Klara and the Sun: The Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year

It takes a few years for Kazuo Ishiguro to write each of his novels, in keeping with his restrained, careful style. But they are usually worth waiting for - and this one is especially so. Reading this makes you realise what a deserving winner of various prizes he is - including the Nobel Literature prize. He is the grand master of the old literary adage 'show, don't tell'. Ishiguro almost never explicitly states anything - but you are never in any doubt about what he wants to get across. His writing is so subtle, so clever that the reader discovers everything about the characters and their situation for themselves, in a natural way.This is particularly unusual in a science fiction novel like 'Klara and the Sun'. Any other author would have needed to explain the concepts, give the bigger picture, construct a history. introduce some technical information. Ishiguro does not. He allows the reader to build up their own picture and knowledge gradually - and without anything being spelt out, I feel I understood everything I needed to. In fact, extra 'factual' information would have got in the way of my appreciation of and absorption in the story. The restraint is really admirable - I don't doubt Ishiguro knew more about the world he wrote about - he isn't missing details for lack of ability to invent them. All too often authors overdo their excitement to show how thoroughly they have researched or imagined something. This is never the case here.The story is narrated by Klara, a robot who works as an 'artificial friend' for a teenage girl named Josie. It becomes clear that Josie is ill, perhaps terminally so. Klara, who is solar powered, has a near-religious belief in the sun and its ability to heal. So she sets out to beg the sun to cure her owner. Of course, the reader knows that her faith in the sun is based on a series of misunderstandings and aches for poor Klara as she attempts to gain comfort and hope - and becomes increasingly worried as her attempts to fulfil the sun's 'wishes' might lead her into danger.Klara is an extremely sympathetic and likeable narrator. Although she is a robot, I don't think anyone who read this book would doubt she had feelings and think of her as in some way human. There is nothing clinical about her, and she is full of compassion and empathy. It does make you think about the big questions of what it means to be human, and about how we should treat and interact with artificial intelligences in the future. Is Klara just like a 'vacuum cleaner' as someone describes her, or is she more akin to a person, with rights of her own? Is her intelligence something to be valued and protected in its own right?Besides the questions about artificial intelligences, there is also an important theme about the potential for genetic modification and enhancement of human beings. The novel's world sees a two tier society, with only children who have had genetic enhancements able to go to university and get well paid work. But the enhancements are not risk free. It's a scenario that could easily play out in the future. Ishiguro doesn't give any answers, he just presents the situation and shows some people affected by it.The other thing I really liked about Ishiguro's depiction of Klara is something you rarely find in novels about robots/artificial intelligences, and that's her imperfections. For example, Klara often describes seeing things in 'boxes' which you presume is due to delays in interfacing the feeds from her various camera sensors. Sometimes things become jumbled, particularly in bright light. And she struggles to walk on uneven surfaces. These little things give the reader the sense they are genuinely seeing things from the perspective of a different kind of being, and makes Klara all the more believable and (bizarrely) 'human'. Too often robots in sci-fi works are near perfect, with multiple superhuman abilities. The reality is probably much closer to Klara - extraordinary, but still not quite like a human and with certain imperfections/differences.Ultimately this is a very thought provoking and beautifully written novel that at its heart is about love and compassion. Klara's touching and irrational faith in the sun and its ability to heal the ailing Josie drive the narrative and provide a tear-jerking emotional core to the story. I am certain that this will be remembered as one of Ishiguro's finest and most interesting novels.

Well, not quite... but there are some parallels with Ishiguro’s most famous novel, about a repressed butler. Klara is an AF or artificial friend, bought by the mother of a sick girl from a department store as a companion and morale-booster. Klara wrestles with etiquette, how to understand humans, how to make her young charge better - a loyal servant in a dystopian future (when exactly is never explained). Kids can be genetically altered to make them cleverer (‘lifted’). AFs and other robots have become the victims of prejudice - they’ve taken our jobs leaving a legion of ‘post-employed’ people uncertain of their new role in the world. The technology is impressive. Klara has an unusually high level of sentience/human character traits and a remarkable gift for absorbing details of her surroundings. The novel poses a key question: in an age of artificial intelligence, what happens to humanity - compassion, love, empathy? Klara show all three of these qualities. Maybe they can be reproduced in these hi-tech robots... but where does that leave their human masters (assuming they are still masters?) What happens to religious belief or faith in a world where humanity can be gamed and replicated? Perhaps the greatest strength of the novel is that it wears its sci-fi/dystopian credentials lightly. Klara narrates, and the prose is relatively spare; there’s not much literary flourish (well, she is a robot). There’s an understatement to it and even some moments of comedy, making it incredibly readable; I read it in a day. The ending is poignant. And the story doesn’t duck the important questions it raises: there are answers, some more palatable than others. One that isn’t explicitly asked but is implied is whether we’ll still need writers and literature. Can robots write books? Well, in this universe Klara has managed it, telling her own story. These are questions Ian McEwan also asked in his excellent AI novel Machines Like Me. Klara and the Sun has a kind of warmth and pathos that for my money makes it a more enjoyable read. It’s a parable about a supreme irony: humanity may be working towards a point where it eventually ceases to exist in any meaningful sense.

A beautifully written story, like poetry in prose form, with more than its share of sadness. I love the purity of Klara’s heart, and have so many questions about her strange perceptions.

I read this much faster than most books. It is oddly compelling and I did enjoy it. The writing style is a bit weird. I was well into the book before the author indicates what AF means, or revealed The Mother's name only in passing, as a few examples of things that were only explained tangentially. That bothered me a bit.A serious flaw for me was that I couldn't understand why Klara did not have access to Google. She is not particularly well educated about the world and had no way of finding out things she was interested in unless they were observable in her own experience. That took away a lot of "believe-ability" from the story for me, as we can do that even now and the story is in the future.The ending is bizarre but actually very good when you think about it ten minutes after finishing the book.In any case, I enjoyed the book. I still think about Klara many days after finishing it, so I guess that means something. hahaha.

Anyone who enjoys science fiction, will love it!

Mooie hardback-uitgave van Ishiguro nieuwe roman.

I so wanted to enjoy this novel but in the end I found the characters unengaging and very little plot to speak of.