Monday, October 4, 2010
"Never Let Me Go"
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2010/10/never-let-me-go.html
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Rick, I just finished Never Let Me Go last week. After seeing a preview for the movie, I decided that I should read the book first.
The book was a great read and I finished it in a matter of days. However, as interesting as it was I thought it suffered in style (not a fan of ongoing flashbacks inspired by random fields) and in the end had less to do with the moral implications of cloning that you suggest. Instead, I read it more as an allegory for emerging adulthood and finding one's self in that process. I thought Ishiguro used clones in order to tell a story creatively that would be dull otherwise. We grow up thinking we can be anything, and find out that our dreams are limited by numerous factors outside of our control, and the "adults" before us would, in the end, rather not let us in on this fact. We all change as we get older, and we lose not only our friends, but the wide-eyed person we were before.
Cloning is certainly an element in this story and Ishiguro establishes a foundation for further critical thinking on the ethics of manipulating life for science. However, I would argue that the majority of people atheists and religious alike, would firmly support the full inclusion of cloned humans into society. Regardless, I think this element to the story was for creativity and demonstrating an old topic in a new light rather than a major lesson.