We read Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro as our most recent pick for my IRL book club.
Klara is an Artificial Friend (AF) who is chosen to be the companion of a sick teenager named Josie. We follow Klara from her time waiting to be chosen in a store all the way until Josie goes to college. Along the way, there are questions of what it means to be human and what will parents do to protect their own children. Are there limits to what you will do to protect one person at the risk of other people?
As a book club, we did not LOVE this book. As a book club, we had a great discussion about it. It's not entirely clear to any of us what message Ishiguro is trying to make here and maybe that's a good thing. It's not didactic and it leaves it up to the reader to do the interpretation. I sort of appreciate that about the book, even if I did shut the book thinking that maybe I wasn't a smart enough reader for it.
You'll note that I don't have any lines of note. It's because the writing is spare and not in a beautiful way. It's as if the author is purposefully creating distance between the reader and the story. Sometimes I think that works because of course we'd want to be distance from an artificial being, but it also sort of made me question how important the author took his own work.
Anyway, super thought-provoking, but I'm not sure how often I'll be recommending this one. 3/5 stars
Hat mention (why hats?):
under umbrellas and dripping hats (page 20)
What a great book to read for book club! It's wonderful when a book stimulates good discussion. I remember enjoying this book (okay, yes, looks like I gave it 4 stars) but I felt similarly in that it was a little unclear what the takeaway was. I found the writing style to be quite beautiful in its austerity.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this book, AI wasn't quite such the frightening juggernaut it has become and I wonder if I would read this book differently now.
Yes, it was a book that sparks a lot of discussion, especially in light of all this AI business!
DeleteHmm. This sounds interesting, but I probably won't read it. There are too many other books out there that are more compelling to me right now.
ReplyDeleteYes, feel free to skip it. But if you ever start a book club, it's a good option.
DeleteYou know, I read Never Let Me Go by this guy, and I absolutely hated it. I couldn't figure out why everyone, and I mean Everyone, loved it so much. I thought it was dumb and boring. I felt entirely let down by the reading public. The story seemed completely lifeless and bloodless; I didn't give a shit about anyone. It was back in the day when I thought it was a venial sin not to finish a book, so I kept plodding on, hoping for a payoff, and it never came. Obviously, I won't read this one.
ReplyDeleteWow. Apparently, I needed a catharsis regarding that book (which I donated to our library book sale years ago).
I did really like some of Ishiguro's other books - When We Were Orphans is one of my favorite books. The Buried Giant was another book that I really liked. I find Ishiguro is very hit or miss for me. I read Klara and the Sun, and I didn't love it - I did feel similarly to you that there was something I really wasn't understanding about it. But then again, maybe not. The narrative voice is often very naive or lacking in self-awareness, so the prose isn't beautiful to read - just kind of very labored and matter of fact. And I think that's the point of a lot of his books - they all seem to be about people (or AI Friends) who go through life without thinking very existentially, taking life at face value and then are often very confused by it all and end up with a kind of emptiness inside that they may or may not resolve by the end of the book.
ReplyDelete