Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: Klara and the Sun: Longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize

Top positive review

Clever and Unusual

Reviewed in Australia on 28 April 2021

The notion of Artificial Intelligence or the AF (artificial friend) is explored in Ishiguro's latest novel, Klara and the Sun. Through the eyes of Klara (AF), we see the world, her wishes, dreams, and developing relationships with her new owner, family, and friends. This is an unusual novel, in so far as it delves into the questions of what it means to be human and what it means to actually Love.

We begin the tale at the AF shop amongst other AF's on display to be sold. Klara and her fellow AF, Rosie, are standing side by side at the store's back. Occasionally the Manager moves Klara to the front window on a striped couch to gain a better opportunity to be seen and hopefully purchased. It is here we see the outside world through Klara's eyes. The crosswalk where many people cross the road, and the many taxis that fill her vision.

Klara has the innocence of a child though the intelligence or potential intelligence of an adult. What sets Klara apart from the other AF's is her keen observational abilities and her unrelenting curiosity about the behavior and motivations of the human's around her.

Finally one day while Klara and Rosie are positioned in the front window, Klara observes a woman and a little girl get out of a taxi. While the woman speaks to another human, the little girl approaches the window and asks Klara questions through the glass. All Klara can do is smile and nod her head, but a bond is created between them on their first meeting. From that day, Klara wants to be the AF to the little girl who we come to know as Josie. After a few mishaps and challenges, Josie and her mother buy Klara, and she is shipped to their home in the country. It's at this point we discover that the little girl is suffering from a serious illness.

What I found striking about Klara was her deep-seated sensitivity and overall kindness. This AF always thinks about other people's feelings, whether AI or human, above her own. One may argue this AF is programmed that way, but as mentioned, this AF is unique. Although it is her job to be the friend of her owner Josie, Klara takes this friendship to its limits to ensure a positive survival for the child and everyone around her.

As you would expect the Sun is a major character in this tale. Because the AF's are solar-powered, the sun is a source of life for them, and as Klara realizes, the sun is a source of life for all living things. This is a key theme throughout the novel.

The questions of what it means to be human have been explored in many novels in the past. For example, Phillip K. Dick's, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, can loosely fit into this category. But Ishiguro takes this notion a step further by illustrating that true love, sacrifice for another, and the layered depths of the human heart are the things that truly make us human.

Once turning the last page, I didn't know whether to be sad, hopeful or both, yet the images, thoughts, and feelings of the tale remained with me for many days afterward.

8 people found this helpful

Top critical review

All critical reviews›

Satisfied Reader

Not my up of tea but can see the allure

Reviewed in Australia on 8 October 2021

Klara and the Sun is a lesson in human emotion. Throughout the book you're seeing the world through Klara's naive eyes. Love, motherhood, childhood, and the hard choices a family makes are all seen and interpreted through Klara's robot mind. Some things are left for the reader to interpret but everything else can be inferred from each experience. The book wraps up nicely and leaves you with a lot of messages. The one I took from it was that change is constant throughout life but you need people beside you to get through it.

I thought the book was well written but the author chose to expand and heavily detail out pointless things. Then when something impact up came along, it just felt rushed. It made reading a little tedious. Luckily it wasn't an overly long book. Definitely not my normal read but a welcome change.

One person found this helpful

Sort by

Filter by

Filtered by

containing "josie"Clear filter

80 global reviews

This filter only shows ratings with reviews.

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From other countries

James Driver

Stunning

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 March 2021

Verified Purchase

The best books stay with you forever. Ishiguro gently unwraps his compelling tale in his usual meticulous prose and, little by little, reveals fragments of the world that Josie, Klara and Rick inhabit. As is so often the case with Ishiguro, the frame of the story - although offering an intriguing glimpse into a dystopian future - never overwhelms his intricate and heart-rending examination of love, ambition, anger, fear, faith, forgiveness and hope. The ending is even more moving than the finale of ‘Remains of the Day’, and Klara emerges as one of his richest and most realised characters. Before reading this, the new books I have enjoyed the most over the past few months have been Graham Swift’s ‘Here we are’ and Francis Spufford’s ‘Perpetual Light’. Both were excellent, but this occupies the rarefied higher ground worthy of the winner of a Nobel prize. Faber, too, deserve high praise for producing a hardback that in its design, printing and construction, matches the superb quality of Ishiguro’s writing.

5 people found this helpful

Beautifully understated, moving and thought-provoking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 December 2021

Verified Purchase

It takes a few years for Kazuo Ishiguro to write each of his novels, in keeping with his restrained, careful style. But they are usually worth waiting for - and this one is especially so. Reading this makes you realise what a deserving winner of various prizes he is - including the Nobel Literature prize. He is the grand master of the old literary adage 'show, don't tell'. Ishiguro almost never explicitly states anything - but you are never in any doubt about what he wants to get across. His writing is so subtle, so clever that the reader discovers everything about the characters and their situation for themselves, in a natural way.

