Never Let Me Go

A stellar example of what a literary master can do with a science fiction theme, Never Let Me Go is a gripping novel that explores fundamental questions about what it means to be human, one of my favorite themes in any kind of fiction.

Through the consciousness of its young narrator, it drew me into a world only subtly different from ours, but as that difference became more apparent, it was also more disturbing. As I came to love and care for the narrator and her two friends, Ishiguro gradually revealed their terrible fate, one I found more difficult than… show more.

I love Kazuo Ishiguro’s work and this is my favourite book of his.

Never Let Me Go is the fictional story of a childhood that initially seems acceptable, despite the early indications that something strange is going on. As the story proceeds, however, it becomes clear that this is a horrific world, one in which children are being grown for their organs.

But the power of the story for me is not the revelation itself but the way in which it is revealed, layer by layer, as the characters become older and more knowing. That experience of becoming aware that… show more.

I have read many stories and books about clones and the treatment of these beings whose genetic makeup and minds are much like our own.

Kazuo Ishiguro explores more than just the ethics of using clones as though they are not humans through a philosophical lens that brings us to question what exactly makes us human and what our true values are if our sole purpose from the moment of birth is to sacrifice ourselves, cut our lives short, for the sake of others. 

I met Ish many years ago, when we were both promoting our first novels on a Faber tour. I love his work and have read everything he’s written.

But Never Let Me Go is the one that haunts me, for its understated grief and the way it reminds us of what it is to be human, and to face death, in an all-too-plausible and heart-breaking future scenario. 

Spoiler alert: this is not a novel about conventional organ donation.

Rather, it’s a rumination on humanity, morality, science, memory, and power. Following three friends as they come of age at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school, then have to face the truth of what they’re really being nurtured for.

It’s also a dystopian love story and scarily prescient science fiction, and if you don’t end the book with a lump in your throat so large that you almost can’t breathe you’re made of stronger stuff than I am. 

This is a whole different take on human cloning. Never Let Me Go depicts a world in which people are cloned to create organ donors for the sick, necessarily limiting the lifespan of the clones. It is the story of the passions, relationships, and emotions of the clones and their attempts to delay their fate. As with any book by Kazuo Ishiguro, this is beautifully written, and an insightful study of human nature.

Although mostly set in a mysterious boarding school called Hailsham, this novel isn’t about the school, or even what happened there. It’s set in a grim alternative version of England and isn’t for the faint-hearted (no pun intended). 

What a boarding school does to a child is seal them off from ‘real life’ and in this case, Hailsham represents a strange sort of safety; and the real world is devastatingly lethal for the narrator Kathy and her friends Ruth and Tommie.

This is one of the books that made me want to become a writer of “speculative” novels. It’s a beautifully engrossing alternate history, set in what appears to be a remote English boarding school. There we meet young people who have been told they have a special destiny, a special place in the world—but not what that destiny is. As his story unfolds, Ishiguro asks us to think about how far human beings might be willing to go to save themselves, what it actually means to be human, and how something as beautiful as empathy and caring can be used,… show more.

When it came to categorising my book, I remember Googling the genre for Never Let Me Go and having a bit of a light-bulb moment when it came up as ‘soft sci-fi.' I read this book several years ago and yet it has always stuck with me, particularly the coming-of-age storyline of the characters from children to adults set within an ultimately horrifying reality. There is something so poignantly spine-chilling about a reality where controversial scientific practices are not only sanctioned but have become the norm – it really makes you think about the definition and the deniability of humanity. 

Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth are boarding school students of Hailsham, where they are educated and protected by adults known as “guardians.” The students of Hailsham are clones, bred so that their organs will one day be harvested and donated. Donations are made until the clone “completes” – a euphemism for their inevitable death. Despite knowing this, Kathy, the narrator of the novel, and the other characters accept their fates. They don’t protest or rise against the system that sees them as commodities; instead, they choose to distract themselves by creating and maintaining an insular mythos about their world. That Kathy… show more.