Kazuo Ishiguro has done it again with an excellent book ruminating on the nature of the human heart. His latest book, Klara and the Sun can be considered a sister-book to his widely acclaimed Never Let Me Go from 2005.
In Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro explored the implications of genetic cloning. In Klara and the Sun, he explores Artificial Intelligence.
The Klara in the title of the book is the Artificial Friend. And the Sun in the title is the energy giver, since Klara is solar powered.
- At what point do the human and the artificial merge; and is there a point that they might invert?
- How deep, inaccessible and inexplicable is the human heart?
- Where is the structure of our society headed with Artificial Intelligence playing an increasing role in our daily lives.
These are the questions Ishiguro explores.
A thought experiment - when we check out at a convenience store, and there is a self-serve checkout, do we prefer that over a counter with a person? The answer to that question by a group of us, could be an indication of the answer to where are our own inter-relationships are headed.
A sick teenager Josie, who acquires Klara. Her divorced mother. A hierarchical society based on genetic modification at birth. A hint of fascism that has taken hold in their society. These are the pieces on the board that Ishiguro places. Then he sets the story in motion.
Reading Ishiguro, and especially Klara and the Sun is like listening to Chopin's Etudes rather than Beethoven. That is, the book is a silent meditation with nuances to be appreciated between the notes and undercurrents that are revealed upon further reflection. In contrast, it is not like Beethoven's Fifth with its grand arrival and attention grabbing melody.
Indeed, I was listening to a Desert Island Discs interview with Ishiguro - and wouldn't you know it, Chopin was one of his eight selections!
The book is an easy, quiet read. The plot moves right along. There is no trickery involved in the writing or the plot structure. The issues raised are eminently contemporary and forward looking. There is more worry in Ishiguro about where we are headed than hope, as far as humanity is concerned.
In the book, The Mind's I, an anthology compiled by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, one of the essays is titled Soul of Mark III beast. Mark III is a machine that exhibits all the behavior of a biological animal. The essay asks us to contemplate what it "feels" like to smash such a machine. Hofstadter in his commentary on this essay, ruminates that "the soul emerges as a function of not any clearly defined inner state, but as a function of our own ability to project."
This is a fitting description of how we might feel towards Klara and her "soul." Made all the more poignant by the fate she is left to, as Josie grows up.
I have always thought that the last page of Never Let Me Go was one one of the finest pieces of writing - where a tree in a large meadow is described. With the last section of the final chapter in Klara and the Sun, Ishiguro gives us a poetic, ethereal and memorable encore.
4 comments:
It has been a while since we were treated to a book review by you and this one is superlative!
Firstly your narrative style is at its best. Like your Chopin as opposed to Beethoven analogy...like in your expression “...make us feel everything is normal, except that we are walking a quarter inch above the ground”
At what point human and artificial merge... is a question we are familiar...
But at what point they invert is intriguing.
Beautifully written review highlighting the main take away points to the many who read and do not read books such reviews are of great help.I think you have this gift of taking the cream and presenting it in a simple way easy to understand. Please continue the good work.There are so many like me who would like to read the book written by you on various topics of life as you see it as a person or as a corporate eye.
I would like to squeeze a new year resolution for 2021 into your list with a request to consider writing Books one per year starting 2021.Think about it
There are two paths to the future: silicon, and DNA. Whichever comes first will determine how things play out. The response to the coronavirus pandemic has shown that current structures are doomed to fail against a serious adversary: if we want to have a chance against silicon, we need better people. That is why I think any AI "control" strategy not predicated on transhumanism is unserious.
Our neolithic forefathers could not have predicted the metallurgical destiny of their descendants, but today, perhaps for the first time in universal history, we can catch a glimpse of the next paradigm before it arrives. If you point your telescope in exactly the right direction and squint really hard, you can just make out the letters: "YOU'RE FUCKED".
BTW, the term ‘GPT-3’ in this post refers to: “Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 is an autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text. It is the third-generation language prediction model in the GPT-n series created by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research laboratory.” ~ Wikipedia
Nice review – you have a gift!! The reference to the quietness of Chopin versus Beethove is exactly right. The “book is a silent meditation with nuances to be appreciated between the notes and undercurrents that are revealed upon further reflection” really captures the quiet tone that invites contemplation of these issues. Also, I like your reference to the elements of the book – all very ordinary, but in an extraordinary environment that feels very possible as we look ahead. I was thinking that it had that quiet “eeriness” of watching an old Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode, but the good-hearted nature of Klara brought hope to any sense of bad outcomes. Notes and quiet; the Sun’s light and shadows (and patterns); the book almost has a soundtrack with these elements. The character of Klara is outstanding – her faith in the Sun (always capitalized) and sense of responsibility and sacrifice for the family – not in any way limited by her lack of full understanding (the Coots machine), visual processing, her ‘one-step removed’ observations of the Mother on her ‘oblong’, etc. Her innocence is a light that casts shadows on the other characters (morally). The ending reminded me a children’s fable when Klara is alone in the scrap yard with her memories fading - poignant like Toy Story or The Giving Tree.
Post a Comment