Klara and the Sun
★★★★★
This is the story of a girl and her robot companion Klara, but interestingly told from the first person perspective of Klara. Ishiguro does an excellent job of showing us Klara’s askew view of the world, which is almost childlike in its use of language (undershirt men, umbrella couples and dog-lead people) and the misunderstandings Klara has about how the world works. I particularly enjoyed how Klara’s visual system goes split-screen to indicate focus, stress, or visual imagination with a nod towards modern AI boxed overlays.
Whilst I liked how Klara was written I found that the adults in the story were prone to stilted conversations, monologuing to each other and being overly formal, but the kids were well realised and more natural in their interactions.
This is a quiet story of Klara trying to understand illness, growing up, and social interactions. Klara does this through observation - being there for others, she rarely asks questions for herself which keeps a nice tension as she often makes naive analysis of what’s happening and how the world works. Two thirds in, the story swings a little darker, but doesn’t dwell there long and ultimately this is a cosy read which is a nice contrast to so much AI doom and gloom.
It’s worth a read to get the point across that AI won’t think like us and will be truly alien, this is explicit at the end of the book where it’s stated that people are frightened by their lack of understanding of how the robots work. However it doesn’t explore the implications of its premise deeply enough for me - it’s more literary than speculative and ultimately a bit light.
