Klara and the Sun

By Kazuo Ishiburo

This is the first book I’ve ever read where the protagonist is an AI character and the story is told in her voice. (I’m obviously not a huge science fiction reader). While, I find Kazuo Ishiguro’s work mostly haunting, his take on the intersection between technology and the human soul took me one step further. The story is simple and accessible in its form, yet deeply provocative in the questions it raises.

You won’t find a tidy plot summary here. Because I don’t want to give away even once sentence of the story line. Much of the enjoyment for me was in following the trail of breadcrumbs left neatly and enticingly by Ishiguro, piquing my curiosity about what he was up to. Right off I met the protagonist Klara. And at the same time I was invited into a narrative that read a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, asking me to fit pieces together to set the scene and engage with the story. But, clever writer that he is, Ishiguro made me really want to follow the breadcrumbs and arrange the pieces.

I think it is more fun to read this book without knowing what it is about beforehand. The process of allowing the clues placed in each sentence, each paragraph, to draw you into the story made the reading a bit of a mental playground for me. While I suppose most author’s wouldn’t find that description to be a compliment, I mean it to be one.

Especially because, as I began getting the gist of the story, and as the pieces came together in an unexpected climax, I found myself horrified at the possibilities Ishiguro asked me to entertain. And just about the time I was shocked enough to consider closing the book without finishing (which is a huge decision for me as I have a policy to always finish books I begin), he introduced a twist that made me love the characters and care about how the story turned out.

Brilliant story telling. But the Nobel Prize for Literature Committee has already told us about Ishiguro’s genius. He, in this story, could at the same time invoke a horror in me about the possible state of humanity, while also reminding me about what it means to be human. He made me think about the human tendency to reach for something beyond ourselves, the longing to connect, and the question about what could be engineered and what is inherent in the mystery that is humanity.

That’s all I’ll say. Because I want you to have the enjoyment of following the clues in this literary scavenger hunt yourself, putting the pieces together in your own way.