Book of the Week

In today's post, Edmund Ashworth Jones (4A) and Ru Marcroft (4C) tell us what they thought of Klara and the Sun, the novel that all the fourth form read over this summer:

Edmund:I think that this book was perfectly suited to my age although the surface themes and the main plot might appeal to slightly younger children. However, to understand the hidden meanings and storyline, it would ideally be read by teens/ young adults. Although the book fits into the science fiction and dystopian genres, it is not conventionally a dystopian book. All these features are subtle, yet present and apparent to more mature readers. I enjoyed reading Klara and the Sun, and I was drawn in by the evolving story. I liked the fact that Kazuo Ishiguro withheld some information from us by using Klara as the narrator. I found interesting the relationships between Josie and the mother, Klara and Rick. The questions raised by Klara were also raised by the reader.

The story is set in a futuristic and dystopian time, and although at first when reading the blurb, I thought that it may be difficult to imagine and picture the scenes, I was happily surprised. I found it very easy to connect with characters, especially Josie. I could picture the scenes easily, because this setting was not too unlike where I used to live. This dystopian world is, in many ways, similar to the present day, and almost seems plausible. For example, current conventions still apply like adults caring for children, and going to work all day, and family units are in line with the current times.

I thought the book was very well written, but I was left unsatisfied by the raw and emotionless ending. I understand that it is hard to convey emotions through a narrator who is both naïve and Artificial in her thoughts. Whilst this perfectly illustrated the major flaw in Artificial Intelligence – lack of empathy - it left me as the reader feeling frustrated not seeing the full extent of the relationships between the characters. One theme I found compelling was the characters’ response to loneliness. The human reaction is expansive and deeply distressing, whereas Klara seemed to hunt for a solution in order to rectify this negative emotion in her human companion.  I would recommend this book because it poses many opportunities for debate and careful consideration around contrasting responses between human and artificial entities.

Ru: The book is in itself a story about a futuristic world where AI are programmed to behave as friends for lonely children. In this world there is also a lot of risk as some gifted children will be given the chance to be genetically modified so that they are extremely intelligent but they are then very prone to sickness.  I would classify this book as a hybrid between Dystopian and Science Fiction as well as being a philosophical text considering ethical and social problems that we may face as a civilisation in the future. I would suggest that the target audience for this book are the more philosophically minded but I also believe that this book is very accessible hence readable and enjoyable for almost anyone.

I very much enjoyed Klara and the Sun because I found it to be a book where one had to think more consciously about the deeper meaning of what the characters were saying as often due to Klara’s position as an unreliable narrator we were not able to decipher the true circumstances just from her responses to others. I found this enjoyable as it was challenging, allowing me to exercise my brain more across the rather long summer break. It also gave me the opportunity to pick up on the hidden pieces of information more than I would with other books. Along with this I found the premise of the book, a world with more advanced technologies than we currently have, very interesting. The position of the narrator allows you, especially at the start of the book, to imagine life for an inanimate object in a store waiting to be chosen, giving me a very different perspective to anything I had read previously.

There were many things I enjoyed about the style that Kazuo Ishiguro wrote Klara and the Sun in. Due to the choice of narrator we were able to see human society from a very different angle showing us the unusual things we do as a race that have now become second nature to us. This includes how we behave differently when we have guests compared to when we would meet the same people in a different place like a park. Ishiguro writes the book with many philosophical questions, such as whether we can replace the most precious of lost things and how will we deal with loss in the future.

Although I enjoyed the book greatly I do have my criticisms. The main one being that I felt that some points essential to understanding were hard to grasp as they were perhaps only lightly mentioned in only one singular paragraph meaning you had to be extremely observant so you did not miss anything. Sometimes, they were not at all obvious and required large amounts of inference to be able to realise. I feel to improve this book some plot point would have needed to be clearer. This is possible either through referring to them multiple times across the book. As well as this Ishiguro could perhaps have made some key plot points easier to access by letting them require less inference than they did require in the end.

I would highly recommend Klara and the Sun to a broad group of people because of its engaging plotline, intriguing setting and unique choice of narrator. The choice of the narrator allows readers to flex their minds more and occasionally come to their own conclusions about things giving a far more interesting reading experience. This book to me is must read for any people interested in philosophy and I believe science fiction fans would find it deeply enjoyable as well. Klara and the Sun is a wonderful piece of literature that provides an insight to what we might need to think about and how we might need to adapt to oncoming technologies as a species.

Many thanks for Edmund and Ru for contributing such thoughtful reviews, and thanks also to Mr Kemp for co-ordinating them.