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Do clones dream of authentic lives?

Like many dystopian novels, this novel is built upon a premise that lies some degree beyond the ability of a current technology and includes its own terminology, a collection of terms that are synonyms for experiences out of daily life. However, except for the premise, which is revealed with great subtlety and naturalism, the setting for this novel could almost pass for one of those coming-of-age novels set in English boarding schools in the countryside, with the major characters almost real-world counterparts to Harry Potter and his cohorts. However, there are notes struck early on by the terminology that evoke a world containing only bleak futures for these pupils as we realize the purpose for which they are being groomed.

Told as a first person narrative by the ‘survivor� of the boarding school Hailsham, Kathy H. begins her reminiscence with the wistful nostalgia of many narratives in which the narrator remembers an idyllic/troubled chapter from her childhood. English literature is full of these novels e.g. ‘Jane Eyre,� ‘David Copperfield.� The dynamic of a bonded triangle emerges early in the childhoods of Kathy and her friends, Ruth and Tommy. Inevitably, tension will arise between Kathy and Ruth and possessive struggles over a superior, romantic bond with Tommy will be sprinkled throughout their adolescence and even into early adulthood, as they graduate from Hailsham and move into The Cottages, converted barns in which they are rehearsing for an adult life in the outer world that none of them will have for more than a few years.

The emotional tug-of-wars between them often left me mystified. Why is Ruth so upset over this action of Kathy’s or what does Tommy really feel, independent of the expectations these two women project on him? There seems to be a missing element, as though these characters are incomplete. That seems to be precisely the intention. They are clones and, much like the androids/replicants of Philip K. Dick’s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?� and subsequent film version, ‘Blade Runner,� they have been kept in ignorance of their origins and left to contemplate their ultimate fates. It is natural for everyone, even clones, to want to find their true origins. Ruth becomes, for a time, obsessed with tracking down her ‘possible,� the genetic original from which she was modeled.

The adjective ‘incomplete� is very appropriate here as their lives are revealed as extending into a vague, indefinite future where their ‘guardians� will release them carefully into the world until they are summoned for their first donations, culminating in ‘completion.� This is presented as a natural, predestined fate from which none of them can escape. There are rumors of deferrals, in which a couple can prove that they are in love with each other and possibly be granted a deferral they begin their donation process. Tommy’s theory is that this was the purpose of all the artwork they were encouraged to produce, to be collected in the gallery of Madame, a mysterious, silent woman that periodically appears throughout the years to take from them to be included in her Gallery. The artwork is viewed as a window into their souls according to him. Like Ruth’s obsession with her possible, Tommy’s theory is his attempt to have some influence over his fate or at least to learn a reasonable explanation of it.

Kathy is, in a sense, granted a deferral through her experience as a carer—she looks after various others like her as they go through their first, second, third, possibly fourth donation, however many it takes before they reach completion. She has a knack for being a carer and it provides her objectivity in dealing with the destinies of individual donors and prepares her for her own donation phase. Her serene manner and unquestioning acceptance of their fate makes the premise for this riveting novel even more horrific.

Like other ‘creation in search of creator� novels such as Dick’s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?� and Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein,� ‘Never Let Me Go� asks the question, do these man-made humans have souls and if so, to what extent can they feel authentic love and emotion rather than counterfeit imitations of it? The heartbreak and pathos the reader feels upon the novel’s completion seems to indicate that they do have souls; what they feel and what they experience is as real to them as our experiences are to us. Perhaps they feel even more intensely as the parameters of their lives are so clearly delineated for them and they are left in no doubt about the ultimate purpose of their lives.