Never Let Me Go By: Kazuo Ishiguro

a. General Overview:

1) What was your overall impression of the novel?

2) Both the Kite Runner and Never Let Me Go are frame stories. Why do you think authors use this
technique? Do you agree that, as a narrator, Kathy replicates the guardians’ narrative strategy of
“telling and not telling.”? How does Kathy differ from Ruth and Tommy? Which one do you relate with
the most? Who do you think it was more difficult for to accept their fate?

3) The novel's title comes from Kathy’s favorite track on Songs After Dark, "Never Let Me Go." Do you
think it was meant to symbolize anything? If so, what?

4) How do the different homes in the novel (Hailsham, the Cottages and Kingsfield) stand for the
characters’ main life stages? How are these settings contrasted with the woods and Norfolk?

5) What’s the significance of the various trips the main characters embark on?

6) Which do you believe to be the main theme(s) of this novel:

• The relentless passage of time
• The inevitability of loss
• Innocence, knowledge and decency
• The need to remember
• Free will vs. subjection
• Trying vs. conforming
• Fearing others
• Death and the human condition

b. Read the excerpts below and locate them within the novel’s storyline. What’s their
significance?

Carers aren’t machines. You try and do your best for every donor, but in the end, it wears you down. You don’t have unlimited
patience and energy. So when you get a chance to choose, of course, you choose your own kind. That’s natural. (p. 4)

There have been times over the years when I’ve tried to leave Hailsham behind, when I’ve told myself I shouldn’t look back so
much. But then there came a point when I just stopped resisting. It had to do with this particular donor I had once, in my third
year as a carer; it was his reaction when I mentioned I was from Hailsham.

“You’ve got a point, Kathy. It’s not nice. But if he wants it to stop, he’s got to change his own attitude. He didn’t have a thing for
the Spring Exchange. And has he got anything for next month? I bet he hasn’t” (p. 15)

For years we thought of her as “snooty,” but then one night, around when we were eight, Ruth came up with another theory.
“She’s scared of us,” she declared… The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it’s a cold moment.
It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something
troubling and strange. (p.33, p.36)

I knew exactly what she’d meant by her answer and smile: she was claiming the pencil case was a gift from Miss Geraldine.(p.56)

The fact that we’d never seen a picture of the place only added to its mystique. (p. 66)

The tape disappeared a couple of months after the incident with Madame (p. 73)

That talk with Tommy beside the pond: I think of it now as a kind of marker between the two eras. (p.76)

The problem, as I see it, is that you’ve been told and not told. You’ve been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare
say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way. But I’m not. If you’re going to have decent lives, then you’ve got to know
and know properly. None of you will go to America, none of you will be film stars. And none of you will be working in supermarkets
as I heard some of you planning the other day. Your lives are set out for you. (p.79)
 Certainly, it feels like I always knew about donations in some vague way, even as early as six or seven. And it’s curious, when
we were older and the guardians were giving us those talks, nothing came as a complete surprise…At that age—again, I’m
talking of around thirteen—we were all pretty worried and excited about sex … We still didn’t discuss the donations and all that
went with them; we still found the whole area awkward enough. But it became something we made jokes about, in much the
way we joked about sex. (p. 81, p.83)

“Listen, Tommy, your art, itis important. And not just because it’s evidence. But for your own sake. You’ll get a lot from it, just for
yourself.’” (p. 106)

“You’re upset because I’ve managed to move on, make new friends.” (p. 122)

“That’s right,” Ruth said quickly. “You can all come and see me.” “I suppose,” Rodney said, “there aren’t any rules about visiting
people if they’re working in an office.”… “To be honest, I don’t know what you’re all talking about. What rules are these?” (p.149)

“Do you think it could be the same one? I mean, the actual one . The one you lost?”…Well, at least I can buy it for you (p.170)

“It’s not just me, sweety. Kathy here finds your animals a complete hoot.” (p. 192)

I’m a pretty good donor, but I was a lousy carer.” (p. 223)

Don’t you wonder sometimes, what might have happened if you’d tried?” “How could I have tried?” Ruth’s voice was hardly
audible. “It’s just something I once dreamt about. That’s all.” (p. 226)

“It’s too late for all that now.” I’d started to sob again. “It’s stupid even thinking about it.As stupid as wanting to work in that office
up there. We’re all way beyond that now.” (p. 229)

Lucy Wainright was idealistic, nothing wrong with that…Very well, sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you.
Yes, in many ways we fooled you. I suppose you could even call it that. But we sheltered you during those years, and we gave
you your childhoods. Lucy was well-meaning enough. But if she’d had her way, your happiness at Hailsham would have been
shattered. Look at you both now! I’m so proud to see you both. You built your lives on what we gave you. You wouldn’t be who
you are today if we’d not protected you. (p.263)

“I think Miss Lucy was right. Not Miss Emily.” (p. 268)

“It’s a shame, Kath, because we’ve loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can’t stay together forever” (277)
The fantasy never got beyond that—I didn’t let it—and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn’t sobbing or out of control.
I just waited a bit,then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. (p,282)

c. Discussion questions
1) Some reviewers have expressed surprise that Kathy, Tommy, and their friends never try to escape
their ultimate fate. They cling to the possibility of deferral, but never attempt to vanish into the
world of freedom that they view from a distance. Yet they love the film The Great Escape, “the
moment the American jumps over the barbed wire on his bike” [p. 99]. Why might Ishiguro have
chosen to present them as fully resigned to their early deaths?

2) Art is a recurring motif throughout Never Let Me Go. In which scenes is art a topic? What is the
importance to the students as children? As adults? To the story’s themes?

3) What is the book saying about childhood? Think about this, too, in the context of Miss Lucy, who
wanted to make the children more aware of the future that awaited them. In contrast, Miss Emily
claims they were able to give them something precious – “we gave you your childhoods” (p. 268). In
the context of the story as a whole, is this a valid argument?

4) Does the novel examine the possibility of human cloning as a legitimate question for medical ethics,
or does it demonstrate that the human costs of cloning are morally repellent, and therefore impossible
for science to pursue? What kind of moral and emotional responses does the novel provoke? If you
extend the scope of the book’s critique, what are its implications for our own society?