This is particularly unusual in a science fiction novel like 'Klara and the Sun'. Any other author would have needed to explain the concepts, give the bigger picture, construct a history. introduce some technical information. Ishiguro does not. He allows the reader to build up their own picture and knowledge gradually - and without anything being spelt out, I feel I understood everything I needed to. In fact, extra 'factual' information would have got in the way of my appreciation of and absorption in the story. The restraint is really admirable - I don't doubt Ishiguro knew more about the world he wrote about - he isn't missing details for lack of ability to invent them. All too often authors overdo their excitement to show how thoroughly they have researched or imagined something. This is never the case here.

The story is narrated by Klara, a robot who works as an 'artificial friend' for a teenage girl named Josie. It becomes clear that Josie is ill, perhaps terminally so. Klara, who is solar powered, has a near-religious belief in the sun and its ability to heal. So she sets out to beg the sun to cure her owner. Of course, the reader knows that her faith in the sun is based on a series of misunderstandings and aches for poor Klara as she attempts to gain comfort and hope - and becomes increasingly worried as her attempts to fulfil the sun's 'wishes' might lead her into danger.

Klara is an extremely sympathetic and likeable narrator. Although she is a robot, I don't think anyone who read this book would doubt she had feelings and think of her as in some way human. There is nothing clinical about her, and she is full of compassion and empathy. It does make you think about the big questions of what it means to be human, and about how we should treat and interact with artificial intelligences in the future. Is Klara just like a 'vacuum cleaner' as someone describes her, or is she more akin to a person, with rights of her own? Is her intelligence something to be valued and protected in its own right?

Besides the questions about artificial intelligences, there is also an important theme about the potential for genetic modification and enhancement of human beings. The novel's world sees a two tier society, with only children who have had genetic enhancements able to go to university and get well paid work. But the enhancements are not risk free. It's a scenario that could easily play out in the future. Ishiguro doesn't give any answers, he just presents the situation and shows some people affected by it.

The other thing I really liked about Ishiguro's depiction of Klara is something you rarely find in novels about robots/artificial intelligences, and that's her imperfections. For example, Klara often describes seeing things in 'boxes' which you presume is due to delays in interfacing the feeds from her various camera sensors. Sometimes things become jumbled, particularly in bright light. And she struggles to walk on uneven surfaces. These little things give the reader the sense they are genuinely seeing things from the perspective of a different kind of being, and makes Klara all the more believable and (bizarrely) 'human'. Too often robots in sci-fi works are near perfect, with multiple superhuman abilities. The reality is probably much closer to Klara - extraordinary, but still not quite like a human and with certain imperfections/differences.

Ultimately this is a very thought provoking and beautifully written novel that at its heart is about love and compassion. Klara's touching and irrational faith in the sun and its ability to heal the ailing Josie drive the narrative and provide a tear-jerking emotional core to the story. I am certain that this will be remembered as one of Ishiguro's finest and most interesting novels.

2 people found this helpful

David Worton

A deceptively simple and powerful fable for our times

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 August 2021

Verified Purchase

Klara and the Sun is a relatively short novel set in an unspecified future America with a background containing some more or less plausible extensions to current technology. These are wisely never described in detail but regardless of their technical feasibility they certainly resonate imaginatively as developments of ideas we've already seen. We learn about some of these things only indirectly as the story progresses but a key idea from the outset is the existence of artificial friends or AFs. These are solar powered robots with their own consciousness and a level of emotional intelligence which allows them to act as surrogate "friends" for what appears to be a generation of isolated and lonely teenagers.

Klara herself, our protagonist, is one such AF, and as the story opens she waits to be sold with other AFs in a shop window hoping to bond with one of the passing children and be purchased as their friend. Klara is praised by the shop manager as an especially astute observer of human behaviour and throughout the book we see her building her own theories as she strives to fulfil a role which proves to have considerable difficulties.

This device (in both a literal and literary sense) provides Ishiguro with a mechanism to witness the behaviour not only of her new friend Josie, a girl with a mysterious illness that may be terminal but also of her single parent mother, their neighbours and friends and Josie’s father who only appears much later in the book. Through Klara’s eyes, we start to understand their motivations and behind that the shadowy reality of a dark society in which they live.

Whilst Klara is remarkably perceptive in many ways, in others she shows a strange naivety and ignorance. Her relationship to the Sun is central to the book. For an AF the sun gives power and life and she experiences a reverence for it which is akin to spiritual awe, attributing to the Sun other incredible virtues for which she has no real evidence.

