I almost gave up on "Never Let Me Go" at midpoint but I sensed that something would come of the story so soldiered on. It requires a lot of patience due to its muted tone and almost deadening pace. I don't agree with reviewers who have said it could have been told as a short story but it certainly could have been condensed into an 80-page novella and been just as effective. That the book raises important questions about society and life and death and science and fate is admirable. That its style prevents many readers from finishing it, let alone understanding it, is a serious flaw.
I'm not sure why Ishiguro made some of the choices he did. The restraint employed in telling the story added to the uneasy sense of fate closing in but also distanced me from the sad outcomes of the characters. In contrast to the slow-going narration of the first 250 pages, the climactic scene includes a gush of narrative explanation that seemed clumsy and tacked on. Like other readers, I was disturbed by the complete passivity of the characters. On the other hand, a less literal reading suggests that the book is not about the exploitation of human clones at all but about the mundane ways most people muddle through their lives and blindly accept their fates.
"Never Let Me Go" reminded me of a great episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" called "The Measure of a Man." It involved the character Data, an android, having to prove his sentience to avoid being declared Starfleet property and being dismantled by order of a government bureaucrat. The stories are a little different, yet issues like the state's abuse of power, the value of artificial life - in this book, human clones - and the dignity of all life are similar. The TV show handled these themes compellingly in a 1-hour episode that haunts me 25 years after seeing it. As well-intentioned as the author is, I don't think that will be the case for this book.
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