The question of size and characteristics of a fictional world. Remarks on Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never let me go”

It would be tempting to label the 2005 novel about clones and cloning “Never let me go” by Kazuo Ishiguro as a science fiction novel. It is, however, almost devoid of the futuristic “reality effects” that characterize a lot of science fiction. The fictional world seems almost identical with England in the 1990s except for the fact that a technology of cloning was invented back in the 1950s. Is “Never let me go” simply a realist novel with one single twist? Looked at more closely the fictional world presents itself as a rather peculiar version of the real world. Its size or scope is strangely limited and the myriad of details is not strikingly abundant. We are confronted with a radically reduced world that mirrors the reduced “in-der-Welt-sein” of the clones. They are, however, not in themselves reduced as human or psychological entities, which explains the powerful ethical and empathic force of the novel.