Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

I must say, the initial thing that attracted me to “Never Let Me Go” was the trailer for  2010 film starring Carey Mulligan, one of my favourite actresses, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield.  I quickly proceeded to read the novel before the film came out and loved it. The actors and production team were very faithful to the novel and I thought it was an excellent portrayal of one of the most poignant things I’ve ever read.

Set in an alternate history, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel follows the journey of three students from ‘Hailsham’, a privileged boarding school in the idyllic English countryside. We quickly realise the students are constantly monitored, sheltered from the outside world and conditioned to fear it. Ishiguro explores the fraught relationship between friends Kathy, Tommy and Ruth [only given letters for surnames] and he writes about childhood innocence and curiosity of the world, misunderstanding what they experience and confusion about their identity and purpose.

When the three become adults they live in secluded cottages and only learn how they think they should behave from pop culture that leaks into their lives. They discover they are ‘copies’ of the ‘scourge’ of society: prostitutes, drug addicts and prisoners, and they are reared from birth to donate their organs and feared by ‘humanity’ as soul-less and sub-human.  Through this method, society has eradicated deadly diseases but at the cost of leaving these creatures empty and outcasts. However, the staff at Hailsham encourage the children to express themselves artistically and these pictures are taken to a mysterious ‘gallery’ outside the school. The trio learn of a rumour that Hailsham students are privileged, and if a couple can prove they are truly in love they can delay the donations.

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are given the choice to become ‘donors’ or ‘carers’. Donors immediately begin to give their vital organs and on average ‘complete’ [i.e. die] by their third donation, whilst carers can delay the time before they must begin donating. Kathy chooses the latter and the three are separated whilst Ruth and Tommy begin to donate.  Kathy becomes so accomplished as a carer that she is allowed to choose her patients and through this sees her friends again. Weakened by her donations, Ruth confesses she was wrong to separate Kathy and Tommy in their childhood and gives Kathy the address of the place where they can delay the donations. She begs Kathy to go with Tommy, as they have always been in love, and Ruth believes they stand a chance.

However, when Tommy and Kathy get there, they discover the old Headmistress of Hailsham, who has refused donations out of principle. Hailsham has been closed down and the other schools for ‘clones’  are now being run like battery farms. Society has chosen to ignore the Hailsham staff’s work to prove these ‘copies’ have souls through their artwork. The Headmistress also dashes their hopes of deferring Tommy’s final donation by telling them there was never any system like that in place.

“Never Let Me Go” has a very different tone to much other dystopian fiction. Ishiguro is noted for his observations of the world and particularly the multi-faceted aspects of relationships; that is the primary concern in the novel and we are given the story from Kathy’s view, so ignorance of the politics of this alternate history is what gives it a sense ofisolation and despondency. The three main characters feel void of purpose and not only misunderstood by people on mass but never quite sure who they are themselves.

I think Ishiguro takes a bold step into a different kind of dystopia, one more about individuals and how they are affected by technological progress and changing ethics. It’s interesting it’s all considered a dystopia, rather than a utopia, because a world free of ailing health would seem idyllic, but the cruelty by which this is achieved stops it from being an ideal. The novel and film raise questions about the essence of humanity, and a lot of philosophical questions about purpose and morality.

Whilst epic dystopian worlds of some other Sci-Fi, such as War of the Worlds or 1984, are much more concerned with its effect on the entire population, Ishiguro’s novel is haunting because this alternate world is so like our own and the trio of friends such ordinary people that the possibility of ‘cloning’ suddenly seems more vivid, and the consequences much more tangible.