From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love.
As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to...
From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love.
As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.
And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed–even comforted–by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood–and about their lives now.
A tale of deceptive simplicity, Never Let Me Go slowly reveals an extraordinary emotional depth and resonance–and takes its place among Kazuo Ishiguro’s finest work.
前阵子又看了一遍电影，那种绝望重新弥漫上来，又翻开书看了一遍。电影下面好多抗议说他们长大后为什么不逃，这是正常世界长大的人的视角和发问，却不是Hailsham长大的孩子要处理的问题。Hailsham的存在就是要处理潜移默化和接受命运的问题（对我来说又是乌托邦的吊诡形式）。它的视角选取非常聪明，始终限定在Kathy的视线里，跟着孩子的视角一起，在平淡的语气里开始了这段旅程，待到慢慢反应过来，一下子心...前阵子又看了一遍电影，那种绝望重新弥漫上来，又翻开书看了一遍。电影下面好多抗议说他们长大后为什么不逃，这是正常世界长大的人的视角和发问，却不是Hailsham长大的孩子要处理的问题。Hailsham的存在就是要处理潜移默化和接受命运的问题（对我来说又是乌托邦的吊诡形式）。它的视角选取非常聪明，始终限定在Kathy的视线里，跟着孩子的视角一起，在平淡的语气里开始了这段旅程，待到慢慢反应过来，一下子心惊。My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. 这本书开头的口吻如此淡然，却已是文学史上不能磨灭的声音。这本书我也慢热，是在年月里一点一点碾碎了我的心。(展开)
被称为student的孩子们实际是donor，他们的出生意义是确定的，他们生命的过程也是确定的，Kathy最后失去了Ruth，也失去了Tommy，最后自己也定会走向相同的结局，有时想这三类人，那些克隆的对象为了心安不把这些孩子视为人类；Madamn和Miss Emily这一类人坚持给孩子们提供教育重视艺术，想给他们一个正常的童年，但从内心还是像害怕蜘蛛一样害怕他们；学生们一开始就清楚自己的身份，以...被称为student的孩子们实际是donor，他们的出生意义是确定的，他们生命的过程也是确定的，Kathy最后失去了Ruth，也失去了Tommy，最后自己也定会走向相同的结局，有时想这三类人，那些克隆的对象为了心安不把这些孩子视为人类；Madamn和Miss Emily这一类人坚持给孩子们提供教育重视艺术，想给他们一个正常的童年，但从内心还是像害怕蜘蛛一样害怕他们；学生们一开始就清楚自己的身份，以自己的方式极力融入外面的社會，最后不得不接受的现实。书名是一首歌的名字，歌里也许讲的是爱情，Kathy理解的是母亲和期盼已久的孩子，Tommy最后对Kathy的放手是Let Me Go，也许这些理解终究是想留在这个世界上。那三种人到底哪一种才真正称得上是“人”呢？(展开)
Personally I love this book. What I'm not comfortable with is the description given in the rating. Instead of judgemental phrase like '推荐', I prefer something more personal like 'like it' or 'love it'. Now comes to the book. I have to admit, at first I ...
(展开)
a delicately woven story you never imagine the British japanese to be writing science fiction. But go on reading and u find he's still the writer of "remains of the day." He puts such emotions into his characters: futility, desperation, tender love leading ...