It becomes apparent that Josie’s illness has been caused by a failure in a genetic modification treatment designed to enhance her intellectual capabilities by “lifting” her. “Lifting” has become a common practice, which parents are pressurised into adopting despite its dangers, because only the lifted can gain access to higher education and good jobs.

Klara decides that she can find a way to cure Jose with the intercession of the Sun but she learns that she has also been brought into the family for another more heart-breaking reason…

Ishiguro is a master of pathos, delivered with subtlety and devastating effect. The character of Klara reflects a touching optimism and essential goodness in the face of a world of complex moral confusion, doubt and fear. He writes so well that it is impossible not to feel moved by her struggles and the tensions that threaten the family that has purchased her. Yet always, we tread an ambiguous line between what it might be to be truly human and what it is to be an AF.

This novel may not be for everyone. Some have complained about the slow pace and the relative lack of “action”. That misses the point. It’s a novel about the human heart and I think it’s a masterpiece.

2 people found this helpful

HLeuschel

Moving and thought-provoking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 May 2022

Verified Purchase

It's been a long time since I last read a book by Ishiguro - 17 years ago to be exact and the book was 'Never Let Me Go' and is still one of the best dystopian novels I have ever read.

In 'Klara and the Sun' I felt the author was exploring a similar theme - the question about what it is to be human, to love and how to best care for others. What I love about this particular novel most though is that it's driven by nothing other than an AI's quest to focus on the well-being of the sick child she is bought for as a companion.

Set in the future, Klara is an AF (Artificial Friend) for Josie, a girl whose health is fragile and who is lonely stuck at home all day. As Klara gets to know Josie's history and family circumstances, she learns how to respond to the girl's needs by observation and careful enquiry. The story then follows a path on which Klara discovers that rationality can accommodate belief, that hope can be found in unexpected places and that to have a good heart you don't necessarily need to have a biological one.

This is a story narrated by a machine, about a machine and I found myself loving the machine, because Klara's compassionate kindness and her capacity for wonder and awe is beautifully portrayed.

Finally, this story is also a carefully and compellingly constructed philosophical thought experiment, one of those rare masterpieces that I will want to re-read.

Another Reader

What is it to be really human?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 April 2021

Verified Purchase

I don’t normally go for literary novels, preferring a decent plot or story line.
I’m amazed to say that I loved this book, and from the second half on, it was unputdown-able.

The book questions the way mankind might be about to stumble into a rather disturbing dystopian future if we lose sight of what it really means to be human.

It’s written from the point of view of Klara, an advanced solar-powered humanoid robot, or Artificial Friend (AF) observing the human race and capable of her own ideas and emotions. The AFs need the sun for power, and she comes to see the Sun (using pp Him, His) as an all powerful God-like figure.

Klara is bought as an Artificial Friend for Josie, a young girl with a mystery chronic illness, although as the book goes on, it is actually Josie’s Mother who has plans for Klara. It’s difficult to say more without serious plot spoilers, but the book takes on an unexpectedly dark twist as we learn more about the Mother’s agenda.
Innocently, Klara makes a pact with the Sun in order to save Josie, and sees it through, even when this involves a considerable sacrifice on her part.

I think this is the kind of book that I will re-read every now and again and will probably see something new in it every time.

One person found this helpful

Mick

Channelling her inner butler

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 June 2022

Verified Purchase

Most of it was quite an enjoyable read. But it is not a wholly successful book. The main problem is if Klara is a machine, how could she replicate a human identity entirely? This leads to the big what-is-human-identity question, I know, but lots of writers handle it better. A robot who could come up with the whole sun-and-barn nonsense is not a good candidate to replace Josie.

When Klara was telling us about the need to learn about this and that, I thought, all this sounds a bit familiar - and of course it's the BUTLER! Klara is channelling her inner butler! I'm beginning to think that Ishiguro is one of those writers who write one realy good book and then go on and on and on with variations on the same theme.

It was all ok reading until about three quarters of the way through and the visit to New York (I think) that became quite excruciating - clunky plot line, never explained to a character who would want to know, of disabling something, whose purpose is never explained, and then a recourse to soap opera personal problem belaboring.

I take note of all the anomalies like a few SF details in an otherwise contemporary setting. One thing other reviewers haven't mentioned, is how coy and quiet Ishiguro is about sex. What would adolescents do with AFs? Perhaps that's who they like Ishiguro so much in school.

Parklife

Thought provoking.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 April 2021

Verified Purchase

I like Ishiguro writings and sci fi so I was pleased to buy this book. It’s certainly thought provoking. A hinted at dystopian world, which there’s just not quite enough detail to work out what is going on, some things are familiar, some not. Klara, the protagonist is a very reliable narrator, so within this world you know where you are with her. She’s an artificial intelligence, a robot, purchased to keep a sick human child company - although her mother had grander longer term ideas than that. Klara has another idea of how to approach the sick child, Josie, based on her own narrow experiences. We enter a world that could exist now, but not quite, but is full of something we will know - human emotions, choices to be made, life and death, divorce. Those things haven’t changed. And love, which hasn’t changed either.

