Klara and the Sun
Review of the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro
From the start, everything feels peculiar.
Klara, the main character, never addresses anyone as “you.” She always uses the person’s name, even when addressing someone directly. And though she is perceptive in her analysis of what she sees, the scope of what she can see is limited to the store she is in and the street seen through a store window. Cumulatively that becomes eerie.
Her movements inside the store are controlled by the store manager, and she is not free to leave the store. She has or believes she has a special relationship with the Sun, which is her source of energy and health. She is hoping that someone will buy her.
It becomes increasingly clear that she is a robot intended to serve as a companion to a child. None of this is said explicitly because what matters is not the facts, which could be summarized in a paragraph, but rather the perspective which is revelatory and unsettling.
Ishiguro shows us mankind in the future seen through a robot’s eyes. And the central question is not what will happen to the human and robot characters, but rather whether there is any important difference between a robot and a human. Could a well-designed and well-trained robot take the place of a hum? If a child died, could its robot companion fill in for it and continue its life? At the very end, Klara, the boot, concludes that the answer is no.
“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. That’s why I think now Mr. Capaldi was wrong and I wouldn’t have succeeded. So I’m glad I decided as I did.” p. 302
It’s a blessing that Ishiguro is well-known and revered. If this were his first novel, agents and editors would never have read past the first few pages and this marvelous book would never have been published.