(展开)
今天听到第八章…… 我忽然觉得这一段关于sex的内容真的很有意思……its so so soooooooo cute！ Looking back now, I can see we were pretty confused about this whole area around sex. That’s hardly surprising, I suppose, given we were barely sixteen. But what added to the confusion—I can see it more clearly now—was the fact that the guardians were themselves confused. On the one hand we had, say, M...(1回应)
2012-06-21 18:173人喜欢
今天听到第八章……
我忽然觉得这一段关于sex的内容真的很有意思……its so so soooooooo cute！
Looking back now, I can see we were pretty confused about this whole area around sex. That’s hardly surprising, I suppose, given we were barely sixteen. But what added to the confusion—I can see it more clearly now—was the fact that the guardians were themselves confused. On the one hand we had, say, Miss Emily’s talks, when she’d tell us how important it was not to be ashamed of our bodies, to “respect our physical needs,” how sex was “a very beautiful gift” as long as both people really wanted it. But when it came down to it, the guardians made it more or less impossible for any of us actually to do much without breaking rules. We couldn’t visit the boys’ dorms after nine o’clock, they couldn’t visit ours. The classrooms were all officially “out of bounds” in the evenings, as were the areas behind the sheds and the pavilion. And you didn’t want to do it in the fields even when it was warm enough, because you’d almost certainly discover afterwards you’d had an audience watching from the house passing around binoculars. In other words, for all the talk of sex being beautiful, we had the distinct impression we’d be in trouble if the guardians caught us at it. 引自 C8
I say this, but the only real case I personally knew of like that was when Jenny C. and Rob D. got interrupted in Room 14. They were doing it after lunch, right there over one of the desks, and Mr. Jack had come in to get something. According to Jenny, Mr. Jack had turned red and gone right out again, but they’d been put off and had stopped. They’d more or less dressed themselves when Mr. Jack came back, just as though for the first time, and pretended to be surprised and shocked.
“It’s very clear to me what you’ve been doing and it’s not appropriate,” he’d said, and told them both to go and see Miss Emily. But once they’d got to Miss Emily’s office, she’d told them she was on her way to an important meeting and didn’t have time to talk to them.
“But you know you shouldn’t have been doing whatever you were doing, and I don’t expect you’ll do it again,” she’d said, before rushing out with her folders. 引自 C8
于是大家有了各种猜想，各种理论：有人认为监护人想要学生们做爱，只是学生们不应该在错误的时间进行。HANNAH认为让他们充分地做爱是监护人的职责，否则学生们的器官就不能很好地运作，不能成为合格的捐赠者。有人说监护人毕竟是“普通人”，虽然他们知道学生们不能生育，但是还是会担心。ANNETTE说学生们和对方做爱让监护人感到不舒服，因为监护人自己也想和学生做爱……（这一段太可爱太可爱了……）
KATH认为RUTH的理论更加接近于真实情况：RUTH认为监护人们对学生所讲述的有关于性的东西，都是为了他们离开学校之后做准备。监护人们希望学生们在离开校园之后能够have sex properly，不染上疾病，但显然不想让他们在学校里做爱，因为他们害怕惹上麻烦。
他们对待GAY SEX的态度，以及RUTH对此的理论也很有趣：
Gay sex, incidentally, was something we were even more confused about. For some reason, we called it “umbrella sex”; if you fancied someone your own sex, you were “an umbrella.” I don’t know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham we definitely weren’t at all kind towards any signs of gay stuff. The boys especially could do the cruellest things. According to Ruth this was because quite a few of them had done things with each other when they’d been younger, before they’d realised what they were doing. So now they were ridiculously tense about it. I don’t know if she was right, but for sure, accusing someone of “getting all umbrella” could easily end in a fight.引自 C8
For all that, I’d been holding it off for ages, repeating to myself Miss Emily’s advice—“If you can’t find someone with whom you truly wish to share this experience, then don’t!” But around the spring of the year I’m talking about now, I started to think I wouldn’t mind having sex with a boy. Not just to see what it was like, but also because it occurred to me I needed to get familiar with sex, and it would be just as well to practise first with a boy I didn’t care about too much. Then later on, if I was with someone special, I’d have more chance of doing everything right. What I mean is, if Miss Emily was correct and sex was this really big deal between people, then I didn’t want to be doing it for the first time when it was really important how well it went.
