I have never wanted to hug a robot more than I have when reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun. I know it seemed like I wanted to hug Tang in my previous post featuring the novel A Robot In the Garden, but this is the hug I would give if I could only choose one robot. Oh come on, I can’t be the only one that has wanted to hug a robot! Even though there is no blood running through her, I feel like she would still be warm when I hugged her. Even through the mechanical whirs, I would feel like she would hear me. This novel is a wonderful look at human emotion, but also how that human emotion is, and possibly will be, the more technology is introduced into our lives.

The story starts by introducing us to Klara in a store front. She is what is called an Artificial Friend, or AF. It was funny to see the abbreviation AF in some areas of the book and not think of its more common meaning today. There are many of these AFs in the shop, and all of them are a bit different even though their programming is more or less the same. That introduces the thought of how AI may be the more advanced it gets and can start to learn more and more. Will it become too powerful to control, or will it always be limited by who programmed it and how? Klara is different in the way she notices and identifies things around her. She has a keen attention to detail in the material, but also when it comes to emotions as well. As an introvert myself, I identified with this as it is in my nature as well to scan a room or situation and try to take in as much information as possible before saying anything, if I say anything at all. And sometimes this need to do this is why I prefer to be alone because it’s almost too much sometimes. This is the first checkbox as to why I want to hug Klara.

While in the store, Klara is approached by a young girl named Josie, who warms up to her really quickly. Josie doesn’t live in the city near the store, but promises to visit Klara every time she is in town. On one of these trips, Josie and her mother make the decision to buy her. Klara and Josie are both elated, but Josie’s mother makes sure to let Klara know that her task will not be an easy one since Josie is sick and there will some days it may be harder to be with her than others. As the story continues, I made the incorrect conclusion that the Mother may have Munchausen’s by Proxy Syndrome, but the way her illness is addressed in the book just felt odd to me. It’s the elephant in the room, and the quickest excuse for any type of bad behavior.

Klara gets the idea in her head that she can get the sun’s help to heal Josie. She personifies the sun in a truly poetic way. Checkbox number two as to why I want to hug her. As someone who lives in the desert, I have always appreciated the sun, even in the unbearable summers. When I was in bootcamp in Illinois during the winter, it was overcast for over a week, and when we did finally get sunlight, I raised my head to it like a flower without realizing it. I was yelled at by my superiors, and it was the beginning of many jokes made about me being from the weird state of Arizona. The AFs use the sun as their source of energy to recharge, so this makes perfect sense. Klara goes as far as to try to destroy machines that create pollution in an effort to please the sun so that his rays can shine undeterred to the people and AFs that need it. The quest Klara takes to please the sun so as to heal Josie is a truly beautiful one full of sacrifice and pure love.

The focus on the sun also seemed like a metaphor about how us as humans can miss the simple things that can give us life. They are things that are always available to us with little effort. Whether it’s the sun, beautiful flowers, majestic mountains, birds singing beautiful songs; all of these things can help us stop for a second and just breathe. When we focus on the material things that sometimes take a lot of work to obtain, we can become tired, irritable, and downright sick to the point in which the natural parts of us start to give up a little bit.

Without giving too much away, there is another scene that hit hard to the overarching theme. Josie’s mother has hired a man, Mr. Capaldi, to complete a portrait of Josie. She wants it to remember her by in the event Josie succumbs to her illness. Mr. Capaldi is fascinated by the AFs and goes as far to say that there is nothing unique in humans that can’t be transferred or replicated to an artificial being. He says that the idea there is is only some romantic idea held onto by older generations. I on the other hand believe all living creatures have things that can’t be replicated by technology. The simple fact that Klara can’t join Josie and her mother for a meal because Klara doesn’t eat is one for example. Just think, how many memories are created around the dinner table? Klara doesn’t buy into this idea either in all she has learned from her time with Josie and her family are friends, which was so interesting to me. The AF doesn’t have the hubris to believe she can replace a human. But many humans have this sort of hubris that they can create an AF that can. We have arrived at the final checkbox needed.

Overall I really enjoyed the book and the various characters introduced along the way. There wasn’t a single character that I thought wasn’t needed, and one might wonder if that is on purpose. And if so, bravo Mr. Ishiguro! There is a reason he has won numerous literary awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature. I had read his novel The Buried Giant and wasn’t a huge fan, but I am glad another one of his was introduced to me, and I will definitely give a couple others a chance. Any recommendations?

This was a really fun discussion in my book club, like all of the usually are, but there were many unanswered questions we played around with and didn’t quite get a final answer to. So for those who have read or plan to read this highly recommended novel, I pose these questions to you:

• Do you think there is a link to religion?
• What happened exactly with Klara and the Sun in the barn? Were these things actually happening, or was Klara having some sort of weird hallucination?
• Where did Klara end up at the end?

• Literature