Ms. Hen reviews Klara and the Sun

 

Klara and the Sun

Kazuo Ishiguro

Alfred A. Knopf

2021

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel simply because she read about it online, and she thought it sounded interesting. She has always meant to read a book by this author, but she has not gotten around to it until now. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which Ms. Hen admires, even though she still thinks Haruki Murakami should win some time soon, and he should have won already.

This novel is about an AF, or Artificial Friend, named Klara, which is a type of AI that waits in a store for a child to buy her. Klara is intelligent, and curious about the world around her, and she eventually becomes the AF of a girl named Josie. She and her mother come in the store and choose Klara because Josie had been looking at her through the store window. Josie's mother asks Klara to walk like Josie. Josie has a limp, which Klara imitates.

Klara gets her nourishment from the Sun, and she enjoys watching the sunset at Josie's house. Josie lives with her mother and Melania Housekeeper, and her mother works a lot. Klara tries to help Josie and her friend Rick. Rick has not been lifted, or genetically altered. Klara does what she thinks is best for Josie.

Ms. Hen loves the way this novel is written. It is told through the point of view of Klara, and Ms. Hen thinks it's extremely well done. Klara has a unique way of describing the world, which suits her. She says the mother drinks a quick coffee every morning, and she repeats that again and again. She describes people she sees by what they're doing, such as a dog walk woman. Klara sees the world through an AI's eyes. 

This novel is quite unlike any Ms. Hen has read. The style is simple and direct, almost like a children's book. But it does remind her of a few TV series and movies she has seen, such as the Russian show BETTER THAN US, and the film AI. Ms. Hen loves books like these, set in the near future, set in an unidentified place, with events that could happen in our real near future. These kinds of books make a person think about what could happen to us, and where we are going.

Ms. Hen would recommend this novel to anyone who likes dystopian fiction, but with a gentle, sad twist. This novel ended differently than Ms. Hen thought it would. The tone of this novel is melancholy, but the future feels that way to her sometimes, that we're going somewhere unpleasant and boring -the computerized world that we're entering is not as bright and shiny as we had always dreamed it would be.