Book Review: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

This was my first Ishiguro and won’t be my last. It was selected as a book club read for our new book club. My husband and daughter listened to it last year, he recommended Ishiguro, and it was selected to read for March.

The writing is atmospheric. From the beginning, the reader is slowly acclimated to the world in which the story is set. It looks like our world, but not exactly. As Ishiguro slowly unfolds bits and pieces as observed through his main character who is learning through paying attention to the world through the shop window and outside. We learn that she’s a solar powered robot, but one with a capacity to observe, reason, care, and act autonomously.

And that is what Ishiguro wants the reader to consider. What is a soul? How do we see, perceive, and judge? How are decisions made? What is friendship? By placing those activities – even a religious deduction and act – in the perspective of a robot, we’re forced to think about what it means to be human and what is or isn’t human. Can humans create in our image? to what end? and to what good? and impermanence.

There are some religious threads in the book – from the cover that is reminiscent of the stigmata, to at point Klara stating something about “the Father and the Sun” … and love being persuasive. Were the broken pieces of mirror icons?

There are all kinds of side stories that could be explored. What does it mean to be lifted? What is society and what does it mean to remove oneself from one society to that of the outliers and outcasts out of conscientious objection? How does that affect families? How does tragedy and guilt affect families? marriages? What dangers are there associated with advancing technology and to what extent is human life worth being chanced with it? When do you ask for help if you’ve turned down the technological advance? How are you judged by society? pollution. replicating life and what are the limits of what can or should be accomplished. One character wants to see how far the technology should go, but when asked about ethics he says that’s not up to the inventor but to the lawmakers … [you can’t see my wide-eyed grimace, but I assure you it’s there] Love, Wonder.

Perhaps not as much of a side issue is friendship. What is necessary to be a good friend? Is there a time for friendship and a time for that to fade away? When do you let go and enjoy the memories and be glad that you had the friendship at all.

There are a lot of boxes in this book. At first I thought it was that Klara saw in pixels, but, it wasn’t quite that. I’m not sure what was going on in those … glitches? But there were a lot of boxes and compartmentalizations going on – rooms, windows, doorways, fields, gates, boxes. There are squares all over the place and Klara seems to organize her perceptions and thoughts in those squares.

The book has an overarching sense of doom, but Klara always has hope. How can a robot have hope? I don’t know … but as she always had hope in the face of the odds, so did I.

I wasn’t sure what I’d think, but overall I enjoyed it. It isn’t a new theme – when we think about Mr. Data from ST:TNG and The Terminator – but it seems to be so much closer to a reality now than it did then. It definitely has brought up good conversation between my husband and I and I think will be a great book club choice to discuss, too.