Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go Review

The Plot: 

The novel tells the story of Kathy,a young woman of 31, focusing at first on her youth at an unusual Hailsham, an unusual boarding school and eventually, her adult life. The novel takes place in a dystopian Britian, in which human beings are cloned in order to provide donor organs for transplants. Kathy and her classmates have been created to be donors, though the adult Kathy is temporarily working as a "carer," someone who supports and comforts donors as they are made to give up their organs and, eventually, submit to death.

The central issue of free will, the possibility of choosing to seek an escape from their fate, is not even pondered by any of the novel's characters, and is, by its very absence, one of the novel's themes. As in other fictional dystopias, Hailsham subtly encourages emotional repression, just as it gently obscures the nature of the clones' purpose to the outside world.

Ishiguro also explores the inevitable development of human love and relationships and relays, through Kathy's reflective memories, the instinct to cling to both love and life.

 My Take:

This book is an amazing work. while constantly elusive and subtle at first, it builds up a curiousity in its readers. The reader is almost forced to experience the same emotional repression as the students of Hailsham. Once the secrets surrounding the boarding school are revealed, the reader is thrown into a dark, dizzy world in which some human lives are more worthy than others. The novel raises interesting questions as well as strong criticism in regards to cloning, the risks and dangers involved, as well as the emotional price of such an endeavor.