……
So I’d chosen Harry, and I only delayed those couple of months because I wanted to make sure I’d be all right physically. Miss Emily had told us it could be painful and a big failure if you didn’t get wet enough and this was my one real worry. It wasn’t being ripped apart down there, which we often joked about, and was the secret fear of quite a few girls. I kept thinking, as long as I got wet quick enough, there’d be no problem, and I did it a lot on my own just to make sure. 引自 C8
KATH还是很紧张，不断地重读书中关于性的段落：
I realise this may sound like I was getting obsessive, but I remember I also spent a lot of time re-reading passages from books where people had sex, going over the lines again and again, trying to tease out clues. The trouble was, the books we had at Hailsham weren’t at all helpful. We had a lot of nineteenth-century stuff by Thomas Hardy and people like that, which was more or less useless. Some modern books, by people like Edna O’Brien and Margaret Drabble, had some sex in them, but it wasn’t ever very clear what was happening because the authors always assumed you’d already had a lot of sex before and there was no need to go into details. 引自 C8
这一句实在是太可爱太好笑了
it wasn’t ever very clear what was happening because the authors always assumed you’d already had a lot of sex before and there was no need to go into details.引自 C8
当然书让RUTH很失望，可是电影也没帮上什么忙：
We’d got a video player in the billiards room a couple of years earlier, and by that spring had built up quite a good collection of movies. A lot of them had sex in them, but most scenes would end just as the sex was starting up, or else you’d only see their faces and their backs. And when there was a useful scene, it was difficult to see it more than fleetingly because there were usually twenty others in the room watching with you. We’d evolved this system where we called for particular favourite scenes to be played again—like, for instance, the moment the American jumps over the barbed wire on his bike in The Great Escape. There’d be a chant of: “Rewind! Rewind!” until someone got the remote and we’d see the portion again, sometimes three, four times. But I could hardly, by myself, start shouting for rewinds just to see sex scenes again.引自 C8
So I kept delaying week by week, while I went on preparing, until the summer came and I decided I was as ready as I’d ever be. By then, I was even feeling reasonably confident about it, and began dropping hints to Harry. Everything was going fine and according to plan, when Ruth and Tommy split up and it all got confused. 引自 C8
Your lives are set out for you. You'll become adults, then before you're old, before you' re even middle-aged, you'll start to donate your vital organs. That's what each of you was created to do.
2020-05-02 00:14
Your lives are set out for you. You'll become adults, then before you're old, before you' re even middle-aged, you'll start to donate your vital organs. That's what each of you was created to do.
There was no way to reverse the process. How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days? There was no going back. However uncomfortable people were about your existence, their overwhelming concern was that their own children, their spouses, their parents, their friends, did not die from cancer, m...
2020-02-19 12:17
There was no way to reverse the process. How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days? There was no going back. However uncomfortable people were about your existence, their overwhelming concern was that their own children, their spouses, their parents, their friends, did not die from cancer, motor neurone disease, heart disease. So for a long time you were kept in the shadows, and people did their best not to think about you. And if they did, they tried to convince themselves you weren't really like us. That you were less than human, so it didn't matter.引自 Chapter Twenty-Two
Then suddenly, with the skeleton in an obscene heap on the desktop, she turned away and began telling us how we had to be careful who we had sex with. Not just because of the diseases, but because, she said, "sex affects emotions in ways you'd never expect." We had to be extremely careful about having sex in the outside world, especially with people who weren't students, because out there sex m...
2020-02-19 12:17
Then suddenly, with the skeleton in an obscene heap on the desktop, she turned away and began telling us how we had to be careful who we had sex with. Not just because of the diseases, but because, she said, "sex affects emotions in ways you'd never expect." We had to be extremely careful about having sex in the outside world, especially with people who weren't students, because out there sex means all sort of things. Out there people were even fighting and killing each other over who had sex with whom. And the reason it meant so much - so much more than, say, dancing or table-tennis - was because the people out there were different from us students: they could have babies from sex. That was why it was so important to them, this question of who did it with whom. And even though, as we knew, it is completely impossible for any of us to have babies, out there, we have to bahave like them. We had to respect the rules and treat sex as something pretty special.引自 CHAPTER SEVEN
Miss Emily的说法，虽然没有什么联系，但读这段的时候我经常想到这几天的“恐同”现象。很多时候很多人都说同性恋恶心什么的，我是真的不能理解，读了这段以后觉得可能正式因为同性恋爱这种impossibility to have babies (biologically) 让很多人觉得自己坚守的rules被打乱了。突然sex就像dancing或者table-tennis一样随意，大家只是为了pleasure行事，这的确是对rules的巨大挑战。
"Back then, when you lost it, I used to think about it, in my head, what it would be like, if I found it and brought it to you. What you'd say, your face, all of that." "Poor creatures." "It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever."
