The idea was that when the time came, you’d be able just to unzip a bit of yourself, a kidney or something would slide out, and you’d hand it over. He idea of things ‘unzipping’… a running joke among us about the donations.
and her friends face this future with a gallows humor: They are created through an undescribed process so that, as young adults, their organs can be harvested for use in true humans, the normals. These are a class of people who aren’t people. Ishiguro has envisioned an alternative existence where, in the aftermath of World War II, scientists made major breakthroughs in defeating cancer, heart disease and other human ailments through the use of clones. Similarly, the “here” in Never Let Me Go seems very much like our everyday world. Here, however, they hold different darker echoes. These are words that, in our everyday lives, have particular meanings. So, within the novel’s first 10 sentences, the reader is introduced to a vaguely unsettling jargon: “carer,” “donor,” “recovery” and “donation.” As the story unfolds, other terms are added to this vocabulary: “possible,” “normal,” “model” and “complete.” Their recovery times have been impressive, and hardly any of them have been classified as ‘agitated,’ even before fourth donation. My donors have always tended to do much better than expected. In the first paragraph, Kathy H., the book’s somewhat artless narrator, mentions that she is a carer, and a good one. Or, at least, they aren’t seen that way, or think of themselves that way. The novel is well worth reading and pondering.Īs I was about to say above, it is perhaps a bit odd for me to think of Never Let Me Go as a meditation on the human condition since its three main characters - Kathy H., Tommy D. Nonetheless, if you want to be able to approach Never Let Me Go with completely fresh eyes, you should avoid going any further into this review. There are strong hints early, and the outlines of the world in which the characters live are there from the beginning. Which is odd - but, first, let me warn you that I’m going to be talking about some aspects of the novel that are unveiled slowly in its pages. To my mind, though, it is best viewed as a meditation on the human condition. It can be seen as a metaphorical examination of slavery and exploitation.
It can be approached as a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of science. Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel Never Let Me Go can be read on three levels.
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