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. Continue reading
What is it that derails dreams of utopia and resigns us to the notion that the future is fated to turn out dystopian? 
This eloquent, ambitious, challenging and, ultimately, fascinating book was conceived in part as “a diminished non-fiction mirror” of Italo Calvino’s Le Città Invisibili (Invisible Cities).
The world of Oryx & Crake resembles a corrupted and desolate Garden of Eden. There’s plenty of irony and black humour but ultimately this is a bleak dystopian vision of the near future. Planet Earth is in a sorry state wherein “The whole world is now one vast controlled experiment”. 
