Klara and the Sun

Ishiguro is one of my favorite authors. I've now only read four of his books, but I need to read more. The Remains of the Day is a masterpiece. Never Let Me Go has a specific moment in it that really stuck me and I still think about a lot. The Buried Giant built and interesting world and explored really interesting themes.

Klara and the Sun does a great job of slowly building out the state of the world without relying on an exposition dump. I love stories that throw you in and just let you figure out the rules contextually. The POV character has a childlike quality that works really well and really all of the characters are well realized and interesting, though I guess I was expecting more pivotal moments for some of them, I think the story tended to meander a bit at times.

I feel pretty similar to this book as I did with The Buried Giant. Ishiguro is such a gifted writer and takes on heady ideas, and while they don't always completely land, I'm still glad to have read it.

Klara and the Sun is set at some point in the future, in a world where humans have developed Artificial Friends (AFs), solar-powered humanoid robots commonly sold as companions for children. The story is narrated from the perspective of Klara, a Girl AF, and in a way, it's her coming of age story.

One of my favourite things about this book was the “world-building”. I absolutely loved the way Ishiguro slowly revealed bits and pieces of this futuristic world, careful to reveal just enough but not too much so that readers can fill in the gaps and interpret the story however they want.

At the root of it all, this is a thought-provoking story that explores what it means to be human. I'd highly recommend this book!

My second Ishiguro in a row — why did I wait so long to discover him?? — and it seems almost impossible to talk about his books without going into spoilers. It seems safe to lay out the major themes I note in his writing: classism, empathy, loneliness. Kindness and cruelty. Both books so far have been first-person reminiscence from a quiet but watchful servant-class entity nearing the end of their life, with heavy emphasis on the unreliability of memory and on how, despite our best intentions, our understanding of the world and of others is so incomplete. Both are masterpieces of exposition, with puzzle pieces being hinted at, then appearing in due course, then finally fitting in. Both have been sublime, deeply thoughtful.

I hate using the spoiler tag because of how stupid the Goodreads phone app is with them. But although most of my Goodreads writing is for my loved ones, in part it is also for me — I, too, am reminiscing near the end of life — and it would be unfair to stop without saying more. So I really need to say more. Like: the genetic-enhancement aspect. I still can't say whether this is a major plot point or a minor one. I mean, it is central to the story, and so many of the character dynamics hinge on it; and it is a huge deal, one that ever-so-class-conscious Ishiguro wants us to ponder, but it feels incidental. Is he trying to get the reader to ask, hey waitaminit, why isn't this getting more attention? Is he, goddammit, making the reader actually think about privilege, and underprivilege, and the rights of those who have no voice in what is done to them? I felt like this deserved a lot more air time than Ishiguro gave it, so I‘m obligated to stew about it on my own.

And, empathy. Where did Klara's observation and empathy come from? And, frightening to contemplate, how much connection is there between empathy and animism? Can we ever really understand others, or do we only think we do? Obviously all we can ever see is our projection of other minds, not their true selves, but sometimes we hit and sometimes we miss. Can we really know which is when? Like, Klara tends to imbue everyone's actions with kindness... but that says much more about Klara than about the characters, especially over time as we wonder more about her reliability as narrator. Can empathy and kindness and caring skew how we view the world? (Yes, duh). Can they make us more susceptible to being abused? (Almost certainly). Then the big one: what makes for a better life? Who “wins”: those in the rat race, or those who quietly make their peace with their situation?

And, the two Ishiguro books I've read feature narrators who are disposable: created to serve the needs of others, discarded when their utility is complete. Both of them exquisitely aware of this condition, neither of them bitter or resentful. This point of view is at times jarring, but damn, it's effective. It helped me relate to Klara and to think in ways I might not have.

Dislikes: I found the Helen-Vance thing improbable, even distasteful. It was like a different writer had briefly taken over. WTF was that about? The portrait subplot, I think I see where he was going with it (projection, seeing what we want to see in others, wishful thinking), but it fell flat for me. And Josie's Miracle Recovery, well, that was disappointing. Too neat. Looking back at that list they seem enough to drop a star, but no: five stars in GR-land means “it was amazing!”, and it was, for the questions it raises and for a truly wonderful experience of seeing and feeling through Ishiguro's mind.

klara and the sun is a strangely polarizing book, but one that i thoroughly loved. also one that i think i'll be mulling over for a long time.
the ending. oh my god

the ending only makes sense for me at least, in one way. if josie died, and is replaced with the doll. otherwise, it's a million times more depressing.


i think i'm going to cry
good job mr ishiguro


anyways
i like rick!
all the characters are great.
they have all the traits commonly attributed to humanity: envy, anger, deception to name a few, as well as some more positive ones. rick, helen, josie's parents, josie, and of course klara all act based on their love for (some of) each other. klara and the sun has many themes, some of which probably flew right over my head. but there is no doubt in my mind that love, and the love of the people around you, is the main focus.
it's interesting how klara seems to be the only character interested in pollution and climate change. ishiguro's vision of the future is obviously inspired by many aspects of ours; the prejudice towards the “unlifted” and AFs being a big one. the apathy towards the climate by everyone but klara is just depressing. lots of stuff on the human condition too of course
going by my interpretation of it, the book is alternatively optimistic and pessimistic. for one, the ending is so depressing. the manager looking out at the construction crane is probably symbolic for the world starting another cycle now that the AFs are gone. the world is constantly changing, and sometimes the best things are left abandoned. but love? love remains eternal.

rick basically reinforces this at the end, but it's visible in much of the novel. this makes the ending just a bit less sad but my god is that ending sad

god is this review cheesy, but this is a really poignant novel.
gotta read something else by ishiguro, this was a great introduction to him though.

