Never Let Me Go is a bleak
novel that offers little respite from its dystopian vision of a society that
tolerates not just cloning of humans, but the cloning of humans for no other
purpose than to harvest their organs. Much of the moral point of the novel is
left unstated, although towards the end there is a final confrontation that
allows the key characters to nail their colors to the mast. The colors are
pallid. The characters who question the ethics of the cloning program seek only
to salve their consciences by carrying out their grotesque task in a more
humane way. Their abhorrence of the ‘Morningdale scandal’ is merely ironic. Even
the characters who are subject to this hideous regime are unable to fully
understand its moral dimensions. It is hard to imagine a more cold and clinical
world.

Never Let Me Go revolves
around three central characters, Ruth, Tommy, and the narrator, Kathy. The
story begins with Kathy, in her early thirties, reflecting on her life at Hailsham,
and her work as a ‘carer’. Through a series of key incidents we are introduced
to a range of characters, all of whom are seen entirely through their life at Hailsham,
a model institution that sounds at first like a boarding school. However this
is no ordinary boarding school. By the time you realize that there has been no
mention of parents, brothers or sisters or any sense of belonging outside of Hailsham,
you have begun, like the children, to accept the normality of their cloistered
life. Before long you will be asked, like the children, to accept a lot more.
Kathy introduces a range of terms, such as ‘completion’, ‘deferral’ and ‘possible’
the meaning of which mark the children as special, and not destined to take a
place in the outside world. 

Besides the children only one other
group figures in this novel. They are the guardians, the adults who act as
custodians, who provide classes, and who prepare the children for their future
lives. There is little direct explanation of what lies before them, and readers
must develop their understanding from Kathy’s sporadic recollections of the
guardians’ a piecemeal lectures and indirect hints. The guardians are, in the
main, austere and unapproachable, although there are moments in which even the
most severe are seen as human and vulnerable. Miss Emily discovers Kathy
singing the novel’s theme song as she listens to the only cassette tape she owns.
Miss Emily’s reaction is one of distress, something that the narrator only
fully understands late in the story. Miss Lucy seems the most approachable of
what is a pretty grim bunch, but in the total institution that is Hailsham she
is only able to hint at a wider understanding of the children’s situation.

 Kathy is both naïve and
perceptive. As a narrator she has recourse to a limited worldview, and her
language is that of a cosseted teenager for whom the world is filtered through
more knowing adults whose word she accepts implicitly. Through her
relationships with Tommy and Ruth, Kathy is able to comment on friendship,
loyalty and love. The emotional climax of the story is as poignant as that of
any novel; and the pain and disappointments are equally moving.    

In the course of her recollections
Kathy constantly refers to incidents that we have not yet heard of, and which
she proceeds to explain. This technique drives the narrative forward, but it
becomes a bit wearying, as if Ishiguro doesn’t trust his readers to stay
engaged. And there are plenty of reasons why you might want to put this book
down. You feel afraid for Kathy, you don’t want to believe that this sort of
eugenics program could occur, you want to stop the deception and exploitation.
But in the way horror stories are compelling even at their most bloodthirsty, Never
Let Me Go grips you with morbid fascination and moral outrage.

  Ishiguro’s writing is deceptively
simple, something which fits the point of view of the narrator, and creates a
discomforting sense or ordinariness about what is a bizarre and grotesque
world. The naïve point of view is touching; there are many instances of a
childlike view of the world which are both funny and sad. There is a belief,
never fully dispelled, that all the lost objects in the world end up in
Norfolk, another that the mysterious Madame, a woman who occasionally visits Hailsham
to collect works of art produced by the children, is keeping a gallery of this
work. The latter belief turns out to be not far from the truth, but for very
different reasons than those imagined by the children.

As a work of fiction Never Let
Me Go only partly succeeds. As a story about hope and despair it fully
captures those emotions, but Ishiguro seems to want more from his science
fiction like plot.  While Never Let Me Go provides a compelling
narrative, a layered plot driven by love and shifting loyalties, and some
convincing atmospheres, the overall effect is of incredulity. Perhaps such a
regime is at least imaginable. But Never Let Me Go leaves some critical
questions unexplained. People seem just too naïve, and there is a curious
absence of a world outside that inhabited by the main characters of this
novel.   

Ishiguro sets up a story that
requires resolution both emotionally and dramatically. A lot hinges on the
revelatory second last chapter, and the conclusion in the end seems rushed. You
finish the book wondering if the theme of lost childhood needs such a
portentous structure. Never Let Me Go is both disturbing and intriguing.
It’s not a light read, or even an enjoyable one. But for some reason I read it
twice. That’s probably a recommendation.

© 2005 Tony O’Brien

Tony O’Brien is a short story
writer and lecturer in mental health nursing at the University of Auckland, New
Zealand: a.obrien@auckland.ac.nz

Editor’s note: The unabridged audiobook is read by Rosalyn Landor, who does a fine job in her reading, at keeping a balance between the self-knowledge and motivated self-deception of the narrator.