ISCAST supporter Amy Isham reviews Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, and finds that its blending of science fiction with themes of love, hope, and faith, make the reader think deeply about our human lives.
Kazuo Ishiguro. Klara and the Sun. Faber, 2021.
Parents, if there was a procedure to “lift” your child, raising their intellectual capacity, would you?
What if that procedure shortened your child’s life expectancy?
What if “un-lifted” children were excluded from work, college, and friends?
This is the world we are plunged into in Klara and the Sun, a dystopia in which Josie, a “lifted” pre-teen child seeks a human-like, human-created artificial friend (AF) to keep her company while she convalesces from an illness which is deliberately vague.
If you’ve read anything about this novel or the upcoming movie directed by Taika Waititi you may have read about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and their implications for our future. While these are important issues, they can feel distant. This book is really about parenting, love, and providence.
Read the full article at The Melbourne Anglican.
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