Latest Read: Klara and the Sun (Kazuo Ishiguro)

Since graduate school, I’ve read mostly non-fiction books. Fiction is a genre I’ve returned to lately because I remember how they stretch my thinking and spur my imagination. It was what I would read as a child. Those reading days were formative times, and I want to say they contributed to making me who I am today. Thank you, ma, for bringing me to the public libraries, and borrowing English books for me even when you didn’t understand English. You are the best mom, and I miss you so much.

I borrowed this book from the public library, not knowing the author’s illustrious background or that this book was on both Bill Gates and Barack Obama’s 2021 best books of the year reading list.

I read the first few lines in the library and thought then that the book was readable. I wasn’t asking for much, and brought it back home. It’s an easy read, but the simplicity and clarity of the writing belie the profundity of some of the lines. Granted, I do agree with some reviewers that there were a few parts in the book which were somewhat weak and vague. I accept that but also take these fuzzy and abstract parts as perhaps necessary qualities of a dystopian science fiction. It is hard to imagine how a robot thinks; it is entirely Ishiguro’s genius that he could come up with such adroit descriptions of how Klara perceives the world. After a while, I began to understand a bit more of the words and phrases Ishiguro use to describe Klara’s thinking and ways of perceiving/describing the world: geometric shapes, e.g., boxes, oblongs, cones, etc.

This book questions love and what it means to be a human being. It is set against a futuristic backdrop where life is far from perfect; in fact, Josie’s (Klara’s owner) family and that of her childhood sweetheart are single-parent families. Themes of fascism and unsettling authoritarian government regimes are raised in the book. Klara observes and absorbs all these as an AF (artificial friend). I’m left to imagine how Klara looks as there is limited description of how she looks like. The ending may be quite abrupt and unsatisfying to some, as Klara drifts off …

Without spoiling the story for those who have not read the book, here’s my favoritest part of the book:

It might take another reading to further appreciate the beauty and depth of this book.