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50books_poc2010-10-18 10:02 pm
tala-tale.livejournal.com) wrote in 50books_poc2010-10-18 10:02 pm
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Book 13
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
On the one hand, this story was a creepy twist on the English-Boarding-School novel, which was intriguing; I've read plenty of stories about clones before, but never one with this subtly eerie quality to it, and never one where the clones were basically seen as assemblages of spare body parts. I liked the story's build-up of tension, and its exploration of the humanity of these people who are seen as soulless.
I had, though, an almost impossible time believing that the clones all went along with the idea that they should tend one another and ultimately get carved up into chunks. I know they're basically brainwashed as children, but I just... I really can't see that you wouldn't have massive numbers of people who tried, even unsuccessfully, to get the hell out of dodge. It's not like they're visibly different from non-cloned humans, after all. Surely SOME of them would try to go underground and keep on living!
I think, though, that this may be one place where my own cultural biases are running up against those of the author; I suspect the idea of doing something like becoming a Donor simply because it was what one was supposed to do, what one's entire peer group was doing, and what Authority dictated, would make much more sense to someone whose basic mindset was collectivist rather than individualistic.
And, I guess, maybe that's part of the point? I'm not sure. But maybe part of what Ishiguro is doing is questioning just how far it's morally acceptable not just to push people, but to let one's self be pushed? I mean, in the end, maybe one could argue that, despite everything, the clones ARE in some way less-than-human, by virtue of their nurture rather than their nature, because they really aren't ever given the tools to engage with life as anything other than useful objects, some of whom have a nicer lifestyle than others. They simply aren't equipped with the understanding that there ARE significant ethical decisions to be made (outside of the context of personal relationships, at least; Ruth's remorse about keeping Tommy away from Kathy shows that they are capable of understanding and responding based on a fairly abstract notion of right and wrong), let alone that it's an act of humanity to make them.
In an odd way, it reminds me of what happens to animals which are domesticated; they're bred to be more useful to humans, which includes breeding for docility, but even without that, the transition from a world of struggle, threat, and challenge, to the confines of human care simply makes more complex, confrontational behavior less necessary. Maybe if we bred humans as stock, Ishiguro has nailed dead-on what that'd do to their drive and ability to struggle, even if the struggle is for life itself. Maybe they truly WOULD have as little agency as these characters seem to.
I dunno. I figured out pretty early on in the book what was going on, and was pretty sure how it was going to end from not much later on than that, so I found the ending anticlimactic (and terribly depressing, to boot).
I suspect that this would be a good read for some people, but I think I'm just not one of them.
On the one hand, this story was a creepy twist on the English-Boarding-School novel, which was intriguing; I've read plenty of stories about clones before, but never one with this subtly eerie quality to it, and never one where the clones were basically seen as assemblages of spare body parts. I liked the story's build-up of tension, and its exploration of the humanity of these people who are seen as soulless.
I had, though, an almost impossible time believing that the clones all went along with the idea that they should tend one another and ultimately get carved up into chunks. I know they're basically brainwashed as children, but I just... I really can't see that you wouldn't have massive numbers of people who tried, even unsuccessfully, to get the hell out of dodge. It's not like they're visibly different from non-cloned humans, after all. Surely SOME of them would try to go underground and keep on living!
I think, though, that this may be one place where my own cultural biases are running up against those of the author; I suspect the idea of doing something like becoming a Donor simply because it was what one was supposed to do, what one's entire peer group was doing, and what Authority dictated, would make much more sense to someone whose basic mindset was collectivist rather than individualistic.
And, I guess, maybe that's part of the point? I'm not sure. But maybe part of what Ishiguro is doing is questioning just how far it's morally acceptable not just to push people, but to let one's self be pushed? I mean, in the end, maybe one could argue that, despite everything, the clones ARE in some way less-than-human, by virtue of their nurture rather than their nature, because they really aren't ever given the tools to engage with life as anything other than useful objects, some of whom have a nicer lifestyle than others. They simply aren't equipped with the understanding that there ARE significant ethical decisions to be made (outside of the context of personal relationships, at least; Ruth's remorse about keeping Tommy away from Kathy shows that they are capable of understanding and responding based on a fairly abstract notion of right and wrong), let alone that it's an act of humanity to make them.
