingsfield right next to Kathy's praise of it juxtaposes to images of the center. This juxtaposition is never immediately explained. Therefore, I assumed that Kathy cared for someone she loved in that center, possible Ruth. Or perhaps some important development occurs there. Maybe she will meet a long lost favorite guardian or someone of that nature. It is a mystery for now, but clearly the juxtaposition of the images of Kingsfield hint strongly at Kathy's experiences as a carer in the third part of Never Let Me Go.

Setting that Matches

"Then there's the solitude. you grow up surrounded by crowds of people, that's all you'be ever known, and suddenly your're a country, center to center, hospital to hospital, sleeping in over nights, no one to talk to about your worries no one to have a laugh with." -pg 207

On page 206 of Never Let Me Go I discovered there is third and final part to the novel. Upon encountering this final part, I immediately thought about all the observations I had made about Ishiguro's structure. However, after reading in a few pages, I began to make connections to the stages of life the characters went through and the setting of the individual parts.

Part one was set entirely at Hailsham. Hailsham was described as an isolated place, surrounded by fields and well-organized by guardians, routines, and rules. The description of Hailsham matched the way the students lived. They isolated themselves from their future and made their own rules that obeyed strictly. But they also had fun, played games, and painted. The way children lived matched the place they lived in.

Part two was all about the Cottages. The Cottages were also isolated, but less organized and less pleasant than Hailsham. The Cottages were based in a drafty, chilly farm with fewer classes and teachers than Hailsham. Kathy experience at the Cottages reminded me a lot of the way the Cottages were described. She  had more personal problems, got separated a little more from her friends, but lived a freer more independent life.

Part three has no stationery setting. It is simply base on which center or part of the country Kathy happens to be in. She spends a lot of time driving in the car, contemplating her relationships and past. The plot focuses more on the people than the place, just as Kathy focuses more on her relationships than where she is.

By matching the setting with experience Kathy has there, Ishiguro gives the reader a picture of how Kathy's life is before he even writes about it.

Hanging On

"It never occurred to me that our lives, until then so closely interwoven, could unravel and separate over a think like that." -pg 197

Kathy, like so many of her friends, doesn't take her future very seriously. They don't openly contemplate or fear what lies ahead for them. I have wondered how they deal with what they know will happen to them when they grow up. At Hailsham, I assumed the artwork they students did was outlet enough. Now, at the Cottages I have begun to notice a trend, particularly in Kathy's case that could be a way she deals with her hesitancy about her future.

Kathy is extremely loyal to Hailsham and her friends from there. As the Hailsham group begins to spread out a little in their new freedom of the cottages, Kathy becomes more and more desperate to hang on to Ruth and the others. The title "Never Let Me Go" reinforces how important the relationships she has are to Kathy. Indeed, the student from Hailsham are the most important part of Kathy's life. Her need hang on to them might be the way she deals with the pressure of her hazy future.

Mood Swings

"On that journey home, with the darkness setting in over those long empty roads, it felt like the three of us were close again and I didn't want anything to come along and break the mood." -pg 183

I have mentioned before Ishiguro's impressive ability to note the small details, facial expressions, and body language of his characters. In every conversation or scene he add these details in to explain why the characters interact the way they do. These details not only create vivid and believable scenes and relationships, but the also create an effect on the reader.

Mood in most novels I have read flips back and forth between a few different feelings. In  Brave New World, the mood switched from factual and blunt to desperate and despairing a few times, but there were very few other emotions set by the characters. The students at Hailsham are written with extreme detail. This details of body language and expression create many fickle moods. This may because they are youthful and emotional, but I think its the details that allow the moods swing back and forth so quickly. The characters can experience elation, sorrow, excitement, curiosity, frustration, and apathy within a few pages. These mood swings may give the audience a bit of whiplash, but they make the novel true to reality connects with the audience easily.

The Ishiguro Method

"She had a sort of half-smile, the sort a mother might have in an ordinary family, weighting things up while the children jumped and screamed around her asking her to say, yes, they could do whatever." -pg 159

The comparison above is one of many, many examples through the novel where Ishiguro uses analogies. Something I have repeatedly begun to notice is the particular sorts of situations he uses them in.Whenever characters are experiencing an epiphany, learn something new, experience a development in emotions or relationships, or notice something new for the first time. In every scenario, the characters are experiencing some sort of growth or development in some area. Ishiguro never uses imagery or comparisons to describe the way someone looks or other arbitrary purposes. The effect produced by Ishiguro's analogies is an analysis of the characters and how they feel about the many situations they are involved in. I even wrote an equation for his method: analogy+development= character analysis. I named it the Ishiguro method.

