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Firstly, apologies for sneaking in the back door here, as I have been lurking in the Introductions thread for quite a while here, assiduously checking out my shoes whilst shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot and trying to plan my conversation-starter, before realising I'd sunk a couple too many cans in my anxiety and hence was likely to do myself an injustice. So I've decided to raise my head for the first time at this quieter party. Test the water in a smaller pool, if you will. (still haven't got over the whole 'WOOOHOOOO!' factor of Logging In To Barbelith, though.)
[Oh, and it's totally appropriate that my first sentence should be over-wordy, subordinateclausetastic and a bordering on incoherent. So I'll leave it.]
ANYWAY, we're on books here, so - to the point. I've just read Never Let Me Go after one of my dearest friends (but SO not one I would expect to remember my literary preferences) bought it for me. (Perhaps she remembers me trying for four years to get her to read 'Remains of the Day' which is right up there in my top five of all time. I digress.)
I'm a bit torn. I don't agree with a lot of the reviews I've read that said he skirted over the main topic. I don't think that was the point. I thought it was incredibly poignant, not unfeasible, that they didn't try to escape. I cried, like I expected to, and I felt immense sympathy for the characters.
I think perhaps some of the form/meaning relation escaped me. I wasn't sure about the 'introduction' device, whereby Kath would talk about an event in a kind of reverent abstract before directly addressing it. I found it a bit clunky and heavy after a while. This puzzled me as what I loved about ROTD was the absolute, minute, incredible precision of the prose.
On a more general note, I wonder whether I could diagnose it with the same ill I felt afflicted 'The Human Stain', my immediately previous (and significantly more arduous, I must confess) reading matter. I found myself speculating on the relationship between author and editor as the author becomes 'Legend/Nobel Candidate/Literary Heavyweight Of Tremendous Importance' - does the editor feel somehow less worthy to add input and therefore as your author increases in gravitas his prose ironically loosens up?
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