Ishguros novels tend to linger in my mind as they raise many issues, which of themselves seem simple, but are actually much more complex than you’d imagine. I enjoyed reading this one for all those reasons. I’ve only given it 4 stars though because I felt the ending somehow was unsatisfactory. Although it reflected in a way Klara's position in society and that society, I also felt he could have penned a version which perhaps could also have been just as reflective of Klara’s world, yet made a different and more hopeful statement. Klara was full of hope. I was left with an impression that the steam had run out, so let’s just finish it. It felt rushed, and also convenient to be a bit of an information dump. It didn’t work for me.

One person found this helpful

Raymo

It doesn't work for me

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 March 2021

Verified Purchase

I've read and enjoyed 2 other of Mr. Ishiguru's books - Remains of the day and Never let me go. The Sunday Times considers Klara to be a ""masterpiece" . Really ? After a pretty good start the writing/storytelling becomes unconvincing . The dystopian -type society is confusing and poorly explained - Josie's Da is in a commune under attack from unknown forces but the author provides no depth to why or what is happening ; can the author not tell us what precisely is the Cootings machine with 3 funnels and its purpose in spewing pollution into the atmosphere ; schooling for Josie and her friend Rick seems to be a problem but isn't that always the case ; making friends and schoolchildren's behaviour are both presented as other problems but again nothing really new there . Instead of developing the theme of living in what appears to be a dystopian/ A.I. society unfortunately the book concentrates throughout on mundane conversations heard by Klara but these conversations appear to me as mere padding serving no useful purpose in propelling the story-line ( the author may argue the conversations are meant to be useful in showing Klara's development as Josie's friend - O.K. fair enough but has the author no consideration for the reader who has to read all this trivia throughout the book? ) The ending is unconvincing - Klara thought she had to agree a quid pro quo with the sun on the first occasion then how did she manage to get away without a quid pro quo on the second occasion ? - Would it not have been a much better ending had she , on the second occasion , agreed a quid pro quo by ( say ) becoming a Jesus-type sacrificial lamb in return for Josie's life ? - Had this been done then I might have felt real empathy for Klara's demise. Instead the author leaves her alone and stranded " on the shelf " with her faculties in a state of decline much like what happens we humans as we age - Hardly an inspiring ending !

:

2 people found this helpful

Marjorie Jones

Another Kazuo Ishiguro classic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 March 2022

Verified Purchase

Like the narrators in Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, Klara, the narrator here, tells us her story without a full understanding of the significance of some of the events she recounts in such detail. In this case, we often don’t get to understand the significance of some of the events either.

What was Josie’s illness? What does it mean to “be lifted”? Did that contribute to Josie’s illness? Was her recovery related in any way to Klara’s “intervention” or a coincidence? Did Josie’s father tell Klara the truth about his actions towards her? And what on earth was the Cootings machine?

So I finished this novel with a real sense of not just viewing the world through Klara’s eyes, but understanding it as Klara did too. That’s a weird feeling to have when finishing a book.

Ishiguro has skilfully left me identifying with Klara, and caring more about what happens to her after the story ends, than what happens to Josie. I feel I know no more about Josie and the other humans than Klara did. Although they are very real in the book, I feel I’ve only experienced them through Klara. But I feel I’ve inhabited Klara’s body, thought her thoughts and experienced her world.

Dean C. Weller

Klara saves the day. Great Easter read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 April 2021

Verified Purchase

A beautifully crafted book that is a mix of Ishiguro’s previous novels ‘Never let me go’ and’ Remains of the day’ mixed with ‘Toy Story’, A.I and the Velveteen Rabbit. A two day read full of his amazing reflections on the Human condition this time told through the eyes and observations of a robot best friend (AF), Klara who is purchased from an AI store to care for sick teenager, Josie. Told against against a backdrop of a genetically modified future the story is charming yet deep. Simply told and characterful. A coming of age book with a difference where the humans carry emotional baggage which Klara does her best to understand and then help with. Have a tissue ready for the last chapter. This misty eyed reader loved this book.

Need customer service? Click here

‹ See all details for Klara and the Sun: Longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize

5 star		40%
4 star		37%
3 star		18%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

Klara and the Sun: Longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize › Customer reviews

Customer reviews

Klara and the Sun: Longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize

Top positive review

Top critical review

Filtered by

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From other countries

Klara and the Sun: Longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize

›

Customer reviews