ive just finished it, and i really need to read some people’s thoughts on it. just a general feeling, doesnt have to be critical. we can all just talk abt it!
honestly though, i feel like it was a bit slow at first (for me), but things started to pick up around part 4. part 6 was sad and it left me broken, but in a nice way?? i think it was a good end for klara, but it still aches knowing that she devoted herself to josie and now everything has ended and people have moved on, all while klara goes through her slow fade.
all in all, the book was melancholic and beautiful. i like it. hbu?
by spaghettin_
16 Comments
I thought it was lovely and devastating, and there something special in it—the emotional truth of what it means to devote yourself to someone and be a caretaker. Also love the interpretation of religion.
I also fell in love with the language and style from the first page. Klara’s voice is delicate and unique.
I was surprised to find that the discussion on this sub was a bit negative, since I found so many things in it that I haven’t found elsewhere. I think it’s special. I read Remains of the Day afterward, and eventually I loved it too, but it took me a while to get into the style, since I adored the style of Klara so much. I read it a while ago, when it came out, so I don’t quite remember concrete details for discusión though—sorry. But glad to hear you loved it too
I really agree with the message above, that it’s about the sadness of being outgrown and that everything you did and gave was just a way for that person to move past you into a wider life. Very much a metaphor for caring/parenting in some ways
The style is affectless, like Never Let me Go (and please read that if you haven’t already). It is so pared down there almost isn’t a style at all
I adored this book. I read it about a year ago, and I still think about it a lot. It was beautifully written. Melancholic, but also hopeful in a way
A masterpiece! And he wrote it after winning a Nobel prize. Klara is the most emotionally perceptive and effective characters that I have ever encountered.
I read it after Maureen Corrigan called it a masterpiece in her review on NPR’s Fresh Air. It was the first novel that I read by him. I was so moved by it that I am currently reading The Remains of the Day – my 4th Ishiguro novel
I thought the organic development of Klara’s sun-worshiping religion was fascinating. It made a ton of sense for a solar-powdered AI and it was something that I’d never seen explored in fiction before.
I think the story and characters didn’t hit me as powerfully since I’d already read “Never Let Me Go” and “Remains of the Day.” To me it felt like the same territory had already been covered.
i liked it a lot until the end, it was very frustrating to me that >!they never thought to try heliotherapy and lost an entire child before josie because of this oversight, almost lost another. this is something that has been used for centuries, it made no sense to me that it was overlooked.!< the concept of the friendbots(?) and klara’s dynamic in general, i really enjoyed. i loved the nuanced observations from the store and seeing the world though klara’s eyes, that was my favorite.
Only Kazuo Ishiguro could make me feel so attached to a robot to the point of tears as the book ends. I loved this.
I loved it, I wrote my dissertation on it lol
I remember reading it but I need to reread to get a better view of it
I thought the book could have been great, but wasn’t.
Other than a few fairly lucklustre allegorical themes in the book, the story itself goes nowhere and has no idea what it’s doing.
I have more questions than I have answers this time, such as –
Why would an AF who appears to be intelligent and capable of processing much of the outside world, *not* be programmed with correct information about the sun and science? It made zero sense for Klara to act like the sun was basically her version of ‘God’ other than lazy writing that wanted to sound much smarter than it really was. Yes we get it, some comments on religion and it’s inevitability even in machines that only resemble us. The links just felt stale.
Why did we find out nothing about this interesting ‘future’ for humans? Just vague ideas, the guesswork and frustrating did not aid the story. Again, it felt like lazy writing.
Why was the dialogue so terrible? I mean *really* terrible. The scene at the diner with Ricky’s mother? Geezus. None of the humans felt….human. Other than Ricky, I disliked them all, even Josie.
Why the heck did this grown adult man think a machine suggesting he ‘kills’ another machine, would help his daughter? Why would a teenager think “oh yeah, Klara has the key to all of this as she goes to a completely abandoned building for no reason”? I think he was trying to comment on the idea that hope is illogical and we cling to it no matter what, but really?
Anyone with a modicum of experience in analysing literature could *probably* draw some parallels and find some meaning in this novel, but it would all be down to the person, not the author. I don’t think the book SAYS anything, and that’s the problem.
I did like the end though, typical humans.
I love Ishiguro’s books (there are a couple I haven’t read yet), and I think Klara is in a way “softer”, but also more subtle than his earlier work. In Klara you get a bit more insight into characters other than the main character, whereas in Remains of the Day, most of the other characters are more opaque/stand-ins for “Conservative British upper class society” or tropes like “the crass nouveau riche American”.
Klara wasn’t as emotionally devastating, but strangely enough Klara seemed to have more agency than his other main characters, while literally having almost no agency at all. Maybe I need to give it a re-read, because I was left with the distinct impression that she’s more manipulative than it first appears.
I liked it overall but found it weaker than the other books I have read by him.
I think a lot of people dislike his style because his protagonists are usually a bit stupid. Like, half the enjoyment of the book is typically trying to figure out how the narrator misunderstood the events around him/her. With this book the leaps of logic that the narrator did was a bit more outrageous than usual, which made it harder to follow along in the folly and then have a “wait a minute” moment.
Couldn’t get past the first 20 pages
I loved Klara and the Sun. It was my first introduction to Ishiguro’s work.
I agree with you. The story was a beautiful, melancholy trip that started a little slow for my tastes, but was ultimately so rewarding. I found what I love the most about Kazuo’s writing is his focus on the mundane. There are scene where things are described that would otherwise be boring, and made interesting simply from the taking them in by the perspective of the narrator.
It’s something that’s made me more mindful and present in day to day life. The smell of the coffee I’ve made every morning for years, the sunlight landing on the window as I wake up. I’m glad to be here, and the little things make it worth living just as much as the grand gestures of life. 🙂
Love it.
It feels like it got better with time, the longer after I finished it.
When I first finished I thought it was good, but in the weeks and months after it kind of crystallized into something more. I can still see clear images from it in my head now, a year or two later.
I just love his writing.
Loved loved loved it. It was such an interesting idea to me, when at the end when Klara is put out to pasture, she could contemplate her memories and not actually FEEL. What an odd possibility.