Never let me go
About the book
Book author: Kazuo Ishiguro
The book takes place some time in the future. Kathy D., our protagonist, now middle-aged, narrates her childhood attending the seemingly idyllic Hailsham school in England. Their life is to be as perfect and healthy as possible. She must attend it to follow her fate, but her fate is, is not clear at first. We follow Kathy and her friends Tommy and Ruth, through love and quarrels and growing up. As with any Kazuo books, the real story is between the lines.
The story is dystopic, and speaking about it without spoiling is impossible – beware below.
Reflection and takeaways
* Spoiler warning *
We are not told why, but personnel at Hailsham had contempt for the attending children. The kids do not know better and assume this is normal, being clueless but curious. After some time, conversations in the book reveal that Hailsham is a school for clones created to supply organs. The intention of Hailsham is to provide the kids with some semblance of a happy childhood before dying. Not all organ kids seemed to have a happy time like at Hailsham.
The story as such is an ethical thought experiment in clones and organ harvesting with perspective seen from the clones. It humanized them a lot. At the end, the former Hailsham personnel (it had to close due to lack of funding) mention that they think what the modern world is becoming is disgusting – these kids are after all human and have a soul, not just an organ machine. Sad.
It turns worse. In the end, the school and personnel did a lot of good for these kids because if Hailsham did not exist, organ farming would still exist, just not in a humane way at all. The idea of Hailsham was to prove the clones had souls and should have some dignity. As a reader, you pause and reflect on this here. Something like this will just never be ethical and humane, no matter how important for the “real” humans to receive organs. Soul or not.
While their fate unravels, we follow Kathy, Ruth and Tommys friendship throughout their life. Ruth is in a romantic relationship with Tommy in their teens. Ruth is plotting to keep Tommy and Kathy apart, because Tommy and Kathy actually love each other, but Ruth is deceiving them both, claiming the other part is not interested. Ruth later admits this. It makes everything quite complicated and there is abnormal amounts of drama in their connections and interactions. While humanizing the story, I confess I struggled relating to a teenage girl coming of age. If Kazuo had written the characters poorly, it would have been unendurable. There was just a little too much.
Why did I pick it
Read other Kazuo works and liked them. This one is famous. “Never let me go” also became a movie.
Verdict
3.0 / 5. I don’t think I can recommend this book to anyone. I had no expectations or heard anything about the story in advance. I thought all the teenage drama was a little too extensive. A slow read for me because I did not get into the book that well. Interesting story and ethical dilemma.