@Bookworm_Girl. I liked your comments, probably because you take a completely different approach to what I have. I like a work to stand alone unless of course it is one of a particular series. The less I know about the author before reading a book the happier I am. That is not to say that it is in any way invalid to look at an authors work as a whole whether in conjunction with their life history or not. But that for me is a different exercise to reading a single book or series.
This is the only book by Ishiguro I have read, and quite possibly the only one I ever will read. Personally I didn't see memory as a major theme. To me, memory was the device used to tell the "story", such as it was, but not a major theme in itself. Perhaps I would see things differently had I read some of his other works? But if this work is intended as a stand-alone novel yet a major theme is not apparent from the novel alone, then has the novel failed to at least some extent? Or is memory a major theme of the authors work as opposed to any particular book?
I also agree with you about the incidental nature of the science elements.
To quote briefly from your post:
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For 15 years he was developing these student characters and the idea to do a campus novel with some sort of strange fate hanging over their heads.
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The "science" was indeed entirely incidental and deliberately vague. Even the little that was spelled out is inconsistent with the science we do know. But it doesn't matter. It is just a device to tell a story he wanted to tell, and we must suspend our disbelief. If you must call it fantasy or even alternate reality as well as alternate history.
I also agree that his focus is on the development of characters and relationships. Unfortunately, as with much literary fiction, this comes at the cost of dispensing with a meaningful plot. Personally I don't like most fiction of this type, though I certainly appreciate that others do.