Never Let Me Go Vs. The Island

     One of the books I read this summer for summer reading was Never Let Me Go. From the moment I realized that the 'students' in the book were actually clones who were all made with the purpose of donating their body parts to the people in the outside world, my mind kept going back to a movie I had saw in English class my Sophomore year. This movie was called The Island. It too was about clones who were made to donate their vital organs to those in the outside world. In the book Never Let Me Go, it never specified that the clones were made as an exact clone of someone famous or wealthy enough to get a clone of them, that way if they became ill or something happened, they had a clone who could donate to them, but that is still what I kept thinking. This is because, if my mind serves me correctly, is how it went in the movie, The Island.
     My purpose of writing this blog originally was to show the similarities between the Never Let Me Go book and The Island movie, but the more I think back on each, the similarities end after maybe the first 30 minutes of the Island movie. While both are stories of clones who are made of people in the outside world, with the purpose of donating their body parts when they are needed, and both having a tied in love story involved where their relationship seems unlikely or against all odds, that is about as far as the similarities go. The Island is very futuristic, high tech, and more of a fast pace, action movie about the two clones escape.The main focus in this movie is about how they escape. The clones in this movie are completely unaware that they are clones, and are unaware of their future and what will come of them. To justify why some are disappearing and never coming back, they tell them that they have been released to live on some beautiful island. On the other hand, in Never Let Me Go, the clones are told their whole lives what they are and what will happen to them. All though they are told in ways in which it doesn't really occur to them, they are still informed, they know what will happen to them when they leave. The main focus in the book is not about a lot of action, or some elaborate escape plan, it focuses much more on the characters, their lives, and the love stories. This book, at least in my head, did not seem high tech and futuristic, but more casual, modern times, school kids kind of thing.
     While at first, I thought the two were similar, it is clear that there are also many differences. If I were to compare Never Let Me Go to just the beginning of The Island, then I would have something there, but I realize that the differences between the movie as a whole, are more than the similarities.

Hobby?

     My boyfriend, Jacob, went to Western Hills in Frankfork for high school, where he grew very close with his english teacher. They broke down many different forms of literature, annotating it, to show its deeper meaning. This is something that he found very interesting and was very good at. Now every time we hear a song, or a saying, or poem, he can't help but to see it the way his english teacher had tought him to. We will hear a song, that when you are just carelessly listening to it, sounds like a pretty happy song. But he will start saying what he feels the song truely means, and at first sometimes it just sounds crazy and far fetched, until you break it all down.
      At first it was hard for me to just read something, or listen to something and be able to grasp that deeper meaning. We had some free time, so he took the opportunity to show me a poem or two for me to break down. this is the one we found:

                                                  I’m a riddle in nine syllables,

                                                  An elephant, a ponderous house,

                                                  A melon strolling on two tendrils.

                                                  O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!

                                                  This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.

                                                  Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.

                                                  I’m a mean, a stage, a cow in calf.

                                                  I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,

                                                  Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

     At first glance this just looks like a bunch of random and sporadic sentences put together. Elephants, melons, red fruit, big yeasty rolls, money, purses, cows, apples, and trains; where's the connection? I read this maybe 5 times before I realized what it was really about.  The women is pregnant. "A riddle in nine syllables", and there are nine lines in the poem; representing the nine months of pregnancy. "An elephant", she sees herself as fat maybe, or large in comparison to before the pregnancy. "A ponderous house", like her large stomach is the house to her baby. "This loaf's big with its yeasty rising", here she is comparing her child to bread while it's rising- how it can go from to a small ball to a large loaf three times its size in a matter of minutes- showing that her baby his growing very large, and quickly. "Boarded the train there's no getting off", she got pregnant, and there's no changing that, and her life is now going to change. There is an explanation in every line as to how this poem is talking about a pregnancy, it's just a matter of finding the connection.
     This may seem boring, but it was actually very interesting, especially when you do it with songs. Mumford and Sons songs are great for it and you can get so many different stories out of one song.