Registration has concluded. A Newberry Library adult education class. Summer 2025. Tuesdays 2:00-4:00pm (CT) by Zoom, July 22-August 12. Registration information here.
This class offers a three-part discussion of Never Let Me Go (2005), Kazuo Ishiguro’s poignant and mysterious coming-of-age story, followed by a detailed discussion of the lyrical film adaptation directed by Mark Romanek (2010). The novel and film invite distinct yet complementary paths for exploring Ishiguro’s deeply moving meditations on friendship, art, memory, and mortality. Four sessions.
Materials List
- Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Vintage (2006, first published 2005). ISBN 978-1400078776.
- Never Let Me Go. Dir. Mark Romanek (Fox Searchlight 2010). Available on DVD or
streaming at Apple TV, Microsoft Store, and Fandango at Home. Other materials will be made available to seminar participants. - For the first session, please read only Part One of the novel (pages 3-111).
Class Description
We will first read Ishiguro’s novel, Never Let Me Go, in three progressive parts (the novel itself is divided into three parts), then discuss the film adaptation in our final session. The first session, and the pacing of the novel-reading throughout the class, will help illuminate details of the novel and of our reading experience that we can carry over into subsequent sessions.
Ishiguro’s work often features very engaging, deceptively straightforward narrators, whose stories gradually lead readers to surprising and unsettling, yet also profound and redemptive realizations. Never Let Me Go is narrated by “Kathy H.,” who recounts a story of her childhood and young adulthood from her current perspective of being a “carer,” which readers soon learn involves a system of disturbing medical procedures. In fact, by the end of the novel’s Part One, we learn that Kathy and her friends have been raised exclusively to be organ donors, and their short lives will soon end. The novel then takes on a kind of allegorical quality, with Kathy and her friends pondering questions that any of us might consider. What is life all about? Why does society value some people over others? What good are relationships when we know it’s all going to end? Why create art, or in fact, care about anything, when our “days are numbered”?
Ishiguro’s posing of these fundamental questions with a first-person narrative allows us not only to follow Kathy’s story but to recognize how Kathy herself is learning from the articulation of her memories. The novel’s form invites readers to see and feel more than Kathy herself is willing to openly experience. Yet as the story progresses, readers find themselves having more in common with the narrator’s limits than we may care to admit. Our class will explore the novel’s dual perspective as it develops, leading us through discussions of difficult themes ranging from deeply emotional matters of caring and memory to socioeconomic critiques of class exploitation.
For the final session of this Newberry class, we will discuss (and view clips from) Mark Romanek’s lyrical translation of Ishiguro’s first-person narrative into the language of film. The 2010 film adaptation features Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightly. Our goals will include developing a better understanding of the medium of film itself (addressing such aspects as voice-over narration, musical score, and editing) and exploring the filmmakers interpretation of the novel we have just discussed.
Sessions of the class will also include PowerPoint slides, tips for reading and viewing, comments from literary and film critics, and clips from films and interviews.
No AI technology will be used in the development or presentation of lectures and class materials.
Schedule
Session 1: Part One (pages 3-111)
Session 2: Part Two (pages115-203)
Session 3: Part Three (pages 207-288)
Session 4: Never Let Me Go film adaptation (Dir. Mark Romanek, 2010)
Image: Cassette tapes (wikimedia)
