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A review by rbruehlman
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
3.0
I really wanted to like this book. It had traces of futuristic dystopian elements and promised to explore what it means to be "human" in the context of artificial intelligence. Seemed like a slam-dunk to me.
What I got instead was an initially pleasant-enough read that became increasingly frustratingly shallow and ploddingly paced until it became rushed. Ishiguro had the beginnings of an interesting book, but failed to capitalize on any of it. Like a child's novel, the book tells, not shows, the author's intended takeaway.
1. Firstly, Klara is an unbelievable character, who is too blatantly written to fit the needs of the plot. She is dumb and naive when Ishiguro needs her to be, and astonishingly perceptive the rest of the time. The book makes a point very early on, and often, to expound on how unusually perceptive she is, and she's intelligent and well-read enough that it's suggested she tutor another character for an elite school. So how on earth does she reasonably come to a pivotal crazy theory in the book,? In every other capacity, Klara is incredibly logical, intuitive, and intelligent, and even frequently fine-tunes and disregards other incorrect theories she forms, yet she persistently holds onto this wacky belief.
2. Secondly, the worldbuilding initially really excited me. However, many of the aspects he introduces are mentioned once and never again. So I was instead left with far more questions than answers, and I am more unsatisfied than if he didn't mention those aspects at all. What is "lifting", who does it, why? Why are there lawless gang communities in parts of the world that the dad randomly lives in? What is "substitution" and what did that mean for the dad's job? Why are fascists mentioned several times in the book as a thing to be scared of? What are "interactions" that children must attend, and why do they exist? These are all concepts the book introduces, and I didn't put spoiler tags on any of these because there is nothing to spoil by mentioning them--they are never explored and have no plot significance.
3. Related to the unexplored worldbuilding, I got a vaguely dysfunctional, futuristic dystopian vibe. You would think that, given AI and the book's premise that it explore what it means to be human, that the book would actually explore some of these themes that it introduces. For instance, what is the impact of AFs in society, since they seem to be so ubiquitous? What is the impact of "lifting" children? What does it mean to be human, vs. AI, when the AFs seem so astonishingly human? These concepts are never explored.
4. The plot pacing left a lot to be desired. I quite enjoyed the book for the first half or so, but then started to feel like nothing was happening. Concepts and plot points were being introduced, but they didn't really build on previous plot points; they just introduced more questions. Klara's indefatigable nature started to grate as the plot slogged on. Then, at once, the plot moves--but in a herky-jerky, cursory fashion that left my head spinning.. Whew. That is a lot to pack in in the last 25% of the book, and the last few events were given few pages. It felt like it was almost dumped on the reader. "Gotta finish this book, bye!"
5. The ending, to me, made no sense. Ishiguro is clearly trying to make some kind of point here, but there are few logical breadcrumbs to the ending scene.
What I got instead was an initially pleasant-enough read that became increasingly frustratingly shallow and ploddingly paced until it became rushed. Ishiguro had the beginnings of an interesting book, but failed to capitalize on any of it. Like a child's novel, the book tells, not shows, the author's intended takeaway.
1. Firstly, Klara is an unbelievable character, who is too blatantly written to fit the needs of the plot. She is dumb and naive when Ishiguro needs her to be, and astonishingly perceptive the rest of the time. The book makes a point very early on, and often, to expound on how unusually perceptive she is, and she's intelligent and well-read enough that it's suggested she tutor another character for an elite school. So how on earth does she reasonably come to a pivotal crazy theory in the book,
Spoiler
thinking that the sun is a god and that killing a single pollution machine would entice the sun to save a child from genetic editing gone wrong2. Secondly, the worldbuilding initially really excited me. However, many of the aspects he introduces are mentioned once and never again. So I was instead left with far more questions than answers, and I am more unsatisfied than if he didn't mention those aspects at all. What is "lifting", who does it, why? Why are there lawless gang communities in parts of the world that the dad randomly lives in? What is "substitution" and what did that mean for the dad's job? Why are fascists mentioned several times in the book as a thing to be scared of? What are "interactions" that children must attend, and why do they exist? These are all concepts the book introduces, and I didn't put spoiler tags on any of these because there is nothing to spoil by mentioning them--they are never explored and have no plot significance.
3. Related to the unexplored worldbuilding, I got a vaguely dysfunctional, futuristic dystopian vibe. You would think that, given AI and the book's premise that it explore what it means to be human, that the book would actually explore some of these themes that it introduces. For instance, what is the impact of AFs in society, since they seem to be so ubiquitous? What is the impact of "lifting" children? What does it mean to be human, vs. AI, when the AFs seem so astonishingly human? These concepts are never explored.
4. The plot pacing left a lot to be desired. I quite enjoyed the book for the first half or so, but then started to feel like nothing was happening. Concepts and plot points were being introduced, but they didn't really build on previous plot points; they just introduced more questions. Klara's indefatigable nature started to grate as the plot slogged on. Then, at once, the plot moves--but in a herky-jerky, cursory fashion that left my head spinning.
Spoiler
First, it seems like Klara will be tasked with pretending to be Josie after Josie's death in another AF body. Hm, that brings up interesting ethical issues--this is explored for a bit, but Klara, the narrator, doesn't really care about what this means, and instead continues on her perplexing task of killing the pollution machine. Unsurprisingly, this doesn't work, and the book hurries on to Josie's impending death. She abruptly gets better, which I found to be a frustratingly unsatisfying and unrealistic turn-of-events. Then the book timeskips, quickly says that Josie is better now and is moving on with life, and Klara has taken a backseat. OK, that was abrupt. Then it quickly jumps to Klara being a garbage dump pleased as punch about life as ever.5. The ending, to me, made no sense.