Klara and the Sun – a review

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Klara and the Sun captures an intense capsule of emotions. From one end you experience the loneliness that hides within all of Kazuo Ishiguro's novels, while on the other you find the sweet taste of love. However Ishiguro meant to write this book, he most definitely intended it to question the readers abilities to sense the narrators flaws.

Klara is an AF (artificial friend), and the central character of our novel. Due to her being a robot and AI, her kind is mostly used for young teenagers, mentorship, or jobs. Despite this, the AF's are still treated almost equally to human beings.
Klara is bought by a girl named Josie Athur, who seems to have a disease caused by a concept in the novel described as "lifting", a operation done at an early age to further the abilities of human beings.
As Klara is brought into Josie's home, her main goal, although never distinctly stated to be her main goal, is to heal Josie. As Klara runs on mostly solar power, she believes in the distinct and natural powers of the Sun.

Do to this, Ishiguro is able to beautifully capture the relationship between humans and technology, and technology with nature. Klara's relationship with the Sun and with Josie are notable different, as the Sun is depicted as deity of love and compassion, while Josie is portrayed in many ways, notable being a kind yet sensitive girl, one quick to anger.

I would not like to spoil too much, but this book is a good read. It starts of very slow, but about half way in you begin to understand the key concepts–loneliness, human/robot relationships, and relationships with nature. I believe the main point of this novel is to characterise how technology doesn't have to hurt the world, but can in fact become a resource to it.

Beautifully written, however I wish that Klara would have become a more understood character. Her extreme observational skills take away from the deep and concise character she could've become, even simply as a robot.

4/5 stars.View all my reviews