Never Let Me Go

Unlike the books Kate and I have reviewed so far for this blog, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is neither recently published nor written by a Canadian, but I had to say something about it, as it was part of my TIFF 2010 experience. I'd been meaning to read one of Ishiguro's works for a long time. After all, he is a Booker prize winner and several of his works are on Peter Boxall's 1001 list. In July, finally, I picked up Never Let Me Go in an Ithaca, NY used-book store, and after finishing it, I couldn't help regretting that I'd waited so long to discover this author's works. Never Let Me Go is well-known and has been thoroughly reviewed, so I won't say too much about it here, except that it was haunting and subtle, and the story stayed with me for a long time afterward.

When I bought the book, I had no clue that a movie was forthcoming. My older daughter, Julia, who keeps a closer eye on Hollywood than I do, was the one who informed me of this fact, and she mentioned that Keira Knightley was starring in it. Well, when I saw it on the TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) schedule, I just had to go see it. It was one of the premium showings, which meant that it cost twice as much as the regular showings, but the whole TIFF experience, including the after-film Q&A (featuring, among others, director Mark Romanek and Ishiguro himself!) made it very worthwhile.

Usually, seeing a movie based on a book I loved is a huge disappointment, so my expectations were low, but I went away reasonably satisfied. Knightley as Ruth was good, but Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield, playing Kathy and Tommy, were fantastic. There were some minor disappointments: the pacing is different compared to the book, a few significant scenes were cut, and certain pieces of information were given to us upfront, rather than revealed slowly as in the novel. Still, the film is beautifully shot and really does capture the essence of the novel, which explores the innocence of childhood and the definition of humanity.

Here is a final book-related anecdote. In my last post, I talked about my new BookCrossing experiences. A few weeks before TIFF, I finished Ishiguro's Remains of the Day, and I decided that the showing of Never Let Me Go would be the perfect place to release it into the wild. I arrived at Ryerson Theatre half-an-hour before the start of the film, and the queue went most of the way around a city block. Figuring that someone in the queue would want to take the book home, I gave it to the person in front of me and asked her to either keep it or pass it along to the front. I have no idea where the book ended up but I hope it now has a new owner who enjoys it as much as I did.

How I (Re)Discovered BookCrossing

Three years ago, Julia picked up a book on someone's doorstep as she was trick-or-treating on Halloween night. She showed me the book, All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor, and the BookCrossing.com sticker that someone had pasted on it. I had good intentions of checking out this site but never got around to it. The book ended up somewhere in the black hole that we call Julia's room.

When summer break began, Julia decided to do a major clean-up of her room, and this book ended up on top of one of the many piles scattered throughout the hallway. Kate spotted it and insisted we look it up on the BookCrossing site. Well, I did just that and ended up joining as a member. I even shamefacedly admitted in my journal entry that we'd kept the book buried away for all those years. In the week that followed, Kate and I both read the book, a classic children's story about a Jewish family growing up in New York. Then we released it by passing it onto my sister-in-law Jill. It's now in Singapore, after some brief stops in Western Canada.

Since then, I've had loads of fun releasing books "in the wild". I've never liked hoarding books and I've regularly culled my shelves and given books away to friends, family members and charity shops. However, it's much more exciting leaving them in coffee shops, food courts, highway rest stops and other places, where anyone might find them. I've had two catches so far out of a dozen books released. That's not too bad, considering that only 10% of released books get follow-up journal entries. However, I'm sure many of the released books get read and passed around, even if the readers don't record the experience on-line. That, of course, is the point: to share books we love and spread the joy of reading!