Klara and the Sun

by Kazuo Ishiguro

Paperback, 352 pages

English language

Published March 1, 2021 by FABER ET FABER.

ISBN:: 978-0-571-36488-6

Klara and the Sun is the eighth novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British writer Kazuo Ishiguro, published on 2 March 2021. It is a dystopian science fiction story. Set in the U.S. in an unspecified future, the book is told from the point of view of Klara, a solar-powered AF (Artificial Friend), who is chosen by Josie, a sickly child, to be her companion. The novel was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize.

18 editions

willowmillway reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Do androids pray to an electric god?

4 stars

There's a million things one could say about this book. To me the most powerful choice was telling the story from the perspective of Klara. In her telling, there is a bareness; an absence of background and critical information that creates mystery and interest. She herself is not so much interested in this mystery. It's either irrelevant to her small picture life and/or simply unavailable to her. We witness in the absence of human drives and background, separate artificial drives that constellate into a different kind of sense. To Klara, the sun is a tangible, all powerful, sentient god; like to many of our ancestors and it guides her, she prays, she has faith. It feels both innocent like a child and pious as any religious person. Ishiguro seems to suggest that spirituality is basic; a sign of actual intelligence, and counterposes it to the venue scientific worldview that creates Klara and downplays intelligence as mere circuitry. I feel it bears reminding that scifi is not a reflection of the future or of actual possibilities, rather it elaborates on themes resonant in the present and in ourselves. That said, this isn't a story about AI, it's a story about the perennial question of soul and meaning. Objectively this is an incredible, tight story that is worth it for entertainment value alone if not for its deeper inquires.

faticake reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Disappointing

3 stars

Content warning Spoilers about the plot

This read like a rehashed yet unfinished Never Let Me Go. The world building seemed lazy because so many details were lacking. And I couldn't get past a "superintelligent" robot that didn't know how the sun worked.

73pctGeek reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Definitely not for me

2 stars

Klara the AF waits patiently in the store to be chosen by her new owner.

I did not care for this. I found the writing frustratingly ambiguous, and I remained utterly disinterested in Klara’s internal life throughout. Everything interesting was quickly hand-waved and rarely mentioned again, Ishiguro instead focusing on interminable paragraphs about patterns or feelings or thoughts that felt like filler. And had I even liked it, I’d have been rather disappointed by the end.

Ishiguro is a good writer but is either hit or miss for me, and this was a huge miss.

nicknicknicknick reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun

4 stars

Content warning Spoilers

1) "When we were new, Rosa and I were mid-store, on the magazines table side, and could see through more than half of the window. So we were able to watch the outside – the office workers hurrying by, the taxis, the runners, the tourists, Beggar Man and his dog, the lower part of the RPO Building. Once we were more settled, Manager allowed us to walk up to the front until we were right behind the window display, and then we could see how tall the RPO Building was. And if we were there at just the right time, we would see the Sun on his journey, crossing between the building tops from our side over to the RPO Building side."

2) "'Housekeeper,' I said. 'I have a plan, a special plan to help Josie. I'm not able to speak openly about it. But if I can go to the city with Josie and her mother, I may have the opportunity to carry it out.' 'Plan? Listen, AF. You make things worse, I fuck come dismantle you.'"

3) "'I think I hate Capaldi because deep down I suspect he may be right. That what he claims is true. That science has now proved beyond doubt there's nothing so unique about my daughter, nothing there our modern tools can't excavate, copy, transfer. That people have been living with one another all this time, centuries, loving and hating each other, and all on a mistaken premise. A kind of superstition we kept going while we didn't know better. That's how Capaldi sees it, and there's a part of me that fears he's right. Chrissie, on the other hand, isn't like me. She may not know it yet, but she'll never let herself be persuaded. If the moment ever comes, never mind how well you play your part, Klara, never mind how much she wishes it to work, Chrissie just won't be able to accept it. She's too... old-fashioned. Even if she knows she's going against the science and the math, she still won't be able to do it. She just won't stretch that far. But I'm different. I have... a kind of coldness inside me she lacks. Perhaps it's because I'm an expert engineer, as you put it. This is why I find it so hard to be civil around people like Capaldi. When they do what they do, say what they say, it feels like they're taking from me what I hold most precious in this life. Am I making sense?'"

