Continuous Vivid Dream

A good What-If always makes for an intriguing novel.  Never Let Me Go joins a group of other novels like Children of Men (What if women stopped having children?) and the Handmaid’s Tale (What if women were subjected in society?).  The What-If in Never Let Me Go is: What if people were cloned for the purpose of donating their organs?

It’s certainly a timely question when donors for many organs are hard to come by and the question of cloning for medical purposes continually is raised.  In Never Let Me Go, the story is told in retrospect by Kathy, a carer, who slowly learns the truth of her existence through the years.  Sheltered from the truth until adulthood, it takes a silly misunderstanding (if you show you are in love through your art work, you can postponement to donate) to lead her on a mission for the shocking discovery of how she and her friends were all clones and raised for the purpose of donating their organs.

Never Let Me Go gains its title from an old song Kathy cherishes in her childhood, an allusion to a scene of Kathy holding a child in her arms and refusing to ever let her go.  The scene instills sadness in one of her guardians who breaks down on sight of a young child with no possible future as a mother cradling a fictional child.

Kazuo Ishiguro uses a unique storytelling devise to drive the story through the novel, bringing up an incident and then going back in time to fill in the details prior to the incident, then returning back to the incident.  It’s compelling because it instills curiosity in the reader in the pursuit of understanding.

Where the novel fails is in Kathy’s relationships with Ruth and Tommy.  The novel centers around these childhood friends and their connection later in their life.   There doesn’t seem much redeeming in these relationships and her relationship with her friend, Ruth, is quite antagonistic.  Her later attachments with Tommy seem forced and hardly the signs of a loving relationship.

Never Let Me Go is a worthwhile read.  I would argue though that it lacks the suspense or oppression of other What-If scenarios presented in other hypothetical novels like Brave New World or 1984.  It’s a much lighter and less poignant account of one possible reality in a world seeking to live a little longer.