Never Let Me Go

The book I read for this review was Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, and I really enjoyed it. We see it through the eyes of Kathy H., who is thirty-one years old and introduces herself as a ‘carer’ who works with ‘donors’.  Her story begins some years earlier when she is a student at an institution called Hailsham, and the first chapters detail her friendships with a girl named Ruth and a short-tempered boy, Tommy, who is often teased by the other students.

Hailsham seems rather like a boarding school, but there are some abnormalities, that made me pause and wonder, adding an air of mystery to the book.  The students never leave the school or speak of having families, and they are sometimes visited by a woman known only as Madame, who chooses some of children’s artwork for her ‘gallery’. Then one day, a teacher reveals to the students what it is that distinguishes them from other people.  They are in fact clones who have been created in order to provide donor organs.  Once they have grown up, they will begin to donate their vital organs, and consequently they will all die young. This gave the book an air of mystery and tragicness, as it wasn’t spelt out, rather picked up and deduced after a number of chapters and kept my in suspense and curiosity all the way through.. This made Never Let Me Go a very interesting read which I would highly recommend to others. The fact that the book deals with such a strange and unheard of issue gave it uniqueness, and it dealt with in a very fresh and, in my opinion, almost factual yet compelling and emotional voice which is so unlike anything I expected. The children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter, which I suppose must have cushioned them from the unearthing of the truth.

In spite of this revelation, the students continue their lives without too much upheaval.  When they reach the age of sixteen they leave Hailsham and go to live with older students in an establishment called ‘the Cottages’.  They are now free to travel in the outside world, and have greater independence.  At this point, Ruth and Tommy form a relationship.

Kathy leaves the Cottages to become a carer, providing support to donors as they give up their organs.  It is assumed that she will soon become a donor herself, but she continues to be a carer for longer than most of her peers.  This means she is able to care for both Ruth and Tommy through their donations. So, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, the feelings that long ago fuelled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to stir, and Kathy remembers their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unworried, – even comforted–by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of misunderstanding, that hints at a dark secret behind Hailsham's nurturing cover.

The story is told with the aid of hindsight, as Kathy look s back on her childhood, and it was very compelling to see the three friends when facing the truth about their childhood, their lives now and the slim prospects of their future. 

Before her final donation and her ‘completion’, Ruth suggests that Kathy becomes Tommy’s carer.  She also advises her to form a relationship with Tommy, saying that she always thought they should have been together, and suggesting that if they are in love then there is a possibility they may be granted a deferral in their donations.  Watching the effect of this one sentence, and the hope it gave through out the novel was moving, and although I was silently cheering for it to work out, I feared for the final chapters.

Kathy begins to care for Tommy and a strong relationship develops.  This was one of my favourite parts of reading Never Let Me Go. Watching Tommy and Kathy fall in love, but fearing that it could not last, in the surreal situation that they were in. It was very conflicting and compelling and it really appealed to my sympathies - like reading Romeo and Juliet as they fall in love but knowing the tragic ending, and I feared that Never Let Me Go could have a similarly crushing finish.  By chance, Kathy sees Madame and discovers where she lives.  When she tells Tommy about the possibility of a deferral they decide to visit Madame and request it from her.  They travel to Madame’s house and find her with the Hailsham headmistress, Miss Emily.

But when they ask about the deferral, they are told by Miss Emily that there is no such thing.  She also explains that Hailsham was intended as a place where the clones could be educated and cultured; some had even tried to prove with exhibitions of the donor children's art that they were 'fully human' and should not be treated as medical resources.  However, places like Hailsham no longer exist and cloned organ donors now have soulless existences in ‘vast government homes’.

Grace D’Arcy

Shortly after this meeting, Tommy completes his donations and Kathy prepares to become a donor herself. I think that Never Let Me Go was an astonishing book. The irony of Hailsham trying to prove that the clones were ‘fully human’, while Tommy, Ruth and Kathy struggled through an emotional battle that no humans have had to deal with was tragic. I really enjoyed the haunting story of friendship and love, and their struggle to maintain their identities. The author raised so many questions with the moral dilemma of clones, and the hypothetical situation stayed in my head long after I left the book down. The effects of humans playing God, and scientific advances were what the author Kazuo Ishiguro  debated throughout the book, and in my opinion he left the issue unresolved at the end, leaving it with the reader to deliberate, which was very effective. I strongly recommend thid book to anyone who may ask, for a story of haunting love and friendship, in a sometimes hopeless situation.