Ishiguro’s Future Past
Serious spoiler alert re: Never Let Me Go. (I’ve never understood, really, why anyone cares about "spoilers"… but some do, really do…)
I’m serious – if you’re worried about me spoiling the end of this utterly mediocre novel, stop reading now….
Ok. I’ve looked at most of the reviews listed here. And no one seems to even hint at one of the central premises of the work, in my view: the Nazis won WWII in this novel, right? That’s the point of the strange dating of the novel in the 1990s… The Germans won the war, somehow, and thus theraputic cloning was both invented and accepted much earlier than "in reality." Or am I totally crazy?
It’s not a good book, in general. Perhaps I’ll tell you why soon enough. (I’ve gotta defend the dissertation at 3 PM, twelve or so hours from now, so it’s time for me to hit the sack).
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“Serious spoiler alert re: Never Let Me Go. (I’ve never understood, really, why anyone cares about “spoilers”…”
Because if they read your comments, even in error, they will steal from them the right to make their own judgements right from first apprehension of the work.
thm
April 27, 2005 at 9:00 am
In my case, though, thanks a million for “spoiling” this novel for me. (I’m thinking about writing about “alernate history” novels, and I would have missed this one entirely because — as you point out — no one mentions this!)
profsynecdoche
April 30, 2005 at 10:55 pm
Actually, profsyn, that’s how I came to read the novel too – was “spoiled” for me on a radio show on NPR. Ishiguro’s never really appealed… But this seemed more interesting.
See what you think about the WWII theory. The novel’s sort of mute about the past, the context that it rises out of. And why it’s set in the 1990s.
Either Ishiguro’s being almost to subtle for his own good, or I’m overreading. Which is a distinct possibility.
CR
April 30, 2005 at 11:18 pm