Fiction or Futuristic?

"Since each of us was copied at some point from a normal person, there with his or her life. This meant, at least in theory, you'd be able to find the person you were modelled from." -pg 139

This was a huge milestone in the book. Before now I had just assumed that the students were taken from their parents at a very young age without ever meeting them. Up until now I had assumed that Never Let Me Go  was the normal sort of fiction: it didn't really happen, but it could in the normal modern world or history. However, the concepts involved in the passage above are not of the normal modern world of today. Cloning people is a science not yet mastered or utilized. Nevertheless, in Never Let Me Go cloning has been developed into a program with schools and guardians and everything it needs to run smoothly.

Brave New World was obviously a futuristic sort of fiction from the start. The process of "birthing" and conditioning in Brave New World was never hidden the way it is in Never Let Me Go. I suspect there are more surprises to come in the newly revealed futuristic fiction that is Never Let Me Go.

The Bigger Picture

"We certainly didn't think much about our lives beyond the Cottages, or about who ran them, or how they fitted into the larger world. None of us thought like that in those days." -pg 116

For a while now, my feeling that this is not ordinary school and these are no ordinary students has not only been growing, but has been confirmed. Miss Lucy was one of the characters who had the greatest role in proving true my doubts. She seems to care more than anybody did or will about the future of the students. The students have a disturbing and almost idiotic lack of curiosity about what they are intended for in the future. They have a massive failure to care about the bigger picture. If I were them here are some the questions I would be asking:

Who organized Hailsham and why is so much better than other schools? Why are some students carers and others donors and who dictates when the switch is made? Who are the students modeled after and how? Are the students duplicate bodies or actual duplicate people? Do any students ever rebel or run from what they have been chosen for? How many donations can a person make without dying?

I am really interested in the bigger picture and what it looks like. For some reason, the students aren't.

Structure: In Parts

"Part Two" -pg 113

Ishiguro's trademark for this particular novel is definitely his clear and concise structure. He has the progression of his setting, his characters, and slowly revealed plot down to a science. The first part has an introduction of all the most important characters, and introduction to Hailsham, and a depiction of the students' childhood through a progression of long anecdotal flashbacks. The second part is much of the same, except missing the introductions and containing descriptions of the Cottages rather than Hailsham. I can only assume that the third part will follow the characters into their adulthood and lives as donors. This ridiculously and obviously designed structure helps reader fall into a pattern or reading. The pattern allows the reader to have the ability to almost predict what will happen next. When the pattern is interrupted, or there is a surprising scene woven into the pattern, the interruption or surprise becomes exaggerated and even more noticeable than it would without the rigid structure. The audience can recognize special events and milestones and their importance much easier when they are displayed across such and meticulously organized structure.

Parallel Progression

"And she tells me to sit down, and I end up exactly where I was the last time, you know, that time years ago. And I can tell she's remembering that time as well, because she starts talking about it like it was only the day before." -pg 107

Miss Lucy is one of the most driving characters of the plot line. She is not a main character, but the scenes with her in them typically reveal a truth about the future of the students of Hailsham. She had a conversation with Tommy once before. This conversation gave Tommy more depth and purpose and a hint as to what might come in his future. That was in his childhood. Now, Miss Lucy sits him down again in the very situation as the first time.  In this conversation he learns a little bit more about what his future will hold. As far as setting and content go, these situations create a parallel in the book between his young years and his teenage years. The parallel assists the progression in the book that I have written a lot about. The parallel milestones in Tommy's life and understanding of his life help show how and when he grows into who he will be when he eventually does have to become a donor.

Teenage Reactions

"I'd say the rule about not discussing the donations openly was still there, as strong as ever. But now it was okay, almost required, every now and then, to make some jokey allusion to these things that lay in front of us." -pg 84

I have noted in previous blogs how the progression of this novel closely follows and imitates the progression of a child as they grow to an adult. Not only does the book follow Kathy and her friends as they grow physically, but it notes how their thoughts and reactions to their predicament grow and change with them. When the kids were young, the children of Hailsham felt a strong taboo on the any topic of their future. This was most likely due to immaturity and confusion about what exactly their future would hold. As teenagers, they learn a bit more about what that future will be (mostly due to Miss Emily). Accordingly, their reaction to what they learn is a teenage reaction. They laugh about it. The even make jokes about it. They leave aside the seriousness and treat the scary topics as far away and laughable. The next step is adulthood. I can only assume the next step of the book will be more serious and intense than the other two parts.

