Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

“We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.” 

Synopsis (from Amazon)

As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.

Rant / Rave: The earlier pages got me curious about the mystery of why Hailsham students were isolated from the real world. As I progress, the mystery did not matter at all but the shadows of knowing but not knowing still hangs thru the air. The novel is chilling because it presented a society which uses clones for medical purposes as organ donors, but disregard their being human. Other clones were not as fortunate as those from Hailsham because they were raised in animalistic conditions.

I was appalled at how calm Kathy narrates even after they were told that deferral is impossible and the discovery of the purpose of Hailsham. It is painfully sad how they just accept the fate the society imposes on them. Their purpose in life is to give out all their organs until they "complete", die. In spite of being capable to make their own decisions and do what they always dreamed of when they were young, like be an ordinary office worker, an actress or a waitress; they were raised to think it was impossible, ignorant of the outside world and therefore, they cannot act otherwise.


Film Adaptation: 

With just 15 minutes, I snored to sleep. It was boring. The parts where it made an impression to the readers were not shown. Like their trip to Norfolk; Kathy H., Ruth & Tommy's scene on Tommy's drawing ;and when Madame saw Kathy H cradling a pillow while listening to Never Let Me Go song. Tsk. What a disappointment. This is one of those books that are better read than watched. Those who watched it first before reading ended up not reading it at all. The movie ruined the book.



Official Trailer:  Directed by: Mark Romanek / Casts: Carey Mulligan (Kathy H), Kiera Knithley (Ruth), Andrew Garfield (Tommy).