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

Loved this book. Klara is a robot with heart waiting in the store for the perfect teenager to come and purchase her. As she waits, she has this spiritual relationship with the sun. Finally, Josie comes along and convinces her mother that she can only have Klara as her companion. Josie is a bright, artistic but sickly child who desperately needs Klara and her sun. So the story begins. This story is so unusual but very timely in the era of AI and the cusp of designing robots. It is well written and kept me engaged the entire time. I would definitely recommend this book for adults and teenagers. It is an interesting and compassionate story. I feel compelled to note there is some offensive language spoken in anger for those who are concerned about that.

Klara is a solar powered robot whose Artificial Intelligence is meant to serve as an artificial friend (AF). She is purchased by Josie's mother as a companion for her daughter, Josie, who is very ill. Although not the latest model, Klara has unique observational skills that exceed the other AF in her store. When her day finally comes, Klara is cautioned by her store manager to not get too heavily invested in the promises of humans. We learn that Josie’s illness may be a side effect of her parents having had her “lifted” (a sort of genetic modification) at birth, thus enhancing her intelligence and enabling her to be more successful. Her best friend and neighbor, Rick was not “lifted” and, although he is very smart, they worry that they may not be able to go to the same college. Klara believes that the sun has almost god-like powers, including the power to make others well. She believes that the sun may be able to heal Josie as it does Klara. In actually, what the sun does for Klara is recharge her. Through Klara we see the contradictions and entanglements of human behavior in a new light. Klara cannot really understand emotions of the heart. “Of course, a human heart is bound to be complex. But it must be limited.” Can science transcend death? Is it okay for parents to use science to enhance their child’s potential? Can a robot replace a human? An intriguing, futuristic story asking… What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be loved? I really enjoyed the concept and the story; although I thought that it was a bit slow in parts with too much filler and repetition. For that I marked it down one star. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Really enjoyed reading this. A different perspective when immersing in the characters “life”. As she is ai companion. Of course more human in qualities as we read deeper into the story. Recommended to friends.

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.

Klara is an AF (artificial friend) and the narrator of the story. She learns about the world through observation, her initial perspective garnered from whichever position she has within the store in which she is for sale. Eventually she is purchased for Josie, an adolescent who is ill, compromised by genetic engineering. Klara is devoted to Josie and pursues a course that she believes will make Josie well. The book’s charm, but sometimes its challenge, is that it is told from Klara’s limited view and interpretations. Still, Klara is an unforgettable character, blending compassion and a thirst to understand with the ability to stay in a closet when she needs to be out of the way. Slow paced, beautifully written, thoughtful book.

Jag är mycket nöjd med min köp

Una vez más Kazuo Ishiguro no decepciona. Su inglés es elegante, simple, lleno de sentimientos y detalles. He leído varios de sus trabajos y nunca me ha aburrido ni desencantado. Vale la pena.

Horrible cover design. (The outer cover is narrower than the book - the edge of the cover is missing.) It's feels horrible to hold, horrible to turn pages, and it looks terrible. Publishers need to stop making these, or Amazon needs to make it clearer than you're purchasing this defective cover.

Wonderful book that has stayed with me long after reading. This book would be perfect for students to read on Literature courses as it deals with the ethics of AI. Highly recommend.

Nice book