Ratings454
Average rating3.8
Klara is an AF, an Artificial Friend, and the story begins with her in a store, rotated by the Manager around the various parts of the store where she can be seen by potential customers. Klara especially enjoys being in the front windows where she has a great view of the Sun, with its healing lights. And eventually Klara is seen by a young girl, Josie, and her mother, and Klara is purchased and taken to live in Josie's home.
I'll try not to share any more of the plot because the development of the plot is part of the delight of this book. I think I can share that it is also the development of the character of Klara, with her gifts of careful observation and reflection and deep empathy for others, that is another of the delights of this book. Klara is both super-human in her knowledge of the world and childlike in her emotional intelligence, and this puts her in a spot where we can watch as she takes a fresh look from a highly intelligent stance at the things we take for granted as adult humans.
I'd love to hear what others make of this story. I think I'll go now and seek out others' reviews and thoughts.
Ebook was an English translation from Japan to English. The person doing the translating does not know where verbs, pronouns etc are to placed in a sentence. Also commas, periods and quote marks were out of place!
The book was good leading up to an ending that stunk!!!
Similar to “Never Let Me Go”, Ishiguro likes to do this sort of vaguely dystopian sci-fi where he doesn't quite flesh out all the details.. I need answers, damnit!!
Why is Karla decommissioned but left “alive”? Wouldn't it be kinder to turn her off? And the sun is probably just a regular old sun, that Klara is mistakenly expecting to be a God that can save Josie - but then it does? Is that just a coincidence?
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro is a beautiful and bittersweet story about an Artificial Friend named Klara, and her life with a human family. The book explores many themes such as faith and hope, prejudice, love and friendship, grief, and mortality. The book is a bit dystopian, but like Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go information is revealed slowly throughout the character and relationship focused narrative. I would have loved to have known more about the dysfunctional world Klara lived in, and some of the other characters, but ultimately that wasn't really the point. Overall this was a really lovely read. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This was a weird weird book. I wish I've read it as part of a buddy-read/ book club as I would be able to discuss my thoughts and theories. I can see why this book has such polarized opinions and why it doesn't work for some readers.
The story happens in the future, and it is told through Klara's eyes, an artificial friend, from the time she's at the store, waiting to be bought, to her time with a family. Through Klara we see bits of what it might mean to be human and some of the challenges we might face while adapting to a world heavily populated by robots.
What I liked about the book:
- The prose is beautiful and compelling
- Seeing Klara evolve through her interactions with the world
What I think it could have been better:
- This is supposed to be a sci-fi book and the science in it was very vague
I find this book difficult to rate due to its ambiguous/ open ending. I'll go for 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
Ishiguro telling an emotional tale about belief, love and hope, in his subtle ways again. Artificial friends are meant to help children and people overcome their loneliness, in a futuristic world not far from ours. The better the artificial A.I.s understand their human companions, the better they can serve them. And Klara, our protagonist, is a keen observer. As she becomes the companion to a sick girl, she sets out to help the girl and those around them, by begging the only mystical source of power she knows: the sun.
I loved how the mix of naivete and analytical thinking brought forth religious experiences. And how even the humans around her wanted to believe in her quest, like grasping for straws when you don't want a loved one to die. Machines inventing their own religion surely will be the first proof that we're not that special after all ;)
Written from the point of view of an observant android designed to be an AF (artificial friend). Klara observes the world through her window, worshipping the power of the Sun and waiting for someone to choose her. When she and Josie meet it is as if they are destined for each other.
The story is vague as Klara has an imperfect, skewed vision and often does not understand what she observes.
There is a darkness underneath, mostly involving Mr. Capaldi - I am haunted by the way things could have been. Instead it was gentle and melancholy, Ishiguro makes us care about someone who cannot care themselves.
I even wanted to have enjoyed it more because I love the idea of the AF and the implications and even the sun... but somehow after 60% or so it seemed another book - a circular and boring one actually.
From the reviews this seems like a pretty divisive book but honestly, I liked it.
Klara is observant, optimistic, and relentlessly naive so I get how she could read as bland or annoying to many but I liked her.
It feels like she has full sentience without the full range of human emotions. She remains childlike and naive throughout her entire lifespan with minimal fear, anger, and sadness. Personally, I think that this was a nice choice (but maybe it's because I don't actively seek out emotionally challenging books). And while I agree that sometimes her perspective leaves much to be desired, I was still on board throughout the novel with Ishiguro's writing and the slow reveal of the world. Anyway, I still think she deserves better than the end she got.
