From Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go:
"When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn't really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I've never forgotten."
More like this
Dr. Free-Ride: So, you went on a field trip today to a lagoon.
Younger offspring: Yeah, I went to [Name redacted] Creek and [Name redacted] Lagoon.
Many years ago we had a terrific carpenter build stairs in our old house using a technique called housed stringer construction. This guy was fairly young but a skilled wood worker. He was also missing several fingers on his right hand. Table saw.
Well, it's been fun so far! I've traveled 1500 miles so I can dig in the dirt here in Texas -- it's amazing what a NYCer will do to re-experience her country-living childhood, huh?
Last weekend, while I was still in the throes of grading, my better half decided to take the Free-Ride offspring on a hike (or, in the Free-Ride vernacular, a "death march"). The younger Free-Ride offspring reports back on some of the salient details.
I adore this book. It's not as unsettling to read as The Unconsoled, but it's more unsettling to think about. And it doesn't let you go.
I completely agree, and the section of the book from which the quote comes was perhaps the most unsettling. The author makes an ethical and emotional demand of the reader in that novel that I am not sure I had experienced previously in fiction. I read a few reviews before reading it that suggested it was somewhat of a thriller that would keep you guessing till the end. I had a completely different impression as the direction of the story in terms of the conclusion (or what was going on) was fairly clear to me from the start. On the other hand, the ethical problems were presented in such a way that as soon as you thought it was safe to condemn or support a particular position you were swiftly shot down. Just my impression. Either way, a real masterpiece!
So, after reading this post I immediately got an audiobook and listened to the whole thing. The writing is nice and simple and the characters are well developed (perhaps tediously so), although I didn't find them especially interesting (they aren't very curious, for one thing). Unfortunately their situation is incredibly implausible on several levels which undermined most of the book's impact for me.
Supposedly the author has said in interviews that this was an afterthought and that the book is really a broader metaphor for life in general. If that's true I think he should have thought it through more carfully, because without that element there is really nothing unique or interesting about the book, and with it it's just too detached from reality.