Book 13
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
On the one hand, this story was a creepy twist on the English-Boarding-School novel, which was intriguing; I've read plenty of stories about clones before, but never one with this subtly eerie quality to it, and never one where the clones were basically seen as assemblages of spare body parts. I liked the story's build-up of tension, and its exploration of the humanity of these people who are seen as soulless.
I had, though, an almost impossible time believing that the clones all went along with the idea that they should tend one another and ultimately get carved up into chunks. I know they're basically brainwashed as children, but I just... I really can't see that you wouldn't have massive numbers of people who tried, even unsuccessfully, to get the hell out of dodge. It's not like they're visibly different from non-cloned humans, after all. Surely SOME of them would try to go underground and keep on living!
I think, though, that this may be one place where my own cultural biases are running up against those of the author; I suspect the idea of doing something like becoming a Donor simply because it was what one was supposed to do, what one's entire peer group was doing, and what Authority dictated, would make much more sense to someone whose basic mindset was collectivist rather than individualistic.
And, I guess, maybe that's part of the point? I'm not sure. But maybe part of what Ishiguro is doing is questioning just how far it's morally acceptable not just to push people, but to let one's self be pushed? I mean, in the end, maybe one could argue that, despite everything, the clones ARE in some way less-than-human, by virtue of their nurture rather than their nature, because they really aren't ever given the tools to engage with life as anything other than useful objects, some of whom have a nicer lifestyle than others. They simply aren't equipped with the understanding that there ARE significant ethical decisions to be made (outside of the context of personal relationships, at least; Ruth's remorse about keeping Tommy away from Kathy shows that they are capable of understanding and responding based on a fairly abstract notion of right and wrong), let alone that it's an act of humanity to make them.
In an odd way, it reminds me of what happens to animals which are domesticated; they're bred to be more useful to humans, which includes breeding for docility, but even without that, the transition from a world of struggle, threat, and challenge, to the confines of human care simply makes more complex, confrontational behavior less necessary. Maybe if we bred humans as stock, Ishiguro has nailed dead-on what that'd do to their drive and ability to struggle, even if the struggle is for life itself. Maybe they truly WOULD have as little agency as these characters seem to.
I dunno. I figured out pretty early on in the book what was going on, and was pretty sure how it was going to end from not much later on than that, so I found the ending anticlimactic (and terribly depressing, to boot).
I suspect that this would be a good read for some people, but I think I'm just not one of them.
On the one hand, this story was a creepy twist on the English-Boarding-School novel, which was intriguing; I've read plenty of stories about clones before, but never one with this subtly eerie quality to it, and never one where the clones were basically seen as assemblages of spare body parts. I liked the story's build-up of tension, and its exploration of the humanity of these people who are seen as soulless.
I had, though, an almost impossible time believing that the clones all went along with the idea that they should tend one another and ultimately get carved up into chunks. I know they're basically brainwashed as children, but I just... I really can't see that you wouldn't have massive numbers of people who tried, even unsuccessfully, to get the hell out of dodge. It's not like they're visibly different from non-cloned humans, after all. Surely SOME of them would try to go underground and keep on living!
I think, though, that this may be one place where my own cultural biases are running up against those of the author; I suspect the idea of doing something like becoming a Donor simply because it was what one was supposed to do, what one's entire peer group was doing, and what Authority dictated, would make much more sense to someone whose basic mindset was collectivist rather than individualistic.
And, I guess, maybe that's part of the point? I'm not sure. But maybe part of what Ishiguro is doing is questioning just how far it's morally acceptable not just to push people, but to let one's self be pushed? I mean, in the end, maybe one could argue that, despite everything, the clones ARE in some way less-than-human, by virtue of their nurture rather than their nature, because they really aren't ever given the tools to engage with life as anything other than useful objects, some of whom have a nicer lifestyle than others. They simply aren't equipped with the understanding that there ARE significant ethical decisions to be made (outside of the context of personal relationships, at least; Ruth's remorse about keeping Tommy away from Kathy shows that they are capable of understanding and responding based on a fairly abstract notion of right and wrong), let alone that it's an act of humanity to make them.
In an odd way, it reminds me of what happens to animals which are domesticated; they're bred to be more useful to humans, which includes breeding for docility, but even without that, the transition from a world of struggle, threat, and challenge, to the confines of human care simply makes more complex, confrontational behavior less necessary. Maybe if we bred humans as stock, Ishiguro has nailed dead-on what that'd do to their drive and ability to struggle, even if the struggle is for life itself. Maybe they truly WOULD have as little agency as these characters seem to.
I dunno. I figured out pretty early on in the book what was going on, and was pretty sure how it was going to end from not much later on than that, so I found the ending anticlimactic (and terribly depressing, to boot).
I suspect that this would be a good read for some people, but I think I'm just not one of them.