Klara and the Sun -Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I am starting to think that the whole AI thing has been done to death so when I read the blurb on the back I was potentially worried. However, whilst this book isn’t groundbreaking it is an interesting and very readable story, with human behaviour viewed through the AI narrator. It is fresh and compelling, though also frustrating, with so much left unexplained, appearing just on the periphery of Klara’s vision, such as the communities the Father now lives in, and the increasingly segregated and violent world they seem to be living in (and what happened to Rosa? Will this be another novel? and what of the technology Rick invented? Will this be used by a future Resistance movement?). I guess I am always most interested in the social and political aspects of stories so I was craving more of that. But leaving things unexplained, and writing with an understated, light touch seems to be in vogue at the moment (the last novel I read before this one was China Room) and it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Don’t read on if you don’t want spoilers. I found the ending really upsetting, and in some ways a bit difficult to understand. I could understand that she had outlived her usefulness to that family, but to create a sentient being, and such a clever and useful one at that, and then just dump her at the end, is inexplicably wasteful. Could she not have been sent to another family, or performed some useful work? Also, why did they hold her in such high regard, and indulge her with her plans to ‘help Josie’ without explanation? This also doesn’t quite convince, especially when at the end of the book she seems to be abandoned.

So…. plenty of unanswered questions, but still a very good read.



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