BOOKS
KLARA AND THE SUN
Our Friend’s Electric
Comparison is inevitable. Yes, Booker-and Nobel Prizewinner Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest foray into SF shares some ground with 2005’s Never Let Me Go. Both are set in a future so near it feels like an alternate present, only here the touchstones are American diners and department stores, not English cafés and cottages. Both are about the impact of technological change on what it is to be human, seen through the eyes of someone at the forefront of that change.
Klara And The Sun is more gentle – at least on the surface – than its predecessor, but it’s arguably more devastating in its implications. Klara is an AF, or Artificial Friend: an android adolescent, designed to be the ultimate accessory, protector and friend to the child of a rich family. When the story opens, Klara is residing in an AF shop, patiently waiting to catch a young customer’s eye. In the meantime – especially on days when she’s given a coveted window-display spot – she embraces every chance to nourish herself on sunlight and people-watching.