In his first novel since winning the Nobel prize of literature, Kazuo Ishiguro explores the world through the lens of an AI droid. The novel retains many of the features that made him famous for previous bestsellers such as concentrating in confined spaces, building up emotional tension, and fragmented story-telling. All of this gains a fresh relevance when applied to the Sci-Fi genre and more specifically to the relationship between humanity and sentient technology. I’ll do my best to keep you from any spoilers as I suspect this will become a motion picture in the near future. Suffice it to say that Klara and the Sun is a compelling statement for robotic faith. How? Read on.
Introducing the Artificial Friend
Structured into 6 long sections, the book starts by introducing us to Klara. She is an AF (Artificial Friend), a humanoid equipped with Artificial Intelligence and designed commercially to be a human companion. At least, this is what we can deduce from the first pages as no clear explanation is given. In fact, this is a key trait in the story: we learn about the world along with Klara. She is the one and only narrator throughout the novel.
Klara is shaped like a short woman with brown hair. The story starts in the store where she is on display for sale. There she interacts with customers, other AFs, and “Manager”, the human responsible for the store. All humans are referred to by their capitalized job or function. Otherwise, they are classified by their appearance or something peculiar to them.
The first 70 pages occur inside the store where she is on display. We learn about her personality, the fact that she is very observant, and what peer AFs think of her. At times, she is placed near the front window of the store. That is when we get a glimpse of the outside world. This is probably where Ishiguro’s brilliance shines through as he carefully creates a worldview so unique, compelling, humane but in many ways also true to a robotic personality. The reader slowly grows fond of her as she immerses us in her whimsical perspective of the outside world. To her, a busy city street is a rich mixture of sights with details we most often take for granted.
We also get to learn how Klara processes emotions and even has a will of her own. At times she mentions feeling fear. She is also very sensitive to conflict, trying to avoid it at all costs. With that said, she is no push over. Once she sabotages a customer attempt to buy her because she had committed herself to another prospect. She also seems to stand out compared to the other AFs instilling both contempt and admiration from them.
The World Through Klara’s Eyes
She is sensitive, captivating and always curious. Her observations are unique and honest. She brings together an innocence of a child with the mathematical ability of a scientist. This often leads to some quirky observations as she watches the world unfold in front of her. In one instance, she describes a woman as “food-blender-shaped.”
Klara also has an acute ability to detect complex emotions in faces. In this way, she is able to peer through the crevices of the body and see the soul. In one instance, she spots how a child is both smiling at her AF while her eyes portray anger. When observing a fight, she could see the intensity of anger in the men’s faces describing them as horrid shapes as if they were no longer human. When seeing a couple embrace, she captures both the joy and the pain of that moment and struggles to understand how it could be so.
This uncanny ability to read human emotion becomes crucial when Klara settles in her permanent home. Being a quiet observer, she is able understand the subtle unspoken dynamics that happen in family relationships. In some instances, she could see the love between mother and daughter even as they argued vehemently. She could see through the housekeeper’s hostility towards her not as a threat but as concern. In this way, her view of humans tended err on the side of charity rather than malice.
Though being a keen human observer, it is her relationship with the sun that drives the narrative forward. From the first pages, Klara notices the presence of sun rays in most situations. She will usually start her description of an image by emphasizing how the sun rays were entering a room. We quickly learned that the sun is her main source of energy and nourishment. Hence it is not surprising that its looms so large in her worldview.
Yet, Ishiguro’s takes this relationship further. Similar to ancient humans, Klara develops a religious-like devotion to the sun. The star is not only her source of nourishment but becomes a source of meaning and a god-like figure that she looks to when in fear or in doubt.
That is when the novel gets theologically interesting.
Robotic Faith and Hope
As the title suggests, the sun plays a central role in Klara’s universe. This is true not only physiologically as she runs on solar energy, but also a spiritual role. This nods towards a religious relationship that starts through observation. Already understanding the power of the sun to give her energy, she witnesses how the sun restores a beggar and his dog back to health. Witnessing this event become Klara’s epiphany of the healing powers of the sun. She holds that memory dear and it becomes an anchor of hope for her later in the book when she realizes that her owner is seriously ill.
Klara develops a deep devotion toward the sun and like the ancients, she starts praying to it. The narrative moves forward when Klara experiences theophanies worthy of human awe. Her pure faith is so compelling that the reader cannot help but hope along with her that what she believes is true. In this way, Klara points us back to the numinous.
Her innocent and captivating faith has an impact in the human characters of the novel. For some reason, they start hoping for the best even as there is no reason to do so. In spite of overwhelming odds, they start seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Some of them willingly participate, in this case the men in the novel, in her religious rites without understanding the rationale behind her actions. Yet, unlike human believers who often like to proselytize, she keeps her faith secret from all. In fact, secrecy is part of her religious relationship with the sun. In this way, she invites humans to transcend their reason and step into a child-like faith.
This reminds me of a previous blog where I explore this idea of pure faith and robots . But I digress.
Conclusion
I hope the first part of this review sparks your interest in reading this novel. It beautifully explores how AI can help us find faith again. Certainly, we are still decades away from the kind of AI that Ishiguro’s portrays in this book. Yet, like most works of Science Fiction, they help us extrapolate present directions so we can reflect on our future possibilities.
Contrasting to the dominant narrative of “robot trying to kill us”, the author opts for one that highlights the possibility that they can reflect the best in us. As they do so, they can change us into better human beings rather than allowing us to devolve into our worse vices. Consequently, Ishiguro gives us a vivid picture of how technology can work towards human flourishing.
In the next blog, I will explore the human world in which Klara lives. There are some interesting warnings and rich reflection in the dystopian situation described in the book. While our exposure to it is limited, maybe this is one part I wish the author had expanded a bit more, we do get enough ponder about the impact of emerging technologies in our society. This is especially salient for a digital native generation who is learning to send tweets before they give their first kiss.
