Never Let Me Go

http://www.kkoworld.com/kitablar/Kazuo_Isiguro_Meni_hech_vaxt_buraxma-eng.pdf

Hi all, sorry for the long post -- this is my favorite book and I got a little excited writing about it.

I'd like to submit as a suggestion Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. In this book, we are introduced to three main characters within the context of a boarding school in the idyllic British countryside. However, we soon learn that something is a little...different about the situation at Hailsham. The author gradually reveals that the boarding school is part of a nation-wide government-sponsored program to grow clones in order to harvest their organs in a dystopian timeline where we have cured such diseases as cancer and ALS.

This book has been often falsely labeled as science fiction- I only say "falsely" because I think to call it scifi is to not absorb the main idea. Ideally, this classifies as drama/romance (there is a love circle for almost the entirety of the novel), which incidentally has science fiction events driving its plot.
Really poignant and impactful is the way the author handles the plot he has set himself up with. In essence, these characters go through all the major stages of life, and the reader follows along as they occur. They struggle through adolescence, middle-age, and older adulthood, but it is all within the span of about 30-something years, and by the end of their short lives they are somewhat reminiscent, mentally and physically, of elderly people themselves.

The part that I would like to submit is Ch. 22-23 on this pdf. After hearing a rumor that it's possible for alumni of their school to get a deferral on their donations (thereby receiving more time together), two characters leave for an old teacher's house in an attempt to prove true their claim of love. In the process, they find out the truth behind "deferrals" and the government program in a shaking revelation.

The author, an awarded Japanese-British one, has said the story centers around what happens when we find out we don't have much time left, and what the things in life that suddenly become more important with that knowledge in tow. The way the characters try to navigate a world they have no knowledge of is troubling for us to read as members of society with that privilege. Characters reunite after years, and the initial meeting is somewhat hard to swallow, since we know they know that they will all not be around in less than five years, having "completed," (this here being the chilling term the author uses in order to refer to the death of a clone from donation). After being vilified for looking at pornographic magazines, we find out that another character was looking for her genetic "original." A trip to the city to find one of the three character's "originals" turns up empty handed, and the general tone of the story of is a somber, longing one, an idea summarized by a quote toward the end of the novel:

“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever.”

In the end, this is a love story that brings into question moral and ethical concerns across a dystopian backdrop. Here, science has advanced so far that we seem to have oppressively glossed over the concept of what makes someone human, and in the process made an "othered" class of clones. This group has no choice to sit by as they are subjugated to being biomedical stock houses who can have sex, form personal relationships and have emotions, but for all intents and purposes, are not human by this alternate society's standards.