Klara and the Sun: A GMA Book Club Pick: A novel (Vintage International)

I truly enjoyed the book, with its layering and Michael Crighton type philosophy of a plausible premise based on current tech and society leading to some deep thinking (if you want to that is). A lot of gaps are left for the reader to fill in, so not a roller coaster, but you can make it that way if you dig in. Very interesting how AI and CRISPER are handled, and parallels as to development of vision/brain in infants as to robots, and development of gods that parallel the stone age and ancient deities.

Intelligent, concise and a creative perspective. I enjoyed this book and believe its narrative was the perfect length for the message meant to be received.

Just finished reading this extraordinary book. To me it is about Essence of the Soul: human, animal, plant, object. This is not so much a book about the ethical values of the development of AIs, as it is a social and spiritual commentary. Klara is essentially an obedient slave, yet we already know she has abilities and an emotional spirit that, in its simplicity packs more power than the weighed down spirits of the humans. This is about Essence, because we know from the beginning that Klara has a soul because her differences are emphasized. Yet by the end of the book we learn that one soul cannot replace another. That is the message here. Because the soul is unfathomable. That is why we never get to really know or are fully shown the other characters. They are not undeveloped. They are purposefully left veiled. A strong theme here of secrets and unsaid thoughts runs through the novel to its ambiguous end. Also the limitations of Klara's understanding of human conversations let us know we are only getting pieces of the story. Klara is the only fully developed character and yet we marvel at both her limitations and her powers. We see life through her eyes and you have to be a robot (purposeful irony here) not to FEEL things through her eyes. She has goodness and fantastic far reaching insight but no one, including Klara, even with all her uncanny abilities, can predict outcomes. There are so many other layers that beg discussion about the nature of her character, for example how she addresses bad and evil and including her treatment. Essence however is unfathomable and so is Klara's. This Artificial Friend is no different than any animal, earthly being, object or anything contained in the universe.... all of these "realities" are ultimately unfathomable and inscrutable as parts of the miracles and mysteries of existence. We are taught love in unexpected places at unexpected times, even by objects that are not real. In some ways this book reminded me of Toy Story! Imagine that! An Artificial Friend teaches us Love is Real. In fact this so called Artificial Friend teaches us Essence, that is, Love may be the most unfathomable inscrutable essence and gift available to us all, but it is also the most steadfast.......and real.

In an interview to Waterstones, Kazuo Ishiguro commented that the seed of Klara and the Sun was a story for a children's book he had in mind but that was too dark to be published as such (it would traumatize kids, his daughter warned him). That makes total sense to me. There is a delicate fairytale quality in this novel that permeates Klara's voice as the narrator. Not only because of its main theme but also the way the affective relationships are built (the way Chrissie and Josie, Josie and Klara, Chrissie and Klara and Klara and Ricky are bound), there is some significant thematic overlap with AI: Artificial Intelligence (more the Spielberg's part than Kubrick's) and, tangentially, Pinnochio_.Even though the story of KS_ is told by a robot, this is a novel where the whole idea of humanity and human subjectivity is put at the center, and brought up with a very fresh look. It is a study about illness, love, tenderness, faith, all interpreted or acted upon by a being that is not human (or maybe, as the Tyrrell Corporation used to say, "more human than human"), but a very intelligent and sensitive one. Ishiguro says that having an AI as the narrator allowed him to explore all these human themes with a fresh look, making basic questions about humanity a human being would never ask. Indeed, the story told by a robot brings a very distinct flavor to the narrative. Everything is familiar, but at the same time seems strange through Klara's sometimes childish or naïve (however precise) descriptions of what she sees and witnesses. It is as if a very intelligent and sensitive alien came to Earth to observe us, with sharp eyes but no context.KS also brought me good memories about Never Let Me Go, specially the kind of decency and tenderness that Ishiguro masterfully embeds into the action and reactions of his (mostly tragic) characters. There is a strangely self-contained, humble quality but tense underneath Ishiguro's writing which I'm personally fond of, and that also shows in Klara's narrative. There are also many thematic parallels, not only about human genetics, and genetic editing, but also in the way beings (be them clones or robots) are treated as things. Part of the genetic editing subplot in KS (concerning Josie's and Rick's differences) is actually suggested in NLMG when Miss Emily speaks about the Morningdale scandal, dr James Morningdale's offering the possibility of having children with enhanced characteristics. The parallel between Kathy being a carer in NLMG and Klara's looking after Josie in KS was particularly strong to me, more so in the second act. Ishiguro admits KS is in many ways a companion book to NLMG, but with a more positive resolution, a brighter response to the bleak, sad ending of his previous book. In NLMG, when Kathy and Tommy seek Madame Marie-Claude and Miss Emily of Hailsham to ask for a deferral of Tommy's donation because of their true love, we as the reader lose all hope. In KS Klara keeps her hope on the powers of the Sun with the devotion of a religious human being that contagiously keep us believing as well.KS_ is a fairytale of the modern times, dealing, as any fairytale, with the anxieties of its era: machines taking the place of humans, substitutions, replacements, misplacements; how far can science go to remove any illusion of divinity or uniqueness of the human kind: Will AI prove that there is nothing special about us? The novel constantly raises questions about our own individuality: what if our professional career is suddenly terminated and all our experience and knowledge become suddenly obsolete? Does the meaning of our lives evaporate as well? What if everything that defines us as a human being can be reduced to a finite (however gigantic and complex) number of brain connections, like a finite number of rooms within rooms within rooms? Will we be able to store all this connections somewhere outside our brain or, worse, synthetically replicate it?I confess I was a little abated by the final act, which seemed to me a little outplaced, if not ‘disposable’. But as I let the book settle, it now seems to me that the book ends with an interesting meta-image of Klara’s own condition. After listening to Ishiguro reinforcing the idea that Klara's main purpose as a commercial product is to reduce the tension of teenagers with loneliness, and that she is programmed to identify and treat human loneliness, her own aging and destiny gains a different color, especially because it mimics Klara's own surprise when she discovered that Rick's mother Helen was open to live alone if that would secure a better future for his son. Maybe it is Ishiguro’s Japanese blood speaking, with reminiscences of The Ballad of Narayama, or maybe it is just the emotional touch Ishiguro plays so well. In any event, this is a touching little story that, while not as impactful as NLMG, I will hold to heart.

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!

Nice book

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.