KLARA AND THE SUN by Kazuo Ishiguro(US: Alfred A. Knopf; UK:Faber & Faber, 2021) A spoiler-free review.
One of the characters in Sir Kazuo Ishiguro’s eighth novel says “It’s not faith you need. Only rationality.” Yet, while never undermining the importance of pure science, Ishiguro is primarily concerned with how humanity and machines can co-exist healthily.
Although, ‘Klara and the Sun’ will be classified as a work of Science Fiction, he, like Ian McEwan is not fundamentally aiming to write within this specific genre. McEwan’s flawed ‘Machines Like Me’ failed because he introduced elements of political satire into the story and it was also obvious that he had only a superficial interest in exploring the moral dilemmas surrounding Artificial Intelligence. Ishiguro is more disciplined and doesn’t allow himself to be distracted by wider social issues or to stray too far off topic.
The story takes place in a nonspecific time and place. It is not England and, from the US spelling alone, it is a safe bet to assume the setting is somewhere in America. Wherever it is, references to a rundown, graffitied city make clear that this is no utopian vision of the future. We hear of “a shadow neighborhood with broken sidewalks” and of social tensions through the existence of one zone as “a place with gangs and guns.” In other words, it sounds very much like the world we are currently living in!
However, these are peripheral details since Ishiguro is not really setting out to speculate on, or warn us about, the shape of things to come. Instead, he is interested in exploring philosophical questions about the differences between human beings and robots. The topicality of this is obvious. Technology is advancing to the point that algorithms can already identify and predict habitual actions, making it depressingly clear that none of us is as unique and individual as we’d like to imagine. This becomes even more disquieting when emotions can be accurately replicated by machines.
Ishiguro’s style, like McEwan’s, has frequently been criticized for being overly clinical but, in my view, the precision of his writing should not be confused with coldness. Ironically, it is the way he succeeds in humanizing the robot narrator, Klara, that shows him to be a writer with an abundance of compassion and empathy.
The rational choices of Klara may be pre-programmed but, ironically, this seems to make her kinder and more empathic than the real-life people she mixes with. She speaks of being happy or anxious but her exact emotional settings are not specified. When it is suggested that she has no emotions, Klara replies: “I believe I have many feelings. The more I observe, the more feelings become available to me.”
A lot of the story centres on the nature of loneliness and the numerous ways humans find to mask this. Klara is in a unique position to witness this trait, but she nevertheless finds it hard to interpret the behaviour she sees. She observes that: “humans, in their wish to escape loneliness, made maneuvers that were very complex and hard to fathom.” However, she is also able to recognize how hiding fears seems to serve the demands of society and notes how “people often felt the need to prepare a side of themselves to display to passers-by.”
Klara is praised for her intuition and ability to make use of detailed observations but there are major gaps in her knowledge that are not always credible.For instance, she identifies a single road maintenance machine as the sole cause of pollution and regards the sun not just a source of nourishment but as a person capable of providing “his special help” to those in need. It is possible that Ishiguro intends this as a satire on the irrationality of belief but, if so, it seems a little crude and out of place in the novel.
Underlying themes of genetic engineering, surveillance technology and everyday fears of ‘where will it all end’ mean that this novel could easily be seen as a companion piece to Ishiguro’s dystopian masterpiece, ‘Never Let Me Go’. But this is not such a dark story and it is the believability of the artificial narrator’s voice that makes this such a fascinating read. By making the robot is the most sympathetic character, he raises questions about what it truly means to be human.
I read it as a moral fable to remind us of the importance of considering our responsibilities towards society as a whole rather than to focus selfishly on our pursuit of individual interests.
