Never Let Me Go

by Kazuo Ishiguro

What would you do if you knew what your whole purpose in life was from the very beginning of your life? What if it was just be spare parts for other people? Should you be treated differently than anyone else? Educated, taught to love? How would you go on, if you realized that you were a clone, and existed solely for other people's ends, and your own happiness was completely an incidental matter?

Ah, the life of a clone. A clone in high school. A clone in tragic love. It's well written, and somewhat engaging. But it didn't grab me the way I thought it would. I wanted someone in this book to get angry at the situation, or at the hand that life had dealt them, and no one did. Which kinda implies that if you can't get excited about it, why should I?

"I was holding something called Twenty Classic Dance Tunes. When I played it later, I discovered it was orchestra stuff for ballroom dancing. Of course, the moment she was giving it to me, I didn't knowwhat sort of music it was, but I did know it wasn't anything like Judy Bridgewater. Then again, almost immediately, I saw how Ruth wasn't to know that - how to Ruth, who didn't know the first thing about music, this tape might easily make up for the one I'd lost. And suddenly I felt the disappointment ebbing away and being replaced by a real happiness. We didn't do things like hug each other much at Hailsham. But I squeezed one of her hands in both mine when I thanked her. She said: 'I found it at the last Sale. I just thought it's the sort of thing you'd like.' And I said that, yes, it was exactly the sort of thing.

I still it now. I don't play it much because the music has nothing to do with anything. It's an object, like a brooch or a ring, and especially now that Ruth has gone, it's become one of my most precious posessions."