Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - a review

At the intersection of science, society and identity, lives can only be seen as through a frosted window alternately revealing glimpses of light, shadow and, finally, a frightening opacity. Few of our favorite writers can see the dangers and the possibilities at this intersection. Kazuo Ishiguro can and shares his view with simplicity and grace.

In Never Let Me Go, Hailshum, a school for special children, reveals its nature and purpose slowly and always through the eyes of several of its...uh...students. Cathy, Ruth, and Tommy are friends of a sort who, like all friends, play and fight and spar and love with each other in their years at school and later.

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Hailshum is a special school for those whose lives are defined by their eventual donation of organs to save others. The idea of institutionalized organ harvesting seems less foreign than it once did, less foreign than in the innocent days before September 11, 2001. Government institutions’ imposing solutions to problems we may not have has become standard practice, hasn’t it? Even an old liberal like me can see the inexorable creep of big brother and his sister agencies charged with keeping us safe. Can a program to keep certain people alive and kicking be far behind?

One of a number of special schools to raise donors, Hailshum encourages healthy sex (regular sex contributes to a healthy body) and prohibits pregnancy and marriage, conditions which, apparently, do not contribute to a healthy body. Close relationships flourish, but the important talk with pre-teens is not about sex – it’s about donation and its implications. Society at Hailshum provides some comfort for its students, students for whom the larger society is clearly the enemy.

In Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro exposes his characters with all their charms, their weaknesses and their ugly parts. In this, he shows us their deep, confused humanness; he shows us the humanness they share with us.

Cathy, Ruth and Tommy live at that intersection, the intersection of science, society and identity, living with bumpy stoicism the lives science prepared them for. Society has decided it needs them, it seems, and they need each other to find meaning and love in the imposed hollowness of their lives. They, like we in ours, find some, but never enough.

Ishiguro tells us their tragic and ordinary story with the gentleness that distinguishes his work. Let no one tell you otherwise; this book is masterful.