4) "'Mr. Capaldi believed there was nothing special inside Josie that couldn't be continued. He told the Mother he'd searched and searched and found nothing like that. But I believe now he was searching in the wrong place. There was something very special, but it wasn't inside Josie. It was inside those who loved her.'"

5) "'Before you go, Manager. I must report to you one more thing. The Sun was very kind to me. He was always kind to me from the start. But when I was with Josie, once, he was particularly kind. I wanted Manager to know.' 'Yes. I'm sure the Sun has always been good to you, Klara.'"

anka.trini reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Review of 'Klara and the Sun' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Klara and the Sun ist ja quasi die Antwort auf Never Let Me Go, aber meiner Meinung nach hätte es des Romans nicht bedurft. Ich fand das Buch meistens eher langweilig und alles, was die Geschichte interessant gemacht hätte, wurde nicht bis zum Ende ausgeführt. Von Kazuo Ishiguro möchte ich trotzdem noch mehr lesen.

L.A. reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara And The Sun

5 stars

This was an interesting read and given that I have not read any of the author's other works, I was not quite sure what I was getting into. (Though, I have watched Remains Of The Day)

This book felt simple and yet complex. The simplicity was in the narrator: an AI or artificial friend who seems a bit naive and limited to her programming being a friend with a sick child. The complexity was in everything surrounding the two of them that wasn't said or maybe not said too loudly.

It is scifi and post apocalyptic, but you would not know it first delving into the story. Klara is a unique narrator but unreliable for such interesting times. Her unique view of the world drives the narrative most of the time.

The uses of faith, family, culture, society, technology and relationships really fleshes out the story and …

This was an interesting read and given that I have not read any of the author's other works, I was not quite sure what I was getting into. (Though, I have watched Remains Of The Day)

The uses of faith, family, culture, society, technology and relationships really fleshes out the story and gives the quiet parts more weight.

Maybe I'll try another book by this author. I really enjoyed this.

King Death of the Scurvy Rats reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

I needed time to emotionally process this book after reading it

5 stars

I'd never read anything from Ishiguro before. I picked it up, read the entire thing in one day from dawn til dusk, and found it such an easy read. I didn't even feel particularly engrossed I just knew that I was enjoying it and I wanted to read on. I was unfamiliar with Ishiguro's craftmanship and was unwittingly sucked into his trap

I won't spoil anything, but I spent a good hour or so in silent reflection after finishing the book, and for the week that followed I barely worked and spent a lot of time thinking about the book and reading reviews to try and figure out what on earth had just happened to me

Noisy Deadlines reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Missed Opportunities

2 stars

The premise is beautiful, it hints at deep reflections about being human, but it didn't work for me. The dialogues were super weird and unnatural, they really bothered me. I missed more exploration of the technology behind the Artificial Friends (AF) and how they worked. Was Klara all mechanical? Was she an android? I wasn't convinced that AF's would find mystical significance in the Sun. The story hints at several themes but never really goes deep: environmental pollution, empathy, robots taking over human jobs, loneliness, gene editing, social class privilege. The plot is super simple and predictable, and the ending was very bleh. Probably not my thing.

Attack reviewed Klara et le Soleil by Kazuo Ishiguro

Review of 'Klara et le Soleil' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Bello, a tratti mi ha fatto ricordare vecchi libri di fantascienza di Dick etc..

Zivan reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Review of 'Klara and the Sun' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

My introduction to Ishiguro was through [b:Never Let Me Go|6334|Never Let Me Go|Kazuo Ishiguro|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353048590l/6334.SY75.jpg|1499998]. I was completely emotionally invested in that novel. I saw what can be done when a literary author takes on a Sci-Fi trope.