2011-02-15 16:54
"Back then, when you lost it, I used to think about it, in my head, what it would be like, if I found it and brought it to you. What you'd say, your face, all of that."
"Poor creatures."
"It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever."
Then suddenly, with the skeleton in an obscene heap on the desktop, she turned away and began telling us how we had to be careful who we had sex with. Not just because of the diseases, but because, she said, "sex affects emotions in ways you'd never expect." We had to be extremely careful about having sex in the outside world, especially with people who weren't students, because out there sex m...
2018-05-18 23:22
Then suddenly, with the skeleton in an obscene heap on the desktop, she turned away and began telling us how we had to be careful who we had sex with. Not just because of the diseases, but because, she said, "sex affects emotions in ways you'd never expect." We had to be extremely careful about having sex in the outside world, especially with people who weren't students, because out there sex means all sort of things. Out there people were even fighting and killing each other over who had sex with whom. And the reason it meant so much - so much more than, say, dancing or table-tennis - was because the people out there were different from us students: they could have babies from sex. That was why it was so important to them, this question of who did it with whom. And even though, as we knew, it is completely impossible for any of us to have babies, out there, we have to bahave like them. We had to respect the rules and treat sex as something pretty special.引自 CHAPTER SEVEN
Miss Emily的说法，虽然没有什么联系，但读这段的时候我经常想到这几天的“恐同”现象。很多时候很多人都说同性恋恶心什么的，我是真的不能理解，读了这段以后觉得可能正式因为同性恋爱这种impossibility to have babies (biologically) 让很多人觉得自己坚守的rules被打乱了。突然sex就像dancing或者table-tennis一样随意，大家只是为了pleasure行事，这的确是对rules的巨大挑战。
There was no way to reverse the process. How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days? There was no going back. However uncomfortable people were about your existence, their overwhelming concern was that their own children, their spouses, their parents, their friends, did not die from cancer, m...
2018-06-02 11:58
There was no way to reverse the process. How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days? There was no going back. However uncomfortable people were about your existence, their overwhelming concern was that their own children, their spouses, their parents, their friends, did not die from cancer, motor neurone disease, heart disease. So for a long time you were kept in the shadows, and people did their best not to think about you. And if they did, they tried to convince themselves you weren't really like us. That you were less than human, so it didn't matter.引自 Chapter Twenty-Two
再说说个人认为的小瑕疵吧。我实在是不能理解主角三人的三角恋情。既然作者想把Kathy和Tom设计成一对真正相爱的恋人，为何又安排Tom和Ruth在一起呢？如果他真的爱Kathy，为什么连一次追求都没有就和别的女生，还是Kathy最好的朋友在一起了？？这个故事线真是很迷...Tom得是有多被动啊。Kathy我还能隐隐约约感到对Tom的在意，但Tom真是...搞不清他到底对Ruth是什么样的情感？？Friends with benefits？全书唯一能让我感到或许他们相爱的剧情就只有Norfolk的旅行了。最后听他们描述自己有多相爱感觉特别没有说服力。Ruth究竟干什么能让真正相爱的两人就是不迈出那一步...
Your lives are set out for you. You'll become adults, then before you're old, before you' re even middle-aged, you'll start to donate your vital organs. That's what each of you was created to do.
