Never Let Me Go

Carey Mulligan (who plays the narrator, Kathy) and Keira Knightley (who plays her frenemy, Ruth) star in Never Let Me Go, the film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel. This was far and away my least favorite of Ishiguro's novels and I didn't much like the movie, either. The main problem is this: Never Let Me Go is a great title, and it sounds like it's going to be a wildly romantic story. In reality, it traces the lives and loves of clones who are raised to donate their organs to humans. 

I think I started crying a couple of minutes in and basically sobbed through the rest of the movie. It's just such a horrible, de-humanizing topic. I mean, that's the point. But it's unimaginably awful--Ishiguro brings you in, much like the clones were brought in--gradually--always knowing and not knowing what the movie is about. Because you see what is human about the clones--their loves and jealousy and artistic expression--you can't imagine that they are really clones and that there's a society that would actually be okay with gradually killing them, with using them as means, rather than loving them as ends. 

The one argument I have with the film adaptation is small, but I think significant: In the film, the title, Never Let Me Go, refers to a romantic relationship between two of the characters, Kathy and Tommy; In the book, Never Let Me Go is much more complicated. Sorry to quote myself, but here it is:

The clones cannot have children. One of Kath's most treasured possessions of her childhood is a tape with a song on it called, "Never Let Me Go." The song is clearly addressed to a man, but Kath always believes it to refer to an infant: "Never let me go. Oh, baby, baby. Never let me go." Kath says, "I imagined it was about this woman who'd been told she couldn't have babies. But then she'd had one, and she was so pleased, and she was holding it ever so tightly to her breast, really afraid something might separate them, and she's going baby, baby, never let me go." One of the guardians sees her as she dances to the music, holding a pillow, imagining that she's holding a baby. This guardian has a different interpretation of the situation: "I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go." This is Ishiguro at his finest--tracing the movement from an old society to a new society; in this boundary and conflict between the two, he finds his themes, whether the setting is in England, Japan or the future.

The film version says nothing about the clones' inability to conceive. This is what separates clones from humans and something that is really heartbreaking--Kathy has the desire to have children, but not the capability to do so. Instead, the film focuses only on the things that the clones have in common with humans--their ability to create artistically and their ability to fall in love. At the end of the film, Cary Mulligan has a monologue in which she says that the clones are not very different from humans, they just have a little less time on earth. This is not the way that the book ends; it ends simply with a reflection on memories and with a stoic resignation of what Kathy's role as a donor will be.

Ishiguro's real point in the novel is profound: Kathy longs to be a human--she wants to hold onto the "old kind world," which is being replaced with a new "harsh, cruel world." Having children is part of holding onto the old kind world. Having children would give Kathy a place in that world, would give her a place in the movement of generations. It would prevent her from being excluded completely from the world, which is literally what will happen to her--if she had children, she would at least remain in some way in them, even if she died. As it is, she is sterile. This sterility mirrors society's decision to take her organs and let her die.