Sally: Hi.

Kazuo Ishiguro: Uh, hi.

Sally: I hate to interrupt you while you’re having your double soy mocha java latte grande with a shot of vanilla, but can I talk to you for a moment?

Kazuo Ishiguro: Well, I —

Sally: Great. I really wanted to like your book, Never Let Me Go, but um, I didn’t finish it. And let me tell you: I only don’t finish the books that I find truly problematic — Specimen Days, for example — so this is quite serious. I’d like to discuss why.

Kazuo Ishiguro: You’re putting my book in the same category as Specimen Days? The book with the slurping and the moaning?

Sally: Well, heh heh, um, not, uhh, not really. Just in terms of Books I Couldn’t Finish For Some Reason.

Kazuo Ishiguro: This is going to be great. I can’t wait to hear more from the person who writes recaps of reality television shows.

Sally: I know! There’s only two episodes left of Top Model and Survivor! And Project Runway starts again this Wednesday! I can’t wait! Although they’re bringing back that annoying Daniel again.

Kazuo Ishiguro: That wasn’t my point.

Sally: Oh — well, Dancing with the Stars starts again in January. Do you watch that one? That’s going to be pretty good, too.

Kazuo Ishiguro (sighs): Never mind. Can we get this over with? What’s the problem with my book?

Sally: Oh, that. Ok, well, you know, I like a lot of details. I mean, a LOT of details. I like songs with a lot of words, I like hearing people tell stories where I hear what color stripes were in the t-shirt of the kid in 3rd grade who smelled like bologna —

Kazuo Ishiguro: You had one of those in your class, too?

Sally: I think everyone did. Anyway, I like details. And it wasn’t that Kathy H.’s narration had too many details. It was that the reader knows what the big secret is on page 4 or so, and Kathy H. never does, and I even flipped ahead, like 150 pages, and Kathy H. is still like “here is another story laden with details and I wondered, what does it mean?” and I just couldn’t devote myself to several more days of reading a book where I know something that the characters don’t and having to listen to them try to piece together the big mystery.

Kazuo Ishiguro: This probably says a lot more about you than it does about me.

Sally: True dat.

Kazuo Ishiguro: I just noticed that you actually read By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.* I can’t believe you finished that and not my book!

Sally: Has Morrissey written a lot of songs that can be directly traced back to your book?

Kazuo Ishiguro: No.

Sally: Allrighty then.

Kazuo Ishiguro: Moron.

(Kazuo Ishiguro walks away.)

Fin.

*I don’t know why this link won’t work, but go up to the search box and type in “morrissey’s favorite book” and you’ll see the post about this wretched book.