All we had to give (novel)

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All we had to give is the German title of the novel Never Let Me Go by British author Kazuo Ishiguro from 2005. It is about a young woman's story. She tells about her life at a school that practically serves as an organ reservoir. All of the students there are clones who were born to later donate vital organs. The students are only gradually confronted with the terrible truths that determine their lives, always at an age when they actually cannot grasp what it means.

The book was nominated in 2005 for the UK's highest book price, the Booker Prize ( shortlist ). It also received nominations for the Arthur C. Clarke Award (2006) and the National Book Critics Circle Award (2005). Time voted it Best Novel of 2005 and included it in its list of One Hundred Best English Language Novels from 1923 to 2005. In 2015, 82 international literary critics and scholars voted the novel one of the most important British novels .

2010, the novel was directed by Mark Romanek and Carey Mulligan , Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley in the lead roles filmed .

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The story begins in Hailsham , a boarding school , and is told by Kathy H., who relives her memories. Hailsham is in South Essex (England), in a beautiful landscape and is cut off from the outside world. Kathy, her best friends Ruth and Tommy and their classmates grew up there and seem to have had a sheltered childhood. They go to a seemingly normal school, but their teachers are not called teachers, but supervisors, and the students are told early on that they are special, different from the people “outside”. All Hailsham colleagues are clones and have only one purpose: Their existence serves the purpose of having organs removed until death so that others who have commissioned them can continue to live.

In Hailsham, painting and drawing is a central task for the students. You should paint a lot and be creative. Three to four times a year a woman, simply called Madame, comes and takes the most beautiful work with her. The students do not know what happens to the work. They suspect that they are coming to Madame's so-called gallery.

However, Tommy is not creative and has no talent for art, which is why his classmates tease him. Kathy is sorry for Tommy and wants to help him. This gives Tommy trust in Kathy and they become friends. Kathy's best friend is Ruth - although Ruth is the born leader, brags and fools, has a lot of power and sometimes takes advantage of Kathy. And although Tommy confides his most secret fears and desires to Kathy, he has a love affair with Ruth.

The students are left in the dark about their origins, destiny and future. Very little is told to them and students do not ask questions or avoid the subject. At the age of 16 the college students have to leave Hailsham and come to cottages where they also live with clones from other boarding schools. There are no overseers there, so they are on their own and can live there until they begin training as carers or become donors. If you become a supervisor, you will look after a wide variety of donors until you will eventually get a “notification” of your first donation yourself.

Rumor has it in the cottages that lovers from Hailsham can get a three year deferral so they can have some time to themselves before they start donating if they can prove they really love each other. Tommy hopes for this possibility and makes up his own answer for it. He thinks that's what the gallery is for. Based on the pictures that Madame took with her over the years in Hailsham, she could then see that you really love each other. Since Tommy has never read a picture for the gallery, he begins to draw, only to receive a reprieve later.

After an argument with Ruth, which she begins about Tommy, Kathy leaves the cottages and begins her training as a carer. While Kathy is helping another donor, she meets Ruth in the "hospital". Ruth has donated twice and is in bad shape. She is very happy to see you again and would like to visit Tommy with Kathy, who is now also a donor. Ruth apologizes for everything she was guilty of in her imperfect personality: that she lied to Kathy, that she tried to keep Tommy and Kathy away from each other when they were supposed to be together from the start, and that she did it all again want to make up for. She gives Tommy the Madame's address and asks Tommy and Kathy to go there to get respite for each other. On her third donation, Ruth dies, or "completes", and Kathy becomes Tommy's carer and friend.

Tommy and Kathy decide to visit Madame to ask for a respite. But the woman explains to them at their meeting that there has never been such a delay, that it is all just a rumor. The gallery was created solely for the purpose of showing people that clones also have a soul and feelings and are practically indistinguishable from naturally born people. Madame wanted to convince the population, who suppress the existence of clones and prefer to believe that the organs " grow up in a vacuum ", that clones also have a soul and that from a human point of view it is not justifiable to use them for organ production. Hailsham would at least have given clones the opportunity to grow up in a cultured and humane environment, and at least granted them a decent life for a few years. But Hailsham has now been closed and the struggle for these goals has failed.

Tommy dies shortly after after making his fourth donation, and Kathy knows that after twelve years as a caregiver, she will soon be called to make her first donation.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ All-TIME 100 Novels: Never Let Me Go in Time Magazine January 8, 2010
  2. ^ The Guardian: The best British novel of all times - have international critics found it? , accessed on January 2, 2016