2020-05-02 00:14
Your lives are set out for you. You'll become adults, then before you're old, before you' re even middle-aged, you'll start to donate your vital organs. That's what each of you was created to do.
There was no way to reverse the process. How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days? There was no going back. However uncomfortable people were about your existence, their overwhelming concern was that their own children, their spouses, their parents, their friends, did not die from cancer, m...
2020-02-19 12:17
There was no way to reverse the process. How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days? There was no going back. However uncomfortable people were about your existence, their overwhelming concern was that their own children, their spouses, their parents, their friends, did not die from cancer, motor neurone disease, heart disease. So for a long time you were kept in the shadows, and people did their best not to think about you. And if they did, they tried to convince themselves you weren't really like us. That you were less than human, so it didn't matter.引自 Chapter Twenty-Two
Then suddenly, with the skeleton in an obscene heap on the desktop, she turned away and began telling us how we had to be careful who we had sex with. Not just because of the diseases, but because, she said, "sex affects emotions in ways you'd never expect." We had to be extremely careful about having sex in the outside world, especially with people who weren't students, because out there sex m...
2020-02-19 12:17
Then suddenly, with the skeleton in an obscene heap on the desktop, she turned away and began telling us how we had to be careful who we had sex with. Not just because of the diseases, but because, she said, "sex affects emotions in ways you'd never expect." We had to be extremely careful about having sex in the outside world, especially with people who weren't students, because out there sex means all sort of things. Out there people were even fighting and killing each other over who had sex with whom. And the reason it meant so much - so much more than, say, dancing or table-tennis - was because the people out there were different from us students: they could have babies from sex. That was why it was so important to them, this question of who did it with whom. And even though, as we knew, it is completely impossible for any of us to have babies, out there, we have to bahave like them. We had to respect the rules and treat sex as something pretty special.引自 CHAPTER SEVEN
Miss Emily的说法，虽然没有什么联系，但读这段的时候我经常想到这几天的“恐同”现象。很多时候很多人都说同性恋恶心什么的，我是真的不能理解，读了这段以后觉得可能正式因为同性恋爱这种impossibility to have babies (biologically) 让很多人觉得自己坚守的rules被打乱了。突然sex就像dancing或者table-tennis一样随意，大家只是为了pleasure行事，这的确是对rules的巨大挑战。
NAOMI
Vintage Books2010版
万里船
译林出版社2011版
nezumi
Faber and Faber2005版
2 有用 昏金暗玉 2019-09-10
前阵子又看了一遍电影，那种绝望重新弥漫上来，又翻开书看了一遍。电影下面好多抗议说他们长大后为什么不逃，这是正常世界长大的人的视角和发问，却不是Hailsham长大的孩子要处理的问题。Hailsham的存在就是要处理潜移默化和接受命运的问题（对我来说又是乌托邦的吊诡形式）。它的视角选取非常聪明，始终限定在Kathy的视线里，跟着孩子的视角一起，在平淡的语气里开始了这段旅程，待到慢慢反应过来，一下子心... 前阵子又看了一遍电影，那种绝望重新弥漫上来，又翻开书看了一遍。电影下面好多抗议说他们长大后为什么不逃，这是正常世界长大的人的视角和发问，却不是Hailsham长大的孩子要处理的问题。Hailsham的存在就是要处理潜移默化和接受命运的问题（对我来说又是乌托邦的吊诡形式）。它的视角选取非常聪明，始终限定在Kathy的视线里，跟着孩子的视角一起，在平淡的语气里开始了这段旅程，待到慢慢反应过来，一下子心惊。My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. 这本书开头的口吻如此淡然，却已是文学史上不能磨灭的声音。这本书我也慢热，是在年月里一点一点碾碎了我的心。 (展开)
0 有用 GLOLO 2009-11-11
Really gets into motion in the last third of the story. Touching.
