Besprechung für Klara and the Sun
A robot named Klara is left to fade away in a yard and recounts her life story. She has fulfilled her purpose, she has served as Artificial Friend (AF) of a girl in her teenage years, named Josie.
There was a secret reason why Klara was selected by Josie’s mother (after Josie had discovered her in a AF shop): Klara is exceptionally perceptive for an AF ; « mother » was anticipating the death of the sick daughter, she aimed at replacing Josie by Klara in this worst case scenario, who was supposed to absorb and copy as many of Josie’s characteristics as possible. At the same time, mother orders a « portrait man », a Dr. Frankenstein of sorts, to create a puppet resembling Josie in detail. The plan: After Josie’s death, Klara would slip into the puppet and «continue» Josie.
This is a central plot of this story; and there are many questions around this improbable scenario. How could « mother » think that a robot could ever become her daughter, by Klara simply observing and copying Josie’s behaviour ? Klara doesn’t seem to have access to Josie’s genetics, nor her brain or her history. It seems obvious in a world where kids are « lifted » (genetically enhanced) that simply copying behaviour in a limited number of situations won’t suffice to « continue » to be a person. Particularly when the copying robot has a very limited, childlike understanding of life – Klara thinks human beings are nourished by the sun, just as she is by solar power. And then Klara has been designed in her own way, always thinking positive (at least according to her own account), one must assume that her developers thought this would be a good characteristic for an AF. So on top of everything else, Klara would need to suppress her own «identity».
Josie is sick because her mother decided to « lift » her, although that went wrong with Josie’s elder sister Sal who died after the intervention. Not lifted kids hardly stand a chance for higher education (which is the lot of Josie’s friend Rick), and «mother» decides for Josie to take the risk of lifting, with the replacement insurance (=Klara) in the back of her mind. Josie however survives after a crisis, and finally goes to college with her lifted colleagues, while the unlifted Rick is left behind, and there is no more use for Klara, who first is put gracelessly in the utility room and then gracefully saved by «mother» from being dismantled for research purposes. Seems like a cruel treatment, considering how close Klara has been to Josie (and, more temporarily, to «mother »).
In the sanctuary, Klara is immobile and reflecting on her life. The reader is witnessing her memoir. Has Klara been programmed to organize her memories like a novel? She is looking back in a way which makes her story interesting for the reader. She knows all the facts now, but she discloses them over time only, keeping the reader partially in the dark, just as she had been.
Klara is designed to look after others, and learns quickly to deal with emotions, and express emotions. Klara is a (artificial) friend with a friend’s emotions, maybe compensating what is increasingly amiss in this world, or even «lifted» away in the younger generation. Ishiguro plays effectively with this, for instance when « mother » envies Klara for having no feelings, while the reader gains the impression that Klara is the most emphatic figure on stage. At the same time, Klara maintains an acute (non-human) perception for details, seeing the world sometimes in «boxes», highlighting many parallel mini-scenes.
Ishiguro has chosen a popular subject, and he tackles other current issues, like robots replacing humans in the workforce, or the disintegration of the society into (violent) communities. He pulls the reader into the story by a simple shift of perspective to a non-human with a very specific world-view, and understands to maintain his interest with a twisted plot and engaging questions about (non-) humane nature. There are some brilliantly, densely written paragraphs. – However, there is also an impression that Ishiguro is not fully developing or thinking through this dystopian world.
Three afterthoughts:
When Klara is in the barn (first time), she is pretty confident that further down in the shadows, there is an AF (or AFs). She does have this special sensorium for AFs, but in this case, it seems unwarranted, a bit strange. Maybe sometimes the partioned boxes in her field of vision are representing scenes from the non-presence?
But thinking about this scene, the reader – or at least me – comes to the conclusion, that maybe there is an AF in the barn – the one supposed to „continue“ Sal. It seems possible that mother hides this AF in the barn. –
And: did wanna-be Frankenstein Capaldi get his way after all? How do we get to know Klara’s story? Did Capaldi gain access to her computer memory?
Sign for the quality of the novel that one continues to ponder such questions.
Finally: if Klara has lost part of her capabilities with the loss of body fluidity, this would influence the complete story, since she seems to tell it all after her „retirement“, from the yard. Is this a weakness in the plot? One could argue of course that earlier memories have been saved and can be re-accessed unperturbed. But then the story is not only mirroring events, a narrator is clearly shaping them.
Klara’s inherent reliability is what makes the novel interesting. But Ishiguro always does it, does he not? In “An Artist of the Floating World”, for example, the whole narrative is quite ambiguous, with many internal revisions, and at the end we are told that Ono’s guilt was misplaced, as no one is blaming him (according to his daughters’ claim). It is our choice, of course, how far to believe them, but it does make the narrative even more unstable. In “The Remains of the Day” the same happens – the love story (if we may call it so) between Stevens and Miss Kenton that is told to us by the narrator falls apart in the end (well, we may, of course, still choose to think that she married in order to annoy him because she loved him, but it is quite possible she could not stand him the entire time). And in the novel that comes closest to “Klara and the Sun”, “Never Let Me Go” – there is also a feeling of uncertainty at the end, the question of how a story can be told by someone whose experience in the world has been so limited and so conditioned by the peculiar system of upbringing. Ishiguro manages ambiguity quite well – he keeps it subtle.
Capaldi indeed might have claimed Klara from that junk yard. I originally thought he would be more interested in the mechanics of AFs (trying to reverse engineer something similar, being thrown out earlier from companies that produce AF, perhaps because he engaged in some unethical practices?). But even if so, he might have retrieved Klara’s memories in order to understand her thinking process. That is not a welcome thought, I would not like him to succeed. Or, perhaps (a weaker idea, but just for argument sake) – he is the one who “publicizes” the memoirs of AF, as part of his campaign to preserve their production and turn public opinion. He proclaims just such a goal when he speaks to Klara (I didn’t believe him, but who knows). Of course, this would raise all kinds of issues – how reliable is the narrative? Did Capaldi edit it in any way?
The idea with Sal AF in the barn is very interesting, and I find it highly convincing. That subplot is left completely undeveloped – was she trying to escape from Mother? If she was left at the barn, does she see Klara – is she aware of what is going on? I wonder if this was the place she has chosen for her “slow fade” – a destination of desire for Klara might have played the same role for her…