By: A Kim
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Pub. Date: April 2005
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Kazuo Ishiguro is perhaps most widely known for his novel, The Remains of the Day. Like this earlier work, Never Let Me Go is narrated from a first-person perspective by a narrator who is looking into her past and trying to make sense of her life, especially her childhood. We learn from the beginning that Kathy, the protagonist, works as a “carer,” or, someone who takes care of a transplant donor. She speaks of her skill as a carer, but not as a boast; rather, it’s a statement of fact. Most of the novel is set during Kathy’s childhood while she was still a student at idyllic Hailsham. There is a sense of candor in her recollections of her various friendships and relationships that were formed among the students. However, despite the candid confession, underlying the framework of words lies a certain darkness.
Through various hints dropped throughout Kathy’s story, the reader soon learns that Kathy’s England is not the same England that we know. Unlike his other narratives, except, perhaps The Unconsoled, Never Let Me Go is set in an alternative universe, one where cloning of humans is commonly undertaken in order to “harvest” their organs for future transplants. It is this strange society that Kathy navigates with her quiet and restrained narration. In her descriptions of the school Exchanges and Sales, Ishiguro creates a microcosmic society that is an echo of the world without.
The most science-fiction of his novels, the crux of Never Let Me Go focuses science and ethics and whether they can be reconciled. The children of Hailsham are cloned and raised with the purpose of helping out others with their bodies. But the truth is, the children suffer since they will inevitably die as more of their organs are donated. In a world where everyone is looking for a purpose, the students of Hailsham are created to provide a specific service, and of this, they are fully aware. However, this does not keep them from living out lives that can be described as extraordinarily ordinary which demonstrates that inherently, we are all the same. 
A. Kim is the Halfway Senior Editor