by Sue,
I have very much enjoyed other novels by Kazuo Ishiguro, especially his earlier work: A Pale View of the Hills, An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day. These are very much rooted in specific times and places, for example the aftermath of World War Two in Japan and the U.K.
Never Let Me Go is set in an unspecified time in the future, in what reviewers have called a dystopian society. I had to look this up: it means a society characterised by human misery – the opposite of utopian. Not very promising, ladies: worse, it has been called a science fiction novel. Jay’s reading comprises almost entirely of science fiction texts. He has read and enjoyed this book. This may not bode well for us.
Given that science fiction should tell us something about the world in which we live now, we might want to consider just what Ishiguro is saying about today’s society. And is the world that he describes a likely product of the way we live today? Have human relationships changed in any fundamental way? Can we identify with anyone in the book? For me, this is an essential pre-requisite for enjoying a novel.
I do hope we enjoy this one, ladies.
Hello Ladies! Hope you are both well! The Chong family is doing well with the littlest Chong becoming more mobile. He’s definitely getting too big too fast. But anyway on to our novel.
ReplyDeleteSue, you worried that we would not like this novel. I think I would have enjoyed it more if only my questions had been answered. If my questions had been answered, I would have found the novel’s ending more poetic. Instead, I was left wondering about so many different aspects of this society; the chief among them being about the “donations”. With a medical background, it drove me crazy that Ishiguro did not let the reader know what is donated and when. The reason that this is so important to me is because it would establish the type of world Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth live in. Does it follow the same rules as our world or is it outside of it? For example, in our world the human body cannot live without certain organs. Does that mean that the donations abided by those rules? Or could these cloned people function without vital organs? After all, the clones were unable to procreate. This makes me unsure if Kathy’s world functioned differently. Dolly, the cloned sheep, was able to reproduce. Why were they unable to? I could go on and on.
What do you ladies think about what Ruth said about their possibles? Were they really cloned from the dregs of society? If they used “trash” people to make these clones, why not just use the originals for organ donations instead of going through the process of cloning them? I know that this might cause terrible moral conflict, but how is there not conflict already? What right does this society have to make clones and then use them for spare body parts? This screams with many different ethical questions. I think Ishiguro is commenting on our desire to play god. The human species has come a long way from dying from consumption and small pox. We want so bad to live forever, to not die from terrible diseases, that our actions are becoming more questionable. Stem cell research (I’m not sure how hot a topic this is in your countries) begets the question, “when does life begin?” Are these cells just like the clones from Ishiguro’s novel? Are they living, feeling, breathing things or are they soul-less creatures which seemed to be the popular belief by the larger society of this story? Ishiguro may be warning us that the line between science and ethics is a slippery slope.
Can I identify with anyone in this novel? Honestly, no. Kathy and the rest seem to have accepted their fate. They were created, they will care, they will donate, and then they will die; end of discussion. Tommy, like most clones, accepts this readily. Where is the cry of injustice? Where is the fight against this cruel fate? Our characters are sheep; just following the pre-set schedule of their lives. Could I accept that? No. But that’s just me.
This novel was enjoyable in the sense that it forces the reader to consider the huge ethical issue faced in this society. I do appreciate a book that makes you think outside of ho-hum. A good happy ending story is nice but sometimes you need to get into a book that has more substance. I am left with questions, with moral outrage, with dilemma but also good discussion material. I can’t wait to hear what you ladies think.
-Katie
Hello Ladies,
ReplyDeleteI hope you and your families are both well.
All is going along smoothly here as Ivars and I adjust to being just the two of us and the freedom this allows.
I am back at work though and it's not too bad.
Wow, thank you Sue for such a thought provoking read. Only after I finished and began to contemplate my post did I find so many aspects challenging.
You ask us what Ishiguro is saying about today's society and is the world he describes a likely product of the way we live today?
I believe he is commenting very much on today's society. Indeed it takes little imagination to believe we are very close to his reality.
I feel the setting of the novel, even though supposedly futurist is very much contemporary and not dissimilar to our own, with easily recognisable towns, employment art and music.
I have read a little on the illegal trafficking of organs and was appalled by the rate and range of this deplorable industry.
