Klara And The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguru

 

Klara is an AF or Artificial Friend.  She spends her days in the store window display waiting for a parent to choose her as a companion to their child. When Josie picks her from all the other AFs, Klara is excited.  She goes home with Josie and her mother and fits into the routine of the household.

Josie is pretty much always at home.  She is sickly perhaps as a result of being 'lifted' which is the term for genetic modification to give children advantages.  Klara, of course, being entirely artificial, is more intelligent but since she lacks the emotional responses of a human, filters everything through her logic base and misses much.  One example is that since Klara is solar powered, she believes that the sun is a god.  As Josie becomes sicker, Klara attempts to make a deal with the sun whom she believes can heal Josie.  She also doesn't get the emotional interactions between Josie and her mother or the mother and the neighbors.  Rick, the neighbor boy, is Josie's main friend outside of Klara.  He is not lifted and there is a stark difference between the anticipated futures for the two children.

This book is a Booker longlist nomination.  It is written in a very flat, unemotional way as that is the way that Klara, who is the narrator, views the world but which makes it more challenging for readers to engage with.  Ishiguru explores what artificial intelligence will mean for our world when humans are perhaps not needed to run things.  What will that mean for relationships and for the economy?  Will humans come to be seen as replaceable commodities?  Can a child be replaced by an artificial friend for those who can't have children?  There are lots of questions to ponder yet the unemotional narration makes it more difficult for readers to embrace this work.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.