I went to a talk by Kazuo Ishiguro this evening. He is one of the best contemporary novelists writing in English. I discovered him through The remains of the day set in genteel pre-war England and looking at the life of English servants of the time. It is a masterpiece of understatement, the unhappy unspoken love between the housekeeper and the butler is utterly moving and immensely sad.
But to me the best novel by Ishiguro is Never let me go, now a major film. I read the novel in 2006, when I was ill with malaria caught during a trip to Indonesia and I cried profusely over it. A dystopia about love, friendship and memory with a chilling finale, it is about the human condition, though ostensibly exploring the world of cloning and bio-engineering.
Ishiguro answered questions about the film adaptation. He is very knowledgeable about films and the process of filming, having been a script writer before becoming a full time novelist.
He came across as a very laid back man, very witty and extremely intelligent.
Adaptations can never be like the book, any book, he said. Of his novel, the thread that could be translated into a script was that of the love between the two main characters, disrupted by a third person that comes in between them. The loneliness of this third character is frightening, she needs to hang on to the other two.
But why did they not leave, someone asked, with reference to their appalling fate? They only had to leave and everything would have worked, she said. Ishiguro's answer was straight to the point. Films are always about escape. This is what we have become accustomed to. The book is not about escape because life is not. The characters stay because the possibility of escape does not even occur to them. Being saved is not an option.
I was moved by the talk, just as I am always moved by Ishiguro's novels. I left before the frenzy of book signing began. On the way back, as I walked to a bus stop, I saw a dead robin on the pavement. I felt so sorry for the little bird. I picked it up and wrapped it in a piece of paper torn from my notebook and then buried it in a nearby park.
" I was now standing here in front of it and if I waited long enough a tiny figure woud appear on the horizon across the field and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy and he'd wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that - I didn't let it - and though tears rolled down my face I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be".
It must have been a combination of seeing the dead robin and being reminded of the tragic characters of the novel, but as I boarded my bus my cheeks were wet and I could taste my salty tears.
Ishiguro answered questions about the film adaptation. He is very knowledgeable about films and the process of filming, having been a script writer before becoming a full time novelist.
He came across as a very laid back man, very witty and extremely intelligent.
Adaptations can never be like the book, any book, he said. Of his novel, the thread that could be translated into a script was that of the love between the two main characters, disrupted by a third person that comes in between them. The loneliness of this third character is frightening, she needs to hang on to the other two.
Photographer: Suzy Conway
But why did they not leave, someone asked, with reference to their appalling fate? They only had to leave and everything would have worked, she said. Ishiguro's answer was straight to the point. Films are always about escape. This is what we have become accustomed to. The book is not about escape because life is not. The characters stay because the possibility of escape does not even occur to them. Being saved is not an option.
I was moved by the talk, just as I am always moved by Ishiguro's novels. I left before the frenzy of book signing began. On the way back, as I walked to a bus stop, I saw a dead robin on the pavement. I felt so sorry for the little bird. I picked it up and wrapped it in a piece of paper torn from my notebook and then buried it in a nearby park.
Throughout I kept on remembering the ending of Never let me go, when Kath says
It must have been a combination of seeing the dead robin and being reminded of the tragic characters of the novel, but as I boarded my bus my cheeks were wet and I could taste my salty tears.
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