Ishiguro

Finished reading today Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, a literary novel with a skiffy premise at its core, to the shock and dismay of some mainstream critics. It’s a fine, subtle novel about the experience of growing up without fully understanding one’s destiny, and it might well be a case study in how a fairly ordinary (and not entirely plausible) SF premise is mined for the close attention to character and detail that typifies your average literary novel. I haven’t yet seen a review from an informed SFnal perspective that explores the plausibility of its premise.. has anyone seen one? I’m tempted to commission one.. nor have I seen a review that understands the broader implications of its thesis — that everyone’s life is lived without fully understanding its role in the larger scheme of things. A necessary aspect of human existence; a lesson that science fiction, as a literary form, is all about.

Comments are closed.