Never Let Me Go

The 4 covers of Kazuo Ishiguro’s are different through the messages or the impressions they leave to those looking at the cover. The concepts are very vague and left open to interpretation. The upper left hand corner (the one with the blonde girl) and the upper right hand corner (the yellow background and the girl turned away) focus on individuals, which could be presumed to be Kathy H. (the protagonist),and the illustrators have similar interpretations of Kathy. The girls are shying away from the camera/focal point, suggesting that Kathy is insecure. However, where one illustrator thinks Kathy is blonde, the other sees her as a brunette. The bottom two covers focus on objects rather than people, hinting that the novel may be about something bigger, with lots of serious thematic elements incorporated. None of them really reveal much about what the book is about and all of the covers have a depressing/lonely/isolated tone.

Looking closer at the cover with the faded girl in blue, a few words that come to mind are lost, hidden, hazy, and self-conscious. However, questions are raised whether or not the girl is Kathy H. or Ruth. We see that Kathy can be timid, really tries to make Ruth happy, and is unsure and curious about the world past Hailsham, however, Ruth too can be insecure. Ruth puts up a strong facade but we see in the novel that she can be caught off guard and she is sometimes not confident. If I hadn’t read the novel, I would think that the book is about a young, scared girl.

When looking at the gray cover with the organs, the first things I think of is that not all of the organs are shown. I don’t see the pancreas, or the large intestine, or a head even--the anatomical diagram is incomplete. I think this is done to allude to what the book is talking about-- clones that have to prove that they’re just like humans, that they have the same makeup and that we’re equal in terms of the anatomical makeup and the feelings. I think that people with minds that are fascinated with human life/science would pick up this book-- or people who are just really curious, because the cover is so peculiar.

When looking at both of the covers, I question why the cover with the hidden girl has the words “The Top Ten Bestseller” on the bottom, whereas the one with organs doesn’t. This may be because the illustrator wanted to give readers a reason as to why they should read the book. The cover with the organs, however, may not need it because, alone, it is more intriguing and different than having a girl on the cover (something that is very common). The illustrator of this cover didn’t need words to give people a reason to read it, that’s what the cover/drawing is for. This is seen again when the cover with the girl has testimonials on it. The cover isn’t strong enough to stand alone in comparison to the darker, compelling organ cover. Another thing that I think about for the organ cover is why certain letters are in white when spelling Kazuo Ishiguro’s name. Only the letters A, O, I, and G are in white. It’s unclear, to me at least, why those letters have significance and how they might connect to the book, but the letters don’t spell Hailsham, or Ruth, or Tommy, or Kathy H, or anything else I can think of. I may be reading too much into it and the illustrator may have done this to provide something “light” on the dark, black and gray cover. Both of the covers have the title “Never Let Me Go” in large font that is pretty centered and obvious. However, the upper right hand cover has Kazuo Ishiguro’s name in larger font than the title. This could be attributed to readers being more familiar with other novels from Ishiguro, and the illustrator may want people to read the book for its author, whereas Ishiguro’s name is small and on the bottom on the organ cover. This illustrator wants the idea of “Never let[ting] [.. go]” to be what entices the reader. Where one cover is more “in your face” and “look at the ratings this book got”, the other is much more subtle and simpler, allowing the reader to decide their own opinion of the book.