Katie, it is interesting you mention Ruth's idea on possibles, as within the illegal organ trade it is the vulnerable of our society, the homeless, the migrant workers and the illiterate who are being targeted and [sometimes kidnapped] offered money to sell organs. It follows I guess in Ishiguro's society these same people would be again offered money or mostly taken without consent and cloned, possibly like Henrietta Lacks back in the 60's.
I also found the attitude of Miss Emily and Madame disturbing when Tommy and Kathy visited them. Their failure to see the clones as human, with Miss Emily referring to them as "poor creatures" and with more interest in her furniture. Hailsham was just a failed experiment and no longer fadish so no funding. Sadly, I see parallels with our food production industry and the world's blindness at the suffering of animals for our needs.
Miss Emily is right though when she says "How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days?'
I asked myself the question
If it was my child that needed the organ, how hard would I question its origins?
hmmmm
Another part of the story that puzzled me was,
Why didn't Tommy and Katie just go away to another place together?
As you say Katie, why didn't they stand up for themselves?
Why did they accept this was their fate?
It is very much a distopian society although I don't feel it is science fiction.
There are so many avenues for discussion in this novel, and it has stirred up all kinds of moral dilemmas.
Look forward to more discussion on this.
regards Nancy
Hello Ladies
ReplyDeleteGood to hear that Benjamin is flourishing, Katie. I wish you lots of energy. Nancy, I hope going back to work is proving rewarding. I admire you. Wild horses wouldn’t drive me back. Have your parents settled into their new surroundings? Wonderful to have good professional help at hand: I’m very envious.
Your comments, ladies, have made me think again about the novel. I had assumed when donations were given, bits that aren’t so critical to life were taken first. Only as more “important” organs were removed and the cumulative impact was felt did the body give up. However, having read your comments, Katie, I’m appalled at my own foolishness. I can’t imagine how the donors often survived three donations. There again, are we supposed to believe medical science has progressed?
Could it be, for example, that the donors were biologically programmed to accept their situation? There was considerable cruelty practised by donors themselves against donors who did not conform.
And we live in a world where cultural expectations are hard to ignore – an extreme example is the shocking treatment of Pakistani girls who fail to conform to the behaviour their culture expects of them. Here in the U.K. we are still a very class based society. People regarded as “up themselves” are the subject of much unpleasant gossip. What could Tommy and Kathy do if they decided to make a life for themselves? It’s clear other members of society regarded donors as unpleasantly different. The donors might have struggled as much as black immigrants to this country did in the 50s. (Today, our government’s working on a policy to keep everyone out!)
Certainly, the isolated, insecure, small minority group of donors was led to believe no other option than the life society had planned for them was available. The early experience with Madam, who made Kathy feel she was a spider, and the recognition there were people who shuddered at the very thought of donors, must have made the donors feel there was no life for them beyond the confines of their allotted place in society. No doubt this is a strategy adopted by many racist governments, or governments who do not welcome social mobility.
You’re right, of course, Katie. Ishiguro concentrates on the cultural rather than the scientific. The novel would have benefitted from greater consideration of the medical knowledge available to the society it depicts. Perhaps in a story that concentrates so much on looking back on a childhood institution that deliberately kept its occupants ignorant of their fate (and of the society which organized it) he thought it was inappropriate.
I take your point about the food production industry, Nancy. It’s not such a big jump from manipulating animal development to manipulating that of human beings. And I hadn’t thought about Henrietta Lacks until you pointed it out. The medical society’s exploitation of her does indeed have similarities with the treatment of the Ishiguro’s donors.
Kathy’s passivity, her determination to see the best in everyone, particularly Ruth, really irritated me – especially alongside the bullying in which she participated. (There again, I don’t know enough about the psychology of the oppressed.) For me, the most sympathetic character was Miss Lucy: her struggle between remaining in the system to help the donors and leaving it on grounds of moral outrage must have been awful. As you point out, Nancy, neither Madame nor Miss Emily really saw the donors as equal members of society.
This really is one novel that makes me want to interview the author.
Thanks so much, ladies, for your comments. They have made me see the book in a different light.
Sue