At first, Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel Never Let Me Go seems like a novel about a woman remembering her childhood. But as narrator Kathy pieces together the memories of her past, a disturbing reality begins to emerge: she and her school friends were not like other children. They were clones, separated from the outside world and destined to donate their organs to cure the diseases of others until they “complete” — a sinister euphemism for dying. As an adult, Kathy faces the tragedy of her life with a matter-of-fact bravery. Ishiguro’s strange alternative reality is all the more unsettling for how utterly possible it feels.
Never Let Me Go
At first, Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel Never Let Me Go seems like a novel about a woman remembering her childhood. But as narrator Kathy pieces together the memories of her past, a disturbing reality begins to emerge: she and her school friends were not like other children. They were clones, separated from the outside world and destined to donate their organs to cure the diseases of others until they "complete" - a sinister euphemism for dying. As an adult, Kathy faces the tragedy of her life with a matter-of-fact bravery. Ishiguro's strange alternative reality is all the more unsettling for how utterly possible it feels.
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Although the novel is technically science fiction, Ishiguro does not go into grisly detail about the cloning which brought its characters into the world. Instead, he focuses on the emotional consequences of what would happen "if just one or two things had gone differently on the scientific front".
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Kathy is 31 by the novel's end and as the people around her disappear, she clings to her memories of them for comfort. But are these memories reliable? And is it wise to spend so much time thinking about the past?
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The horrific acts in Never Let Me Go are very rarely questioned or rebelled against by the characters who endure them. There is hope that they might one day get a "deferral" - but when this proves to be false, Kathy and Tommy accept their fate and do their duty.
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