Never Let Me Go

The acclaimed novel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a wonderful balance of ignorance and knowledge: "The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way." Kathy, the novel's main character and narrator recalls being told this in her childhood years at Hailsham boarding school - this qoute sums up the way in which Kathy interacts with the reader for the majority of the novel: from the on set, the narator [kathy] makes it clear that she is a 'carer' but it is left to the reader to piece together bits of information - just as the students did at Hailsham - in order to get a grasp on what a 'carer' in the novel's context, even is.

The novel outlines the coming of age, and subsequent years of Kathy, Ruth and Tommy within the greater context of a rare boarding school in east Sussex. Though the reader is not told a great deal about the school or the students outright, as the novel progresses through the first few chapters, it is clear that these are not ordinary students, and the Guardians do not treat them in the way you might expect. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when you realize that the youths are not so much students as they are walking donations to be used commodity-style. Once this concept is grasped, it is a quick jump to full realization that the students are in fact copies of 'original' citizens used as 'donors' for their vital organs. The reader is eventually told this outright, but it is with a sense that you already expected what was coming - somehow, you knew it was coming. "All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma." This is the same way the students interact in Hailsham, piecing together concepts and understandings without fully knowing the full picture. The effect of such subtle revelation is one of intimacy with the characters and leans towards a greater connectivity with the would-be unrelatable environment of the novel.

Though the clone/donor concept is certainly not an original one, Never Let Me Go certainly does not seem overdone, nor repetative. The style and manner in which it is written - and more specifically the careful subtle ways the three main characters maneuver through a world frought with inevitability, truly draws the reader in and puts a touching spin on an idea that might otherwise be considered "sci-fi'. Instead the novel is expressly drama, coming of age, and sentimental, exploring the complexities of knowledge and innocence, through revelation and careful curiousity. In this manner Ishiguro explores what it means to serve a societal purpose, what it is to really live, and the human soul (and what evidences might be used to prove such a thing exists).

"We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time."