I imagine I would have caught it fairly quickly even so, though. But perhaps everything seems obvious when you already know it. I liked how he treated the subject, though. It seemed ... realistic? to me. We accept that we will grow old and die. The way the children thought about donations seemed similar. The way they do not question the fact that they are "different" and that this is what must happen, and perhaps especially, that they do not try to escape it in any other way than through what they see as official channels, that is perhaps the thing that is most unrealistic. But even that can be explained by what is quite clearly a form of grooming or brainwashing from a very early age. The brainwashing is clearly carried out throughout: the striving for the fourth donation, the special treatment of those who make it there...

To me the grand enigma of the book was the Gallery. I had formed the right idea early on (being terribly political and suchlike), and while I entertained the possibility of the love-hypothesis, I do not think it would have satisfied me. Certainly not if it had provided a happy ending. I think I would have taken it as Ishiguro selling out. I had expected Hailsham to be more sanctioned, more of a "normal" way of doing it than an outer fringe experiment. I suppose the realisation that that was the good life hit me.