Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro is the kind of book that is best suited to be the theme of college papers or long book reports. There’s a lot that you can read between the lines and much food for thought even though it’s not a long read. It makes a reader enjoy the act of reading for it has so much to give. Maybe one should expect nothing less from a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Synopsis

Klara is an artificial intelligence robot or Artificial Friend (AF) in a world where it is common to find AFs assisting/befriending kids and being a part of the household. In the hopes of being chosen by someone whom she can provide companionship, she observes the world around her from the store she and other AFs spend their days at. She is particularly good at observing and learning, and her curiosity helps her piece together what she understands of the world. Solar-powered, she comes to believe the sun is a deity of sorts providing the world with nourishment.

Josie, a 14-year-old girl, chooses Klara despite hesitance from her mother who is over-protective of her daughter. At their house in the suburbs, Klara is happy to spend her days with Josie and aspires to be her perfect friend. She learns that Josie is seriously sick as a result of being lifted, a procedure to genetically modify children. Rick, Josie’s childhood friend for whom she holds great affection, is one of the children not lifted and who have fallen into a separate segment of society.

What follows next is the story of how Klara plans to help Josie get better. The deal she makes and the people like Rick and Josie’s father, who help her in desperation, all tell the tale of what it means to love and hold onto hope no matter what the odds.

What’s to like

The novel does not describe everything in detail. Ishiguro keeps things to himself offering some information but leaving out the rest so the reader is left thinking about the possibilities or actively scouring the pages for hints of how things are in the world of Klara. We are told what the narrator of the book, in this case, Klara, knows so we have to rely on her knowledge and an AI-based view of the world to learn about the story. This allows the reader to understand what Klara thinks and feels and what looking at humanity from the outside might be like.

“Of course, a human heart is bound to be complex. But it must be limited. Even if Mr. Paul is talking the poetic sense, there’ll be an end to what there is to learn.”- Klara

Another aspect of this novel that stands out is the character of Klara. It makes the reader wonder if robots can be this perceptive and if artificial intelligence will allow their thinking to be so sophisticated.

What’s not to like

Some parts can be a bit of a bore to get through.

4.5/5 – Recommended