I just got to the part where Josie’s mother tells Klara about her plan to replace Josie. Does she seriously think no one would notice? That no one would ask questions if her sickly daughter suddenly stopped aging? And that creator saying that an “ineffable quality” doesn’t exist…FFS yes it does, it’s called memory. Josie already has twelve years of memories and emotional connections that Klara could never hope to replicate. Doesn’t the mother understand that? She wouldn’t be getting her child, she would be getting a more advanced doll. The scene where Josie has a nightmare and cries out for her mother? She will never have that, because Klara doesn’t understand that impulse and never will. And the worst part? *She’s done this before.* She did it after her first daughter died. Just like when she uplifted Josie hoping for a second chance, this will only cause her worse pain when she realizes she can’t love Klara the same way.
Maybe I’m just mad for personal reasons. But I’m mad enough to just leave it unfinished.
by Locksley_1989
3 Comments
You might want to read on. Also, grief and despair aren’t rational things, that’s not how the human brain works. I vehemently dislike “Klara and the Sun” but this is one of the more believable and well written parts of the book.
I found the book shallow and really regret finishing it.
The mother doesn’t really believe no one will notice. This is a plan borne of grief and desperation, because she sees it as a way that Josie can live on for her (the mother), not for the rest of the world. It’s not rational. You should be having a very skeptical and emotional reaction to that scene, because you know more than Klara does.
I loved Klara and the Sun, and I realize it’s not for everyone, and I think where people get hung up is that they take it completely at face value. Klara is our eyes and ears into the story and she has a very literal and surface-level understanding of the world she’s in because that’s the nature of her character, a literal doll. She’s not a reliable narrator, not because she lies, but because there’s so much she doesn’t know and no one bothers to explain to her because they don’t see her as a person. As readers, we should not be taking everything she says literally, nor is that the author’s intention. We are meant to look deeper and find the subtext to the scenes that Klara witnesses and recounts, because we have human experience and human empathy to help us see what’s below the surface of these interactions. It’s very subtle and it asks a lot of the reader, which I think is a hallmark of Ishiguro’s work. It’s not intended to be easy light reading even though the language is fairly straightforward and the book is short.