Never Let Me Go

Right after finishing A Pale View of Hills, I went on to read my third Ishiguro book, which I had been hoping to read all summer: Never Let Me Go. I had the advantage of knowing next to nothing about the novel's plot, which was quite surprising; the book has been popular for a while now and a successful movie was even released a few years ago. The novel opens with Kathy H. introducing herself to the reader. She gives us her name, her age (28), and her profession (a carer).

Kathy grew up in a special boarding school called Hailsham, which is special not only for the excellent care provided for its students, but because of who (or what) makes up the student body. (SPOILER ALERT!) Kathy and her two best friends, Ruth and Tommy, are all clones fabricated for the sole purpose of donating their organs upon reaching adulthood. Reading the novel without really thinking about this information, though, made the whole experience for me. The fact of them being clones is never really said outright until the very end and is only hinted at around the middle of the book. One of the first more blatant hints is when Ruth, after leaving Hailsham, thinks she may have found her "possible," a term which refers to the real life person whom a clone was modeled off.

Of course, it is very obvious from the onset that these children are not regular kids: they have no families or memories before Hailsham, and they are all given stock names like Kathy H., Tommy D., Sarah P. The students grow up being told that they are special, that it is extra important for them to keep their bodies healthy. They are taught about sex, particularly that "normal" people do it when they are in love and hoping to have babies--but that Hailsham students cannot ever have babies. They even learn through play-acting how to interact with the outside world, say in a cafe or with a police officer. The students are constantly creating art, sharing it with one another and getting their pieces collected by guardians. Art indeed seems to be the focus of their education in Hailsham.

There is a common strangeness in all three Ishiguro novels I've read, and yet each book manifests this strangeness in a unique way. The raising of these children at Hailsham is extremely strange, made only more so when I was not really certain of their identities. A Pale View of Hills was eerie like a ghost-story, like a confusion of very important memories. The Unconsoled was beyond weird; I remember constantly feeling on my guard, knowing the novel was taking place in a world whose rules were not like those governing my own.

Another commonality between Ishiguro's books, one that makes his novels exceptionally moving, is how they all come together. In each of these three books there has been a particular scene towards the end that has left me shaking my head, overwhelmed, even with tears in my eyes. These scenes are strong enough to bring their respective stories to a great conclusion. I even wrote about this moment in my post on The Unconsoled. In Never Let Me Go, there is a very tense and charged scene towards the end of the novel where Tommy and Ruth, now a couple, come to understand the true nature of who they are, the truth about the ways of Hailsham and about the way the rest of world sees them: as fabrications to be raised like less than cattle. I can't explain the intensity of this scene or the way it so beautifully concluded the novel.

I recommend this novel to anyone. It was short and easy to read but poses deep, timeless questions about the nature of humanity; about the depth of the soul; about the risks of technological advancements; about love. It was sad and very beautiful.

I finished this book a while ago, and have since then started The Captive, the fifth installment of Marcel Proust's great novel, In Search of Lost Time! I am also about the finish Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, which was assigned to me for class. I love it, though! It's deeply psychological and discusses things that are way ahead of its time.

Until next time... The Avid Reader.