Klara and the Sun

Review

I really enjoyed this book. Something about the way Klara saw the world really struck a chord with me—I thought it was a convincing guess at what consciousness might feel like as an android, though of course the joy of this story is that it's speculative. I loved how Ishiguro didn't feel pressured to fully explain all of the nuances of exactly how Klara's perception works, e.g. the "boxes" that she talks about as a way to describe her vision. In fact, I thought one of my favorite pieces of this story was how thoroughly Ishiguro drops the reader into the story. It was a little more work to try to piece together a coherent vision of how the society in the story works, but I think that that allows the reader more leeway to project their own hopes and fears for the future onto that society and its mechanics. In the end, though, what really absorbed me was the emotional heft of the relationships at the story's core—Klara and Josie, Josie and Rick, Josie and her mother, Josie's mother and Rick's. Seeing those relationships from the point of view of Klara, who is ignorant of some of the history and context of the characters but is also unencumbered by things like ego or pride, was, I found, a touching light in which to view them. Even absent all of the interesting questions the book raises about technology, humanity, and progress, this would have been a beautiful book about parents trying their best to make a good life for their children, friends trying to make their own way in the world while staying true to their companions, and consciousness (alone!) trying to make sense of its place in the world.