Book Review: Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro's haunting masterpiece "Never Let Me Go" presents a world that feels both impossibly distant and uncomfortably familiar. What makes Ishiguro's novel so disturbing isn't its science fiction premise, but how it illuminates the mechanisms of dehumanization that operate in our own world. The story's power lies not in shock value, but in its quiet revelation of how we can unknowingly create and maintain systems of oppression through careful conditioning, willful ignorance, and the gradual erosion of empathy.

The most unsettling aspect of "Never Let Me Go" is how completely the students of Hailsham accept their fate. They never rebel, never question the fundamental injustice of their existence. Instead, they focus on smaller concerns: art projects, romantic entanglements, rumors about "deferrals" that might delay their donations. This acceptance isn't born from ignorance but from a lifetime of careful psychological conditioning that makes resistance seem not just impossible, but unthinkable. This mirrors troubling patterns in our own contemporary society, where marginalized communities often face systemic oppression through institutions designed to appear benevolent. Just as Hailsham's caring guardians and emphasis on creativity masked its true purpose, our own modern systems of control often operate through seemingly positive frameworks - educational program that actually perpetuate inequality, privatized healthcare systems that prioritize profit over patients, or criminal justice reforms that expand surveillance while claiming to promote rehabilitation.

Perhaps even more chilling than the clones' acceptance is the complicity of the "normal" humans who benefit from their suffering. The original humans in Ishiguro's world don't see themselves as monsters—they've simply constructed a system where someone else's humanity becomes invisible. The clones aren't quite people on their minds; they're something other, something less, something created specifically to serve. This dynamic resonates powerfully with contemporary political discourse around immigration, poverty, and social welfare. We see similar patterns of dehumanization when certain groups are labeled as "drains on society," "job stealers," or simply "illegal." The language creates psychological distance, making it easier to support policies that cause real human suffering while allowing those who benefit to maintain their moral self-image. Most insidiously, the guardians at Hailsham are presented as reformers who provided their students with a better childhood than clones elsewhere received. Miss Emily speaks proudly of treating the children as individuals, encouraging their creativity, and giving them years of relatively normal life before their donations begin. This "progress" serves primarily to make the system more palatable to those who operate it, not to fundamentally challenge its premises. The clones are still created to die for others' benefit; they're just given art classes first. We see echoes of this in political movements that celebrate incremental reforms while leaving fundamental power structures intact. Corporate diversity initiatives that don't address wage gaps or workplace exploitation. Criminal justice reforms that tweak sentencing guidelines while maintaining a system that disproportionately targets certain communities. Environmental policies that promote individual responsibility while avoiding systemic challenges to industries driving climate change.

Echoes in "Klara and the Sun"

Ishiguro returns to similar themes in his later novel "Klara and the Sun," in which he explores artificial intelligence through the perspective of Klara, an Artificial Friend designed to serve a sick child named Josie. While the surface narrative differs dramatically from "Never Let Me Go," the underlying mechanisms of exploitation remain strikingly similar. Klara, like the clones, accepts her subordinate role completely, viewing her purpose—to serve and eventually be discarded—as natural and even noble. The wealthy families who purchase AFs don't see them as enslaved beings but as sophisticated appliances, much like how the original humans in "Never Let Me Go" view clones as medical resources rather than people. Both innovations primarily serve to reinforce existing power structures while creating new categories of exploitable beings. The parallel becomes even more chilling when we consider how artificial intelligence is being deployed in our own society—often to automate decisions about employment, lending, policing, and social services in ways that can perpetuate or amplify existing biases while appearing objective and fair.

What makes Ishiguro's dystopian vision so unsettling is not just its content but how it's delivered from the perspective of it's narrators. Ishiguro's narrators don't lie to us—they simply present their realities through the lens of their conditioning, revealing how completely a system can shape not just behavior but perception itself. Kathy tells us her story with the matter-of-fact tone of someone describing a perfectly normal life, using clinical terms like "donations" and "completion" to describe organ harvesting and death. This narrative technique mirrors how real-world injustices are often obscured through sanitized language and institutional double-speak. Similarly, in "Klara and the Sun," Klara describes her world with childlike wonder and devotion, never questioning why she and her kind are treated as disposable objects. Her love for Josie and gratitude toward the family that purchased her prevent her from recognizing her own exploitation. The most horrifying details emerge not through dramatic revelation but through the accumulation of small, seemingly innocent observations that gradually reveal the true nature of her world. This narrative strategy forces readers to become active participants in uncovering the horror, making us complicit in the same gradual recognition that the characters themselves experience. We, like the narrators, must learn to see past comfortable euphemisms and normalized brutality to understand what's really happening. We see this in how "enhanced interrogation" replaced "torture," how "collateral damage" describes civilian casualties, how "right-sizing" means layoffs, and how "detention centers" house asylum seekers in conditions that would be called imprisonment in any other context.

In our current political moment, when democratic institutions face unprecedented pressure and marginalized communities experience increasing threats, Ishiguro's insights feel particularly urgent. The book reminds us that the most dangerous forms of dehumanization often operate through seemingly reasonable justifications, gradual implementation, and the careful management of public consciousness. The novel's ultimate message isn't despair but awareness. By understanding how systems of oppression maintain themselves—through conditioning, complicity, controlled narratives, and false progress—we become better equipped to recognize these patterns in our own world and, hopefully, to resist them.