Klara and the Sun by Kazuo IshiguroMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
It means something when the most empathetic character is the non-human one. Klara, as an AF (artificial friend), is even more observant than most, and the lesson is pretty clear (almost from the outset) that if we humans don't observe, don't listen? Then we become rather incapable of empathy.
The book muses upon faith, hope, and love. Klara's faith in the sun is based in hope, but also pragmatic observation and an innocent sense of causation. Josie's mother is hopeful about love, yet lacks faith. Ricky, Josie's pragmatic and "unlifted" friend, perhaps has the strongest faith in Klara as he is able to assist her without really knowing why. Josie is the most human of characters in her determination and courage, but also in her code-switching and mercurial teenagery-ness. Josie's father is a skeptical engineer, but he too has to take a leap of faith in Klara, for the love of Josie.
Ishiguro does not give us all the details. The AFs get only a store as a backstory context. We know there are the lifted and the unlifted children, but we only see the ramifications of that status, not the details regarding how it happens. In this sense, Ricky is one of the most interesting characters in that he represents the folly of societal categories (one is reminded of Dr. Seuss's Sneetches with the stars, and those without stars), as he's clearly one of the most intelligent characters in the novel.
Another lesson from Klara --if only we were all be able to carry the images of our memories and recall them to inform our present understanding. We do, actually, of course, but Ishiguro paints the process slowly and truly through Klara, inviting us to think about our own intentionality and how often we dismiss or suppress our memories because we are not just mere data collectors, but data manipulators.
The ending pushed this away from five stars for me...it felt too much like a saccharine epilogue. We get an explanation of Klara's REAL lesson from the store manager and it all smacked a bit too much of a Care Bears animated special for my taste. I found myself frustrated that the manager herself doesn't get much of a backstory, but Ishiguro has a way of making you accept what he gives you, despite your own desires. In her New York Times Review in 2021, Radhika Jones gets it:
"'Still, when Klara says, "I have my memories to go through and place in the right order," it strikes the quintessential Ishiguro chord. So what if a machine says it? There's no narrative instinct more essential, or more human."
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