
We see more clearly than they do what their stories imply, whether it's the futility of the detective's search, or the whole tragic future that adult's glance contains. The ingenuousness of these narrators is precisely their point. Their tone is curious but modest, their histories delivered through the accretion of puzzling minor anecdotes, as small as a long-ago glance from an adult in the case of Kath, of "Never Let Me Go."

But what, exactly? Ishiguro's books generally feature the same kind of narrator, from the butler recalling his years of service in "The Remains of the Day" to the detective searching for his parents in "When We Were Orphans." All are slowly piecing together some mystery, something about their lives they still can't quite understand.