I was not impressed by Klara and the Sun. The banality of evil is there all the way to the end. But it wasn't the ending I was expecting, Klara's fantasies are not challenged by reality.

Tania reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Exploring love and loneliness through an AI

4 stars

An easy and enjoyable read despite some illogical parts. I like the idea of exploring such human concepts as love and loneliness through an artificially intelligent robot.

Rachel Unkefer reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

A lot of setup for not much payoff

3 stars

What even was this? A parable? A fairy tale? An allegory? Was it about religion? About artificial intelligence and how it can spawn its own superstition? This seemed to me a huge amount of world-building and excruciating detail just to say‚ what?

allanderek reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

A very readable journey

4 stars

A very readable journey into a possible future. A very interesting narrator, an artificially intelligent humanoid with good observational abilities but limited reasoning, which ultimately allows her to draw some curious and false conclusions.

Minor things about the proposed future slightly irk, for example we seem to have autonomous artificial friends, but driving is still something done by humans. Walking around is likely more difficult to automate than driving around, though companionship does not appear to be as difficult as we might have thought/hoped. That said, the future inhabitants all have something called an 'oblong', which seems to be roughly a futuristic smart phone. Do we then really need the artificial friends to be humanoid in look? Why can the artificial friend not simply be interfaced with through the oblong? Lastly, it seems that the artificial friends can perform chores if asked, why then does the main family still …

Still these are just nitpicks about the possible future, the main throw of the work, and the pleasure of reading it, is not significantly affected. At times, the book may seem to belabor about the point a bit. Perhaps some scenes could have been cut, or perhaps I am just missing their significance.

Pixel reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Surprisingly underwhelming

3 stars

I listened to this as an audiobook, my first checked out from Libby.
I liked the narrator's voice and felt it was generally quite well to meet the range of voices for the characters.
The book took too long to build up and the ending was too abstract and fell apart.
I also generally didn't like or understand why the characters were selected with the traits they had.
Some of the dialogue felt well played, while others felt jarring
In the end, my favorite part is Klara's relationship with the sun, which goes for the most part unexplored with other characters. This book has vague environmentalist themes.
many of the tropes that show up in this book I feel, have been better expressed in other works I've read.
I think this book would be fine for a middle schooler as it goes …

I listened to this as an audiobook, my first checked out from Libby.
I liked the narrator's voice and felt it was generally quite well to meet the range of voices for the characters.
The book took too long to build up and the ending was too abstract and fell apart.
I also generally didn't like or understand why the characters were selected with the traits they had.
Some of the dialogue felt well played, while others felt jarring
In the end, my favorite part is Klara's relationship with the sun, which goes for the most part unexplored with other characters. This book has vague environmentalist themes.
many of the tropes that show up in this book I feel, have been better expressed in other works I've read.
I think this book would be fine for a middle schooler as it goes generally without much complexity with its readability. Though I do think it should be followed with journaling or a book discussion. I would be curious how this book could be used to engage youth about AI ethics.

Amos J. Hunt reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Pretty Nearly Perfect

5 stars

Maybe it's just because it pulls together a set of themes that happen to be dominating my mind right now, but this book feels like an absolute revelation. On one level, it's a dystopian exploration of the relationship between humanity and technology. But because the protagonist is a unique, three-dimensional character, rather than a boilerplate artificial intelligence, the novel is not a mere thought experiment in the template of "what if people had artificial friends"? It develops a deep experience at the swirling nexus of perception, belief, myth, and devotion. It seems to me that readers who found this book a little thin weren't taking seriously enough the "Sun" part of "Klara and the Sun." This isn't a book about AI. It's a book about a relationship between two entities who aren't conventionally regarded as people. Therein lies the ambition and success of Ishiguro's book.