In an odd way, it reminds me of what happens to animals which are domesticated; they're bred to be more useful to humans, which includes breeding for docility, but even without that, the transition from a world of struggle, threat, and challenge, to the confines of human care simply makes more complex, confrontational behavior less necessary. Maybe if we bred humans as stock, Ishiguro has nailed dead-on what that'd do to their drive and ability to struggle, even if the struggle is for life itself. Maybe they truly WOULD have as little agency as these characters seem to.
I dunno. I figured out pretty early on in the book what was going on, and was pretty sure how it was going to end from not much later on than that, so I found the ending anticlimactic (and terribly depressing, to boot).
I suspect that this would be a good read for some people, but I think I'm just not one of them.
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One thing that happened for me while reading the novel was thinking about all the ways I've accepted parts of my culture that aren't good for me, simply because they are how things are.
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I guess, for me, what rang false was not the idea that they (and we) accepted things that weren't good for them, but the *degree* of harm they were willing to accept. I just... I dunno, it just seems like more people would draw the line at being used as a renewable resource.
On the other hand, you're right that we all internalize messages about who we are, who we should be, and what we're good for from our societies, and can be governed by them well past any point of sanity or self-preservation, so maybe I'm giving self-interest too much credit. I certainly *want* to believe that people would say, "hell, no!" But then, if that were always true, you wouldn't have people killing themselves because of bullying, or starving themselves over an intolerable sense that there's no thin that's thin enough, or... well, yeah.
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Most people who work for pay are being used as a renewable resource. Everyone who works for someone else's benefit, whether or not for pay, is acting as a renewable resource. (They might not be "being used" if they are doing it consensually, for their own reasons.) People sell their hair, blood, and plasma. People sometimes donate their organs (in most places they aren't allowed to donate organs if they would die from doing so, though). People join the army and risk getting killed. In some countries young people are required to join the army and risk getting killed. There are more people in slavery today than at any other point in human history.
I apologize for the soapbox that I find myself standing on...
I would be pleased to find out that part of the reason the Ishiguro wrote this is to get a few people to say "hell, no!" to the exploitation they currently experience.
...and/or to point out some of the ways that governments and other large organizations smooth over atrocities and try to make to seem like no big deal.
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I think, obviously, that there's a huge distinction between working for pay and donating one's organs in the way those Donors do, but... you're entirely right that joining the army is a pretty close cousin to what Donors are doing (especially when it's truly or implicitly mandatory, either legally, because of lack of other options, or simply through coercion), though joining an army entails, as you've said, a *risk* of death, rather than a certainty of it (obviously that risk is much closer to a certainty for child soldiers and other soldiers in poorly equipped armies, making your point that even more apt in those situations).
Also, I think that, for me at least, and I'd guess for other people out there, being required to go out and kill people might actually be worse than being required to donate my organs until it killed me. At least the Donors were able to see themselves as entirely noble, giving to others, and weren't forced to destroy anything or anyone other than themselves. I hadn't thought that far outside of the context of the story.
Thanks for your responses; they're really helping me think this through much better than I had initially.
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there's a huge distinction between working for pay and donating one's organs in the way those Donors do
If the work is safe and doesn't harm your health, yes. But many people work in unsafe conditions or work so many hours that it harms their health and might affect their lifespan. In those cases the distinction gets a little more fuzzy.
I still think there IS a distinction. I think the distinction is there to encourage the reader to look at the Donors and feel horror and think "I'd never put up with that!" And then to ask "To what extent are we already putting up with similar things?"
The reader might also think "I'd never exploit a person that way!" And then they might ask "To what extent are my comforts dependent on other people being exploited in ways that harm their health or shorten their life? And to what extent do I think of certain other people as 'less than fully human' to justify this economic structure?"