Culture Connection

"What made the tape so special for me was this one particular song:track number three, 'Never Let Me Go'." pg 70

Not so long ago I was blogging my little heart out about the novel Brave New World. On my fourteenth blog, titled "Oh Brave New Ironic World" wrote about the allusion to Shakespeare that was made in the title of book. In addition, the allusion was explained in the novel; or rather the irony of the allusion was explained. Coming to page 70 of the second book, Never Let Me Go, I noticed again how the title of the novel was included in the book. Both books share that fact that the title is not arbitrarily assigned, but is a part of the book. In both cases, the allusion was made to the artsy side of culture. In Brave New World, the allusion was to literature. In Never Let Me Go, the allusion was to a recording artist, Judy Bridgewater. These cultural allusions not only became the titles, but also summarized the main themes of each work.

Sheltered Lives

"'You've been told about it. You're students. You're...special.'" -pg 68

Pages 66 through 69 contain the most interesting and puzzling material of the book so far. On page 66 Kathy begins to describe the little myth about Norfolk that Ruth made up and the students of Hailsham believed. The myth is yet another example of how the students of Hailsham were extremely sheltered from the outside world and were fairly clueless of places outside their isolated school. The only information they have about the outside is from what their teachers give them. Thus, they  make up their own stories to fill in the holes. What's really interesting is that they consistently believe them, even after they have outgrown Hailsham.

At first I thought this sheltered lifestyle that produced the fantasies like the one about Norfolk natural for a school like Hailsham. But on the page in the quote above, I began to think maybe this sheltered was intended. The quote above came after a discussion about smoking and how it was viewed as a cardinal sin by the students at Hailsham. When one of the guardians admitted to smoking in her youth, the students were shocked. However, the guardian made a point that it was a much bigger crime if one of the students smoked rather than the guardian's old smoking habit. Why are the students at Hailsham so special? Why are the so protected from any unsavory outside influences?

Kathy's Weakness

"What I did was to slow right down so that Ruth, coming behind me, could instead pass through the door beside Miss Geraldine. I did this without any fuss, as though this were the natural and proper thing and what Miss Geraldine would like-just the way I'd have don't if, say, I'd accidentally got myself between two best friends." -pg 62

Something I have been beginning to notice about Ishiguro's writing is his meticulous attention to detail, specifically detail about facial expressions, vocal hints, and body language. He uses these little nuances and small glances to reveal the subtleties of characters and their motives. These details apply specifically to Ruth. Since Ruth is the most creative, imaginative, and sly of the cast, the details about the small expressions she uses reveal more about her than any other character. So far I have discovered her to be manipulative, creative, ambitious, and desperate for attention. This profile has been building for a while, but in the passage above the audience begins to discover a few new details about Kathy.

Kathy, as we have seen her so far, has a lot of attention to detail, is very nosy, kind, and very attentive to rules. In the incident over Ruth's pencil case, ended in the passage above, Kathy revealed to be relenting, forgiving, slightly perceptible to guilt. She owed Ruth nothing, but for some reason felt the need to placate her. These traits might be some of the factors that make Kathy such a good carer in the future. However, these traits make Kathy vulnerable to Ruth's manipulative antics.

The Scoop on Ruth (Indirect Characterization)

"Ruth came a step closer. 'My best horse,' she said, 'is Thunder. I can't let you ride on him. He's much too dangerous. But you can ride Bramble, as long as you don't use your crop on him. Or if you like, you could have any of the others.'" -pg 46

At last Kathy has dropped her obsession with Tommy long enough to delve into Ruth's character. So far, she has revealed Ruth to be primarily imaginative, almost to a fault. The quote above is the first evidence, although rather innocent, of how deep Ruth can go into her imagination. However, the games keep escalating. One of the imagined scenarios later in the story involve the kidnapping of one of the guardians at Hailsham- Miss Geraldine. Ruth antics increase in severity and persuasion until all the girls in her circle of friends are irresistably drawn to Ruth's magnetic energy.

However, Kathy finds out that being a part of Ruth's inner circle isn't always fun or permanent. After the chess incident, Kathy is frustrated with Ruth and her untruthfulness. This unpleasant factor may come to be a central part of the novel when Ruth shows up to be a donor.

Learning about Ruth through all these different scenes and incidents is indirect characterization because Ishiguro never informs the reader exactly what Ruth is like, but rather shows them through her mannerisms and words.

