The author has a way with words, for want of a better cliché. He paints a vivid picture of a dystopian near future.
However, I got an immediate sense of The Midwich Cuckoos with this tale, as if Meat Loaf had remastered Bat Out of Hell and tweaked all the raw talent out of it. I found Kathy’s narrative voice so similar to Wyndham’s main character, Gayford, that it leached enjoyment out of the story.
Would I have seen it differently if I had read it when it arrived on bookshelves?
I am not sure. The fear of cloning would indeed have been more prevalent when the book was first published early in 2005–Dolly the sheep had been successfully cloned in ‘96, less than a decade earlier. However, I found the whole premise of the story a little suspect. Why would they educate people destined to die at a very young age? What exactly were the children donating that meant they could donate four times before “completing?” Why were donors being cared for by other donors—unless the author was trying to make some statement with the act’s sheer cruelty? (If he were, this reader missed it completely.) Why did the donors blithely submit, especially as they were “educated?” Another area where the story fell was the whole gallery theme. The author fails to satisfactorily explain the point of forcing the children to produce art for the gallery or judging them on their creativity as if a creative streak will make their organs more desirable. We learn later that Madame kept them, but not why.
“Here, look, Kathy H. has eyes good enough to paint this masterpiece—would you like them?” — is all I can think, but why does Madame keep the work?
Aside from my misgivings about the premise, I found the foreshadowing clumsy at best: ‘…but I’ll tell you about that later…’ is an artifice the author uses throughout. There’s also an element of repetition, with Kathy often being reminded of Hailsham while driving and generally by inane objects like barns. Once would have been sufficient, I think.
Recommendation
Despite the author’s mastery of the written word, I’m not fond of Never Let Me Go.
I stopped reading Man Booker authors back around the time they cloned Dolly. Reading Never Let Me Go reminded me of why. I can’t recommend this book. The main reason is that I get the sense that the author rushed the production, perhaps because he wanted to comment on a contemporary topic. As such, the plot holes seem glaring.
PerchedCrowPress 