At least the Donors were able to see themselves as entirely noble
Excellent point. The Donors have a purpose and know what their purpose is. That's more than I can say for myself. Maybe in a strange way they are better off than I am.
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Yes. I think that a lot of people find themselves in the position of Miss Emily (that *was* her name, right? I sent the book back to the library already and I'm terrible at hanging onto names!), thinking of themselves as allies to an exploited group, but only ever working to make that exploitation slightly more tolerable, rather than challenging its existence in the first place, either because it never occurs to them that it's POSSIBLE to challenge it, or because they think the weight of the social pressures and economic structures already in place make abolishing it impossible.
How different this story would have been if, instead of raising these children by gently coaxing them to be as fully human as possible while still accepting their ultimate exploitation, the school taught its charges how to stand up for their right to live a life of their own choosing.
Instead of gathering useless "evidence" that the clones had souls, if the school had simply started from the premise that OF COURSE they did, OF COURSE the idea that clones were soulless was simply a means of allowing society as a whole to exploit them without having to face the fact that they were murdering other humans, they could have given the children an education that would have fitted them with the skills to survive in the world outside of the narrow "protection" offered them if they trundled along like good sheep to the slaughter.
If the children had been seen as fully human, they could have been given an education that would have freed them to decide, and create, their own futures, instead of being forced to rely on what others thought was good for them (or at least necessary for them). Imagine if Miss Emily's goal had been not to stand as a protector and advocate for the children but, instead, to raise them in such a way as to make their "need" for protectors and advocates obsolete.
I think that in some ways, the most important questions in the book don't have to do with the ethics of raising humans as organ donors, but instead with the ethics of how we shape thought and expectation, our own and that of our children -- with what and how we choose to teach.
(I'm enjoying this conversation, too! :D)
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OBVIOUSLY, the story would also have been wildly different if one of the clones (maybe Tommy, who at least seems to have the initial inclination to rebel against his world) stood up and fought for a different life, helping others to do the same. And certainly there's no indication that, beyond being basically brainwashed into accepting their fate, the clones aren't capable of doing something just like that; in fact, it's the very fact that they ARE capable, and still don't, that is, I think Ishiguro's point -- that we all have agency, but can be talked out of seeing, accepting, or using it, even in the face of appalling consequences.
What I was intending to say in my less-than-brilliantly-executed mess above was just that, since clones were being given to people like Miss Emily to be raised, there were far better options available to her as their ally than the one she took.
Sometimes, I'm an inarticulate weevil. I apologize.
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:)
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However it worked for me because the narrator has imperfect information, because she wouldn't necessarily know that those things are happening, and on the level of a parable or a fairy tale, where all the parts that would be there in real life but are not the core story have been rubbed away.
I thought the genius of it was the complicity, the way they got the clones involved as carers, doing it to themselves/each other, so much harder to lash out at another clone than at Them, and by the time it's you you're acclimated.
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However it worked for me because the narrator has imperfect information, because she wouldn't necessarily know that those things are happening, and on the level of a parable or a fairy tale, where all the parts that would be there in real life but are not the core story have been rubbed away.
Ahhhhhhh! Yes, I hadn't thought of it that way, and that really shifts my perspective. Thank you. Now I find myself wanting to reread it, looking at it as a parable.
I thought the genius of it was the complicity, the way they got the clones involved as carers, doing it to themselves/each other, so much harder to lash out at another clone than at Them, and by the time it's you you're acclimated.
Yeah. Eeeew. Creepy, but it certainly would make a huge difference in the clones' responses, wouldn't it? Being a carer sounds so... loving. Who'd want to say no to that? And yet, it seems like most of the clones, unlike Kathy, don't have the stomach to do it for long -- I think that brings me right back around to your take on her as a narrator; she may actually be more okay with what's going on than the other clones, based on their behavior -- they can't seem to escape their ultimate fate, but they can't stomach walking others through it, either.
Thanks so much for your thoughts, and I'm sorry it's taken so long to respond; life has been incredibly busy lately! :)