Kazuo Ishiguro - Never let me go

This review contains spoilers, so if you are planning on reading this book, start by stop reading this review and read that book!

The protagonist of the book is Kathie, and she is a carer. It may sound like an ordinary job, but it's not. Kathie is herself a clone and she cares for others clones who are going to donate organs to some lucky misfortunate person out there. One day she herself will donate up to four of her own organs before completing. Or die, as we non-clones call it. This has been going on for 40 years.

There. Had I read those four lines before reading "Never let me go", I probably wouldn't have bothered to read it. These mysterious threads of the story unravel in a slow fashion throughout this easy-to-read book about growing up as a clone, with focus on social activities surrounding a school.

To me it's sci-fi. There are several sci-fi short stories and novels on this subject, and Ewan McGregor even starred in a Hollywood flop with a very similar plot line ("The Island").

The problem with "Never let me go", is that it drags you slowly through a muddy storyline that may supposedly be there solely to satisfy readers who are not used to sci-fi and need something more regular to read.

But not everything is bad. Although things move slowly, i had an eerie feeling when reading some parts of this book. Especially when such an extraordinary topic is covered in such an everyday way. However, the eerie moments lasted short and the distance between them was, alas, too great. Maybe this novel would have been better off as a short story? Maybe not, but still.

This book evolves around issues such as whether or not a clone of human being would have what we call a soul. How close to the original will these people be? How aware are they of being clones and will that fact make them bitter? How do you successfully shield clones from the outside world and vice versa. A lot of important questions that Ishiguro enlights in an elegant fashion.

But to me, unfortunately, the book was too weary, even though i completed it within days.