This is a superb yet enigmatic novel, possibly more heart rending and thought provoking than any novel I have read for a long time. I'll have to be clear right at the onset that this novel isn't science fiction so I'll make it clear right now there could be some SPOILERS in this short review. It isn't giving too much away to say the novel is about cloning but it isn't about some weird future like Brave New World or some outcome of the modern world like Oryx and Crake. In fact its set right now in our times perhaps just a little changed; an alternative nowadays then. There isn't any science in it either; no leaps of scientific imagination needed. Ishiguro has written another novel that brings us right down to the inner personal level of the characters - like he did with Remains of the Day, the "big" picture as it were, the background to the reality within the narrative we aren't shown. This is the enigma; we never get the whole background to the story there isn't the filling chapters that tell us how this alternative reality came, there aren't a host of subset characters to fill in the shadowy areas. The novel isn't trying to open debate or make clear the authors point of view of genetic research or cloning it merely poses the dilemma for us - as I said no science is involved, no horror or gore. No deep theological meanings are explored or implied; the simplicity of the novel is its asset. It tries to tell us about the loss of our own hopes and dreams and of our own acceptance of our fates.
Kathy, Tommy and Ruth appear to have an idyllic life in a boarding school called Hailsham out in the English countryside Kathy is the narrator of the story as she sees it in flashback. As the gentle background evolves it becomes clear that this strange peaceful life they lead as children masks a dark reality that they accept. They are to be organ donors when they grow up, there is no talk of parents or of brothers and sisters or real family life. They live in a cultured world of art and poetry and gentle sports with much emphasis on sports and health. There is little contact with the outside world yet it isn't some weird concentration camp. They know they are to be donors and they accept it they see it as an honour, a duty. Yet to all intents and purposes they are quite normal children growing into teenagers with all the angst that goes with normal growing up. I was at first awaiting some revelation in the text that they were some kind of abnormal multi-limbed freaks but they aren't at all. Specially bred clones they are but normal in every respect. The narrative concerns the main three growing up in the school environment then leaving to some form of halfway house before going on to become the "donors" alluded to in the school. The narrative never concerns itself with the donation process - how does this work? Why do they accept it? How has society got to this level of normality where people are bred to donate organs then presumably die when all the important ones are gone? What monsters are these that have conceived such a nightmare? No, none of this is covered, not even alluded to except in the most obscure and obtuse ways. This very obscurity at first convinced me there was some vast plot hole with buses coaches etc awaiting permission to drive through or that Ishiguro had just written a novel with blanks that the reader was meant to ignore. But the obscurity is the whole point of the novel we are forced to look through the eyes of the children growing up and the confused adults they become, their acceptance and docility as children then onto their hopes and dreams as young adults is to be honest deeply moving and heartbreaking. They accept their hopes won't be realised as adults realise perhaps their childish dreams of being spacemen or pop stars won't come to pass. But the sinister future of the "students" as they are referred to and the "training" they are given to become "carers" until they too can become "donors" is all just accepted as part of life, as part of growing up. The world carries on regardless - they watch TV and go out and just accept. This is what the novel is about, letting go of dreams to become just another part of the crowd, accepting our place in life uncomplainingly and plodding on till we are old - or in the case of the students of Hailsham till they "complete" - or die in our terminology.
Kathy, Tommy and Ruth appear to have an idyllic life in a boarding school called Hailsham out in the English countryside Kathy is the narrator of the story as she sees it in flashback. As the gentle background evolves it becomes clear that this strange peaceful life they lead as children masks a dark reality that they accept. They are to be organ donors when they grow up, there is no talk of parents or of brothers and sisters or real family life. They live in a cultured world of art and poetry and gentle sports with much emphasis on sports and health. There is little contact with the outside world yet it isn't some weird concentration camp. They know they are to be donors and they accept it they see it as an honour, a duty. Yet to all intents and purposes they are quite normal children growing into teenagers with all the angst that goes with normal growing up. I was at first awaiting some revelation in the text that they were some kind of abnormal multi-limbed freaks but they aren't at all. Specially bred clones they are but normal in every respect. The narrative concerns the main three growing up in the school environment then leaving to some form of halfway house before going on to become the "donors" alluded to in the school. The narrative never concerns itself with the donation process - how does this work? Why do they accept it? How has society got to this level of normality where people are bred to donate organs then presumably die when all the important ones are gone? What monsters are these that have conceived such a nightmare? No, none of this is covered, not even alluded to except in the most obscure and obtuse ways. This very obscurity at first convinced me there was some vast plot hole with buses coaches etc awaiting permission to drive through or that Ishiguro had just written a novel with blanks that the reader was meant to ignore. But the obscurity is the whole point of the novel we are forced to look through the eyes of the children growing up and the confused adults they become, their acceptance and docility as children then onto their hopes and dreams as young adults is to be honest deeply moving and heartbreaking. They accept their hopes won't be realised as adults realise perhaps their childish dreams of being spacemen or pop stars won't come to pass. But the sinister future of the "students" as they are referred to and the "training" they are given to become "carers" until they too can become "donors" is all just accepted as part of life, as part of growing up. The world carries on regardless - they watch TV and go out and just accept. This is what the novel is about, letting go of dreams to become just another part of the crowd, accepting our place in life uncomplainingly and plodding on till we are old - or in the case of the students of Hailsham till they "complete" - or die in our terminology.
