Why I Love Klara and the Sun
Why books? This World Book Day my wife asked me why I read books. I’ve read hundreds of books and ironically, I’m not entirely sure how to put in words what brings me back to these bound pieces of paper. Books are a magical thing; I mean that literally. An intricate series of words are spelled out and, when done to perfection, they take you, your world, and your expectations and reshape all three.
Let me give an example:
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishugiro is, in a word, brilliant. For the last three or four years, I’ve been feuding with plots, insisting that no spoilers ever matter because books and movies are about way more than the plot. Klara and the Sun changed my mind. If you haven’t read it and you want to, don’t read this because I’m going to spoil it completely. First, read his book Never Let me Go, then read Klara and the Sun, and then come back. The book is so stunning, I’m still processing it, but it’s too good to not talk about. It makes me want to live like Klara.
Ishiguro is his own genre. He has such a powerful and evocative style that it completely overwhelms everything. Margaret Atwood puts it this way, “a Kazuo Ishiguro novel is never about what it pretends to be about.” While his 2015 novel The Buried Giant takes place in medieval Europe, with knights, dragons, and sword fights, it feels much more like his 1989 tale of a butler trying to live up to his butler father more than it does any other fantasy novel. Never Let me Go is ostensibly a novel about clones being raised for organ harvesting, but for all of it’s sci-fi content, it feels nothing like sci-fi.
And the fun part is that Ishiguro knows he’s his own genre. Klara and the Sun assumes that I’ve read some Ishiguro before, and deftly uses my expectations of his own style to completely upend everything that I thought the book was going to be. When I read a book by Ishiguro, I have two primary expectations: people will have impossible hopes, and those impossible hopes will be dashed somewhere off of the page. For a quintessential example of both, take the end of his butler book, the Remains of the Day. The whole novel, you’re waiting for the main character to reconnect with the housekeeper who might have been a long lost love and who he hopes will be a future love. The butler goes over all of their past interactions and the letters that they’ve exchanged, and finally, when the two are going to meet, the book jumps forward in time. The two have met, nothing really comes from it, and that’s classic Ishiguro. People have wild hopes, nothing happens, and then people remember the process of nothing happening. Because of the expectations that Ishiguro has built up through the rest of his books, I thought Klara and the Sun was going to be a book about regret and loss, but of course, Ishiguro’s novels are never what they should be. Instead it's a book about powerful faith and ludicrous hope, and it caught me completely flatfooted.
Klara is a AF, an Artificial Friend, an AI system designed to be a friend for the genetically augmented kids of wealthy families who live completely online and isolated from other kids. She’s powered by the Sun, and she has a beautiful view of and faith in the Sun’s generosity. It reminds me of how Jesus talks about the Father in Matthew, “For [your Father] makes his sun rise on the evil and the good…” In Klara’s world, the Sun gives his nourishment to everyone, giving and sustaining all of her life, and lavishly giving life to all. Even when there are clouds and the Sun is hidden, Klara knows He’s there giving his light and life.
The impossible hope in Klara’s life is that her Friend, Josie, will be healed by the Sun’s special nourishment. Josie, the human girl that Klara is the companion of, is dying. Over the course of the novel, it slowly becomes clear that her health is failing because of the genetic augmentation process. Klara knows that Josie is dying, yet she remembers a time when she was in the store and she saw the Sun give His special nourishment to a homeless man and bring him back to life. Klara hopes that the Sun will give the same special nourishment to Josie and save her from a premature death.
And I know this is an impossible hope. The homeless man wasn’t really dead, but Klara is sweet and naïve and doesn’t really know that. I know; I live in the real world. The Sun can’t provide special nourishment that saves people, and Klara is merely childlike in her hope. And I know this is an Ishiguro book, and I know what happens to impossible hopes in Ishiguro books. Somewhere off page, hopes quietly fail. The butler never reconnects in the way he wants. True love doesn’t keep the clones in Never Let me Go from having their organs harvested. The Sun isn’t going to save Josie. Josie’s parents know it too. They live in the real world. So plan to replace Josie with Klara after Josie dies. And Klara and the Sun does exactly what I expect an Ishiguro novel to do. Klara prays to the Sun, and perceives from the Sun that He needs her to destroy a road-paving machine that causes Pollution. So Klara goes into the City, finds the road-paving machine and right before she tries to destroy it, the book looks away. Off page Klara destroys the machine using some of the fluid from her body, and when we pick up with Klara again Josie is still sick. Impossible dreams really are impossible in the Ishiguro genre.
Then Ishiguro blows me away. Klara goes to her sacred space, prays to the Sun, and then goes to check on Josie. And when Klara gets to Josie, the Sun breaks through the clouds. Something is actually happening on the page. The Sun’s special nourishment pours onto Josie, and she’s instantly, miraculously healed. Something finally happens in real time, and not just anything, but an honest miracle happens right before my eyes, and I have no idea what to make of it. Ishiguro knew what I expected from his book, and then perfectly pulled it out from under me. And while I have no idea what to make of this miracle, Klara does. Of course the Sun gave his special nourishment to Josie. That’s what the Sun does; that’s who the Sun is. And her audacious hope and faith want me to live out the rest of my days like Klara.
That’s why I read books. I read for moments like the end of Klara and the Sun, where I feel something or I believe something, new and indescribable in anything less than the entire text of the book, because that feeling is what the whole book is designed to invoke in me. Yes, books have taught me things, introduced me to fantastic characters, made me laugh, and let me play with new ideas. I enjoy all of those things, but I love when a book can work magic in me. When out of nothing but words, and words, and words, a feeling blooms in my chest. And I especially love when it’s a feeling of hope, joy, or love like Klara and the Sun. Honestly, finishing the novel feels like staring into the Sun. Something dazzling, almost blinding, finally happened in an Ishiguro book, and I’m still trying to blink through the green-purple afterimage.