There is one thing left vague in the novel that I don't know whether I like or not because it seems like a sudden departure from the genre, but it's give or take. I don't mind too much either way.
If you're looking for a sci-fi book that delves headfirst into the good and bad of human nature, this is not the book for you. It's reads more like one of those cozy books with a tiny kick.
That being said, I did like it.
This book shows the growth of Ishiguro's writing and it shows the maturity that he has taken from his previous books, which are good by the way. A lot more depth and characterization occur in this book.
I just couldn't get into the story. I didn't feel much for anyone in it which made me uninterested in finding out what happens. Maybe that is to contribute to the robot perspective through which we learn the story. Shame, as I loved Never Let Me Go.
First line:
“When we were new, Rosa and I were mid-store, on the magazines table side, and could see through more than half of the window.”
“Then she continued to walk away.”
“I stared at the glass sheets. The Sun's reflection, though still an intense orange, was no longer blinding and as I studied more carefully the Sun's face framed within the outermost rectangle, I began to appreciate that I wasn't looking at a single picture; that in fact there existed a different version of the Sun's face on each of the glass surfaces, and what I might at first have taken for a unified image was in fact seven separate ones superimposed one over the other as my gaze penetrated from the first sheet through to the last.”
Some serious Never Let Me Go vibes and an underlying current of anxiety that pervades the story. This future world finds 14-year-old Josie on tenuous ground after being “lifted”. There is the very real possibility that she might succumb to the treatment and there is this looming sense of impending loss. Klara, an AF or Artificial Friend, enters the picture to be Josie's companion and eagerly observes the world she now finds herself in.
And that's it. That's all I can talk about without spoiling the book really. Because I want to get into a discussion about how existentially dark AF this book is. About how it examines class structure and is a sharp reflection of the current dystopian hellscape we live in. How parents must face their own obsolescence while making life or death decisions for their children, and the complicated and often implicating motives therein. How we all end up on our own. Ishiguro may be a master of restraint but this thing has teeth, hovering at the periphery of this otherwise sunny, affectless, robot-narrated remembrance.
...and he dedicated the book to his late mother.
3.5
The world did Klara dirty.
There's a quiet beauty to the book but nowhere near the heights of Ishiguro's masterpieces. Also, hate to nitpick, but her rudimentary understanding of heliocentrism would've surely made any attempts at mimicking humans severely limited.
I found myself wanting to get to the end, to know how Josie's story goes and whether she has a happy ending. So I suppose the book was successful in making readers invested in the characters. But there are a lot of unexplained context which I found disorienting. Such as the Sun, being lifted, slow fade, seeing the world through boxes. Resistance and guns? Perhaps the details are meant to be blurry as a literal illustration device. Nonetheless it was an enjoyable read that leaves a feeling lingering in your heart.
The first half was pretty slow but wholesome, the sort of world through the AFs eyes was really cute but then the slow revelations of the world in the second half really got me
I love Ishiguro, but I personally thought his other books are better. This one felt quite ‘on the nose'. Nonetheless, he is extremely good at what he does.
I was vastly disappointed. However, I believe this is meant as Literature and NOT commercial fiction, which Literature isn't my area of expertise. So I'm not rating this book.
The book reminded me of the two dramas about artificial intelligence over a decade ago—Artificial Intelligence and the one starring Robin Williams. If you happened to love those movies, you might enjoy this.
I feel I must add a note about the book description. It claims to be thrilling, but it is not in anyway. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out who on earth would find this thrilling.
Gave it until the halfway point then abandoned it. Tried it out because it was on the Booker Longlist. I found the language hyper-simplistic. The frame was to provide insight on love and therefore the human condition, and by halfway the insights weren't hitting deep enough to keep my interest.
I found the first have the book frustrating and tedious because it was from the perspective of an Android. There were also holes and contradictions in Ishiguro's created world and in the rules of the robots. Still, the plot was compelling and Ishiguro is clearly incredibly talented - the differences between the narration and dialogue are wild and have you craving the humans' words.
FULL REVIEW ON MY WEBSITE
Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, “Klara and the Sun”, is a thought-provoking exploration of a world where Artificial Intelligence is commonplace. The protagonist, Klara, is an Artificial Friend (AF) created to provide companionship to humans. Through Klara's point of view, the novel examines the complexities of love, loss, connection and mortality. It explores the boundaries between human and AI, and delves into themes of religion and a higher power whom Klara speaks to and believes influences her path.
Overall, Klara and the Sun is an absolutely beautiful, powerful and unforgettable novel. I highly recommend it and I'm sure it won't be the last of Ishiguro's novels I read!