0 有用 Alcoholly 2012-12-14
讲了很多电影里面一笔带过细枝末节的东西。对克隆人donor的命运了解又更多了一些。如果这种事真实发生了，他们的命运该是多么悲哀啊。
1 有用 Mark 2017-05-10
真有donor这一天，所有搞生物的就发财了。。我的视角是不是和书的主旨南辕北辙了。。
0 有用 吴船 2010-12-12
惦记着看改编电影。
0 有用 栾七七 2020-10-10
喜欢这个故事，也喜欢写就这个故事的英文。作者下笔克制又绵密，织就了一张看似简单实则坚固的网，那我牢牢抓在小说世界里。数度泪目，也数度自我开解，很丰富的阅读体验。
0 有用 Jasviper 2020-09-03
我翻了一下记录，我给这本书的第一条笔记做于2015年。之后2017、2019年又陆续做了一些。一本书看了五年，总归是能说明点问题的。
0 有用 L 2020-08-28
搬了家之后去学校的交通需要40多分钟，于是每天早上在校车上读一点点。很科幻的题材，叙述却极其平淡朴实，特别适合早上心境平和的时候阅读。最动人的是描绘Norfolk的两个片段：尚在学校的他们幻想Norfolk是收集全人类遗失品的角落，已经离开学校的他们去那里寻找Ruth的原型，仿佛找到原型就能预见未来的自己，可是读者都知道等待克隆人的命运是什么，顺带Kathy和Tommy找回了遗失的卡带，仿佛“验证... 搬了家之后去学校的交通需要40多分钟，于是每天早上在校车上读一点点。很科幻的题材，叙述却极其平淡朴实，特别适合早上心境平和的时候阅读。最动人的是描绘Norfolk的两个片段：尚在学校的他们幻想Norfolk是收集全人类遗失品的角落，已经离开学校的他们去那里寻找Ruth的原型，仿佛找到原型就能预见未来的自己，可是读者都知道等待克隆人的命运是什么，顺带Kathy和Tommy找回了遗失的卡带，仿佛“验证”了他们儿时的猜想。最后Miss Emily关于gallery存在之意义的独白也是直抵人心——为什么要收集你们的艺术作品，为的是证明你们(克隆人)和所有人一样都有灵魂。一路波澜不惊地读下来，直到这里突然感觉像一滴墨水滴进水里一般，一种感动从心里散发到全身。 @2017-11-04 01:01:21 (展开)
0 有用 侃侃 2020-07-24
看到最后我在想，Madame和Miss Emily他们的做法真的对么？给了他们一点点微弱无用的希望难道就是仁慈么？我反对任何高尚理由来创造克隆人的做法。
0 有用 Joanna 2020-06-23
被称为student的孩子们实际是donor，他们的出生意义是确定的，他们生命的过程也是确定的，Kathy最后失去了Ruth，也失去了Tommy，最后自己也定会走向相同的结局，有时想这三类人，那些克隆的对象为了心安不把这些孩子视为人类；Madamn和Miss Emily这一类人坚持给孩子们提供教育重视艺术，想给他们一个正常的童年，但从内心还是像害怕蜘蛛一样害怕他们；学生们一开始就清楚自己的身份，以... 被称为student的孩子们实际是donor，他们的出生意义是确定的，他们生命的过程也是确定的，Kathy最后失去了Ruth，也失去了Tommy，最后自己也定会走向相同的结局，有时想这三类人，那些克隆的对象为了心安不把这些孩子视为人类；Madamn和Miss Emily这一类人坚持给孩子们提供教育重视艺术，想给他们一个正常的童年，但从内心还是像害怕蜘蛛一样害怕他们；学生们一开始就清楚自己的身份，以自己的方式极力融入外面的社會，最后不得不接受的现实。书名是一首歌的名字，歌里也许讲的是爱情，Kathy理解的是母亲和期盼已久的孩子，Tommy最后对Kathy的放手是Let Me Go，也许这些理解终究是想留在这个世界上。那三种人到底哪一种才真正称得上是“人”呢？ (展开)