Klara And The Sun (Kazuo Ishiguro) | Book Review

Science Fiction has that single most important drawback that it isn’t relatable at most times. It is unreal and you know it is not possible in the real world. That I think was the feeling from the start of Klara And The Sun. It was hard to imagine something like an Artificial Friend. And even if you do, you start to feel – does it have life? Is it the same as humans? Does it have it’s life cycle?

The start of the book took some time to get a hold of what exactly was happening. The idea of AFs in a store talking to each other, moving around, looking out the window – as I said, hard to absorb. But as the story moves on and you accept this as an unreal fiction, Klara And The Sun is a nice story.

There are a couple of things that the story is reflecting upon as I understand – loneliness and emotion. The things humans do to eliminate loneliness and how much they fear it. A child, who is otherwise a lonely child in an imagined world where all study is done on their “oblongs” (guess tablets in real world), looks for an AF to give company. Infact, it is more of a helper than a friend to Josie (the protagonist). For one mother, she never pushed her son to move ahead in life – again to avoid that same demon “loneliness”. And then, the second mother (Josie’s), who looks to replicate her terminally ill daughter through the AF to give her company after the daughter is gone. This I felt highlights a very important problem of the modern “real” world – loneliness.

Talking of emotion, right at the start, the AF (Klara) was told by her manager in her store to not to invest much in human emotions. That a child who promises to return may actually never do so. And even if he does, he may well choose another AF over you despite the promise he made some day. And so it turns out. This is the part of the book – towards the later half – that pulls up the story to the next level and makes it a touching tale. The same AF you once picked up to be your friend and companion, who gave you company through your growing up years and when you needed care, who sacrificed and put itself in danger just for your well being, it was left in a scrap yard once it’s time was past. And ironically, Klara chooses to stay alone in the yard and not in the company of other AFs that were there. Highlighting probably the lack of emotions in human, it is further accentuated by the manager finding Klara in the yard, catching up on the lives of each other and in the end, turning but not to give a last glance to Klara but to the machines far away in the backdrop.

Besides this, one major part of the story remains the Sun. It is shown as all powerful, a healer, kind as well as a punisher. For centuries our ancestors have regarded the Sun as a God. Indian mythology depicts the same in several forms. We have worshipped it, we do the Surya Namaskar. And even if we don’t, as a natural instinct, we join our hands and bow in front of the morning sun first thing in the morning. Thus this part was quite relatable. I experience this every day – days when it’s overcast you just dont feel like doing anything, you feel low. And on days with bright sunshine and clear blue skies, it naturally fills you with enthusiasm, energy, brightness, desire and adds a spring to your stride. And not just the winters, I seek bright sunny days with equal hope even in summers – to see my room full of sunshine. Throughout the book, this brightness of the sun, the beauty of the orange light of the evening sun filling up the barn keeps adding the much essential hope and vigor.

All in all, a touching story. Could be more relatable had it been something other than an AF – but what, cant really say. So maybe the AF was apt after all.

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