Klara and the Sun: A GMA Book Club Pick: A novel

This book begins with Klara. Klara is a robot or artificial friend made to look like a human girl. She is in a store with other robots, Rosa, her best friend, and Rex. A young girl, Josie, about fourteen, comes in with her mother. Josie wants to buy the robot, have her come home with her and her mother. Mom doesn't really want to. Josie says she will come back, she does. Then, for a long time, she does not. Josie has health problems, good days, bad days. Then when she does come back, she has to look for Klara, who has been placed in the back of the store. Happily she is found and Josie's mother relents and purchases Klara. Klara is very intelligent, she notices what is going on in the world around her. All her energy comes from the sun. Klara worships the sun like people worship God. She begs the sun to help folks. The sun answers her prayers.There are some questions that are asked. Can one person take the place of another? There is a brilliant man, Dr. Capaldi, who feels this can be done. Josie's father, Paul Arthur, is angry. He hates Dr. Capuldi.The story begins sometime in the future, kids own artificial friends, to make them happy, so they won't be lonely. Also, there is a technique used called lifted for kids to make them more intelligent, to be able to do well in life. Is this the right thing to do? The use of this might be making Josie sick. Maybe, maybe not.The book is set up in a large American city. Josie and her mom live in a large country house in the country. There is a housekeeper, Melania. Klara calls her Melania Housekeeper, Chrissie is called The Mother. Klara is so intelligent, more intelligent than many people. She loves Josie as Josie loves her. Klara promises Josie she will always be here for her. Before she was bought, Klara had never been outside, rode in a car, been out in nature. Now she is learning much about life. Rich, a neighbor boy, is her best friend. His mother, Miss Helen, has a smaller house a bit away. The two are British.Klara will do anything to make Josie well. There is an unfinished barn, in open country, that is very important. Rich and Josie have been best friends since small childhood.Dr. Capuldi is an evil man who messes with humanity. Melania Housekeeper worries about Josie. Miss Helen and Chrissie, The Mother, want the best for their children, whether it is good for them or is it what the children want? Does it make them more intelligent and better people?The story is seen through the eyes of Klara who loves the sun. The sun seems to love her.This book is somewhat like "Never Let Me Go." Characters are so much like humans, but are not.Both of these books give much to think about.

I love Kazuo Ishiguro and this is the fourth book of his that I’ve read. This one, his latest, feels closely related to his previous Never Let Me Go and even in some ways his masterpiece The Remains of the Day (I still find The Buried Giant to be out of place among his bibliography). They all wrestle with questions of the construction and formation of identity, as well as service and sacrifice. They reveal their fuller implications only gradually. In this novel, it’s the near future and the titular Klara is an Artificial Friend, carefully taking in the world around her to be best prepared for her eventual role as, well, a robot friend to the teenager whose family will eventually buy her. That teenager turns out to be Josie, a sweet-natured girl with a mysterious serious illness. As a solar powered android, Klara regards the sun as essentially a deity, and seeks out his intervention for Josie. An artificial intelligence could have been a tricky choice for a narrator, but Ishiguro doesn’t make significant changes to his usual writing style to accommodate and his elegant, removed prose proves well-suited to the task. The narrative raises interesting questions about how the self can be defined, especially when there is arguably not a “self” at all and one’s entire purpose is to be useful to others. It does not answer these questions, but presents us with Klara and lets us think for ourselves. The plot unfolds at the typical leisurely pace for an Ishiguro novel, and as usual not much actually “happens”. I found it a pleasingly reflective experience to read. It does definitely tread familiar territory, though, and is not of higher quality than the previous work that it echoes.

Klara is an AI robot devoted to her human owner, Josie. The book definitely gives off The Velveteen Rabbit and Giving Tree vibes which hold true through to the end of the book.However, the themes from the movie Gattaca, with some humans okay’d for advancement and others denied is also hinted at through the book. The morality of choices made when children are young, solely made in light of the current society’s ideas of success is only hinted at. Klara is the story teller and is not privy to complete discussions and debates from the adults in her “life.”I wanted to hear more from the intelligent father replaced by a robot, from the boyfriend Rick’s world - from his mother Helen. There is a bit too much left to the reader. But this book would make for fantastic book club discussions, particularly in 2023 with the dawning of ChatGPt and more on the AI front.

Klara is an AI. I thought that would be a more intriguing part of the story; however the story was more about perspective. The author tells the story from Klara’s viewpoint. It is a well told story about our perception of being human. Although I am glad I read the book, I felt the author could have provided more details to the story. Understanding the human condition is always more complicated than we think.

I really think the author created a remarkable AI protagonist in Klara, and the other characters are beautifully related as well. I wasn't really sure where the story was going to end up for most of the book, but I found the character of Klara relatable and touching. I would recommend for anyone who is interested in AI, and in exploring ideas about what it means to be human.

A book about a robot from its perspective

I do know Ishiguro is a splendid writer, and this is vastly shown in the book. But it seems endless and you are compelled to leave the book aside from time to time . Sorry

A masterpiece. The observations and thoughts from the perspective of Klara is insightful. Delicate storytelling. Definitely a recommended read.

Este libro fue para nuestro club de lectura en inglés y español. Detectamos de la mitad al final de la novela muchos huecos, brincos y situaciones que no se explican… creo que el autor quiso dotarlo de suspenso y luego ni supo cómo resolver. Por otro lado Klara es un personaje entrañable, con una gran inteligencia y sabiduría para leer a los seres humanos… en esta novela vemos cómo buscamos darle características humanas a todas las AI y en esta búsqueda encontramos desconexión, volvernos esclavos de lo mismo que creamos..

Excelente libro para comenzar a leer en ingles