Ishiguro's Imagery

"Its like walking past a mirror you've walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange." - pg 36

At this point, Ishiguro starts using similes and analogies to convey the development of Kathy and her fellow students. In the course of two pages, Ishiguro used three different images to describe the incident with Madame. They were: comparing the students to spiders, comparing Madame's presence to a chilly shadow, and (the one above) comparing the feeling produced by the incident to walking by a mirror that can change its image.

All these imagery additions to the novel heighten the complexity of the story of Hailsham, Kathy, and her friends. It suggests that this change in perspective is significant to the future of the main character and the plot. Its not necessarily the same feeling as foreshadowing, but nevertheless the imagery effectively emphasizes the developments that will be important later on. These developments have more to do with the characters and the way their views are growing and how these views will effect the future of the plot rather than being events relevant to the future of the plot. Despite being very vivid similes, the comparisons Ishiguro make heighten the plot and set up the character base for the future.

Hogwarts Hogwarts Hoggy Warty Hogwarts (Setting)

"The afternoon Madame's car was spotted coming across the fields, it was windy and sunny, with a few strom clouds starting to gather." -pg 34

Sooo the Harry Potter count down is on about eight days now, and I'm getting a little crazy. So yes, bear with me, this blog will be about Hogwarts, sorta.

Due to the prolonged flashback, Ishiguro has not officially adopted any official setting. Hailsham is the location of most of the action at this point, but it will most likely not remain the center of attention for a whole lot longer. Hailsham was briefly described in the paragraph above the quot above on page 34. At this point, I began to make the connection between Hailsham and Hogwarts.

Both are isolated places. Kathy mentioned that a car was a rare sight, and Hogwarts is protected by magic. Both schools have a Great Hall. Both schools a boarding schools with dorms and classes based on age. Both schools have staff members and a headmaster of sorts (Madame for Hailsham). I suspect these similarities arise from similar settings (European style schools although Hogwarts is in Scotland, I think).



The quote above was the first time that the setting was every utilized by Ishiguro to portray the feeling or mood of the students. It used to subtly describe the arrival of Madame and the incident that followed.

Okay, that was stretch. Please accept my apologies and this video :D

Creeper Much?

"I saw a few of the incidents myself. But mostly I heard about them, and when I did, I quizzed people until I'd got a more or less full account." -pg 14

Spidy man

On the fourth page, Kathy quickly identifies Tommy and Ruth as important characters to the book. Not only are they the reason Kathy embarks on an extensive flashback to give the new characters a base, but they are involved in her present, her career as a carer. However, Kathy, Ishiguro really I suppose, seems to focus more on Tommy and adds details about Ruth as an after thought. In fact, Kathy goes full out sleuth on Tommy. She follows him, researches him, and interviews people about him. For her work, she is able to lay out and discover patterns in his behavior. This is a little strange to me. Why would Ishiguro emphasize Kathy and Ruth's relationship at first, but then write about Kathy's obsession with Tommy. My spider senses tell me that Tommy may become a issue of conflict between Ruth and Kathy.

Dear Diary.... (Tone)

Little fyi: I am done with Brave New World starting the second book: Never Let Me Go. Yay.

"Anyway, I'm not making any big claims for myself. I know carers, working now, who are just as good and don't get half the credit. If you're one of them, I can understand how you might get resentful-about by bedsit, my car, above all, the way I get to pick and choose who I look after." -pg 3-4

Cracking open Never Let Me Go, I felt from the very beginning that I was reading something very personal and self-reflective. The fictional woman featured in the novel speaks as if the pages were indeed her diary rather than a public work. In the first page, Kathy introduces herself as a person might do when beginning a new diary. The author speaks through Kathy H., but at the same time, I feel as though Kathy really is the author. I forget that there is another person behind her and this is not her book. This feeling is helped by the first person position taken by Kathy H.- I mean the author.

The only interruption to the "diary tone" of the novel so far is located in the quote above. Kathy H. begins to address a "you". This suggests that Kathy anticipated someone reading her diary, journal, or whatever this is intended to be. Or maybe perhaps that the author anticipated an audience to his character. I don't know. It gets weirder in the section that reads: "If you're one of them". This suggests that the audience is supposed to be a singular person. Not only is the audience a singular person, but they are most likely a person from the England of the 1990s (the setting of the novel) since Kathy supposes that the singular audience member could potentially be a carer.

These are just the facts as I see them. Due to the tone of the novel, I cautiously predict that all this diary nonsense means that Kathy H. has a story that she wishes to share about herself (perhaps with one particular person) that may contain a message or moral of some sort taken from her personal reflection on this story. But then again, maybe not. :)