Never Let Me Go

by Kazuo Ishiguro

We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.”

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! Kathy and Tommy’s cherished wish to have some extra time together depends on the correctness of their theory about the Gallery and their artwork. This is the moment when it becomes clear they’ve been mistaken, that they’ve been hoping in vain. What’s more, the truth they now discover tells them something very dark about their real place in the world. It’s interesting to me today that Kathy and Tommy have different responses to what should be a shattering revelation from Miss Emily. Tommy can’t immediately take it in. His touching trust in the idea – against all the evidence – that there are benevolent forces out there looking out for him takes a little while to collapse. Kathy, on the other hand, understands straight away and isn’t surprised. Disappointed, yes, but not devasted. This is something I realized more clearly while watching Carey Mulligan playing this scene in the film adaptation. (Actors often teach me things about my characters I didn’t previously know.) I realized that Kathy isn’t crushed because she already has the one thing she really wanted in life: to know that the person she has always loved since childhood loves her in return. It’s something she didn’t have for a long time, but now is something she feels no-one can take away from her. The question of whether or not a person has a ‘soul’, and what could usefully be meant by that, is something I’ve returned to in KLARA AND THE SUN.