The premise is beautiful, it hints at deep reflections about being human, but it didn't work for me. The dialogues were super weird and unnatural, they really bothered me. I missed more exploration of the technology behind the Artificial Friends (AF) and how they worked. Was Klara all mechanical? Was she an android? I wasn't convinced that AF's would find mystical significance in the Sun. The story hints at several themes but never really goes deep: environmental pollution, empathy, robots taking over human jobs, loneliness, gene editing, social class privilege. The plot is super simple and predictable, and the ending was very bleh.??

Ishiguro paints an amazing, emotional story about Klara and brings to mind so many interesting concepts in his book. Does augmenting the human mind or replicating it with artificial intelligence somehow take away from its inherent value? Is the concept of oneself truly unique, and distinct from all other people or entities? Ishiguro reminds us that it may not be what is within us that gives us our undefinable uniqueness but the effect and love we hold in others.

Similar to Never Let Me Go, this book has an interesting premise and good world-building. The ideas presented in both books are plausible futures for us, with no fantastical elements. I've revisited the ideas of both books since reading, and they have stuck with me. They were both a bit of a drag to get through. Maybe it's just me, though - I'm used to more plot-driven narratives

Having exhausted all of Kazuo Ishiguro's back catalogue, I was really looking forward to this. Klara and the Sun is a vaguely dystopian story of the life of a solar-powered ‘artificial friend', the eponymous Klara, and her observations on human behaviour as she comes to understand the world around her. Sci-fi has never been my bag and unfortunately even the clout of Ishiguro couldn't change that for me. The writing felt like it was keeping the reader at arm's length throughout, and I didn't find anything new in the somewhat tired trope of the AI that's just a little too human.

First, this really needs to be said: this book owes a huge intellectual debt to Ray Bradbury's seminal story “I Sing the Body Electric” - certainly in theme and concern, some plot elements, and, I must say, the final scenes recall that 60s story quite a bit. OK, now that I said that, this is an excellent book and I'd recommend it to anyone without reservation. A story about love, humanity, caring, and ... AI (thus Bradbury) and, the world seen through the eyes of a ‘new' being (like Shelley's Frankenstein, i.e. the book). Top it off with some wry off-stage musing about religion. The writing from Nobel winner Ishiguro is top shelf, naturally. The book exudes positivity, at times wistful, at times nearly exuberant.

I love Kazuo Ishiguro and this is the fourth book of his that I've read. This one, his latest, feels closely related to his previous Never Let Me Go and even in some ways his masterpiece The Remains of the Day (I still find The Buried Giant to be out of place among his bibliography). They all wrestle with questions of the construction and formation of identity, as well as service and sacrifice. They reveal their fuller implications only gradually. In this novel, it's the near future and the titular Klara is an Artificial Friend, carefully taking in the world around her to be best prepared for her eventual role as, well, a robot friend to the teenager whose family will eventually buy her. That teenager turns out to be Josie, a sweet-natured girl with a mysterious serious illness. As a solar powered android, Klara regards the sun as essentially a deity, and seeks out his intervention for Josie. An artificial intelligence could have been a tricky choice for a narrator, but Ishiguro doesn't make significant changes to his usual writing style to accommodate and his elegant, removed prose proves well-suited to the task. The narrative raises interesting questions about how the self can be defined, especially when there is arguably not a “self” at all and one's entire purpose is to be useful to others. It does not answer these questions, but presents us with Klara and lets us think for ourselves. The plot unfolds at the typical leisurely pace for an Ishiguro novel, and as usual not much actually “happens”. I found it a pleasingly reflective experience to read. It does definitely tread familiar territory, though, and is not of higher quality than the previous work that it echoes.

 It's rare that I read a book and think ‘this is perfect' but I had that thought multiple times while reading this masterpiece by Kazuo Ishiguro.  I don't think there's a single misplaced word in the entire book.  Everything from the characters to the prose to the plot to the themes is just... immaculate.  And these individual components interweave to form a truly outstanding tale about love and humanity.    For me, a book's quality is most dependent on its characters and Klara's characters really form the backbone of this story.  There aren't very many characters here (for the majority of the book it's really only four of them: Klara, Josie, Mother and Rick) but each one is so real and well-written that I absolutely adore them.  Klara is a really excellent protagonist, and making the entire novel told from her POV is a great choice from Ishiguro.  She's written in a way that makes it clear she's not quite human, but she's still able to make legitimate observations on her subjects.  This is done while making her lovable and relatable all the same.  She's certainly one of my favorite protagonists I've read in recent memory.  Josie, Mother and Rick are also wonderfully complex for how short the book is, with Mother in particular standing out as being exceptionally well-written.  There are a few supporting characters that also leave their mark on the story in their own way.  This is just a wonderful cast of characters that allows the book to explore its ambitious themes with ease.    Speaking of those themes, I applaud Ishiguro for not being afraid to ask deep questions in a story that is quite small in scope.  For most of the novel, Ishiguro uses Klara merely to observe her surroundings.  The story is merely being told through Klara's eyes without any meaningful commentary.  This shifts about 2/3 through the book when other characters start trying to make Klara human, and this is when the book becomes truly spectacular.  Through the last 1/3 of the book, Ishiguro asks what it means to be human and what the metaphorical heart really does.  He brings up these themes in a quite natural way that leads the readers to their own conclusion rather than forcing any specific perspective.    Klara and the Sun is a beautifully-written book that does everything it sets out to do and so much more.  I can say without hesitation that it's one of my favorite books of all time.