I have been meaning to read this book for years and have purposely never watched the movie. I lovedRemains of the Day and have been waiting for a time to get my teeth into this.
Well I read it in just 5 days and it totally took me away to another world and yes, I loved it. This book sells itself as being about clone children who are bred to harvest their organs. But in my opinion this book is not about science fiction at all. Infact I think it's all about the way we deceive ourselves about what the future holds. We all know we are going to die and probably get sick and in pain but we just accept this and blindly and live our lives without many questions. This book makes us think about what it means to be human and what things in life are important to us.
Back to the book. these kids are all bought up in the beautiful surroundings of Hailsham House and the first half of the book is written from a teenage girl's perspective. it's so well written. I can't believe this author would be so capable of getting inside a young girl's head. he did though and it was extremely realistic. These kids are different and know they are different but they only get ghostly snapshots and rumours of the life which is waiting for them. There are scary rumours about donating and the euphemistic, completing. ( dying.) but not much else. no parents, no histories, no idea of careers or jobs or TV or fashion of life outside. These kids live in a bubble where they make gifts for each other and get second hand clothes delivered once every few months. They also spend a lot of time looking at people's faces in magazines trying to find out who they were cloned from.
Most of the time though they are making and creating things. Half of their stuff is taken away by the mysterious Madame and put in a gallery(or so they believe.) I loved this part, the kids think that the artwork is being used to prove they have souls and that two people in the future can use their artwork from when they were young to prove their love for each other and hence defer donating their organs. This bit was very clever because religion and belief are never mentioned in this book once. This world has no room for God and the author shows how these young people grab instinctively onto quite profound issues of being human: like love, belief in something and the power of friendships.
As the book contines it becomes more and more bleak. Pitch black bleak. The way these young adults just accept their fate is beyond me. They live in a world which ghettos these people and then completely abuses them in the name of medical science. (Nothing is ever written about what is taken out of their bodies but after 3 or 4 donations everyone of them is dead. It's good that he leaves the science to our imaginations.)
But this book is beautifully written and the day that Kathy and Tommy have together in Norwich is wonderful. (Sounds so boring, but in this book life is so dull for these kids, any day away is amazing!)
One thing this book will do is make you totally aware that you have to grab life full on and live it to the maximum.
I like this link discussing why the kids never run away or rebel from the fate which awaits them.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/apr/01/kazuoishiguro
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