BookLife Dual Review by Carol O’Day: Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun (Kazuo Ishiguro, author)

Nobel award winning author, science fiction, fantasy, dystopian society, robots, organ harvesting

The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro in 2017 for his body of work. These two novels are shining examples of the mastery that merited that (and other) awards. Both are, on their face, striking departures Ishiguro’s 1989 bestseller, Remains of the Day, a novel of nuances of dignity, service and propriety set in an English country manor and recounted by Mr. Stevens, the butler, and involving his long-standing interface with Miss Kenton, the manor’s housekeeper. 

Never Let Me Go (2005), while set in an English boarding school, in the narrator’s personal past, is anything but historical fiction. It is a dystopian science fiction future but one which unfolds with equal measures of English restraint and resignation. Just as Remains was told in flashbacks, or by Mr.  Stevens’ narrating the story of his past, in Never Let Me Go 31 year-old Kathy, shares the story of her years at Hailsham, an English boarding school, and her years since, as a “carer.” In some ways, the story is a classic telling of a coming-of-age story with awkward and comical anecdotes that arise when dozens of children are housed together at a boarding school. But there are also harrowing stories, secrecy and the dawning of the realization that the children at Hailsham are being raised and groomed to serve others in what the reader gradually realizes is the role of organ donor, of an ultimately terminal variety. Between school years and a “final” donation, the residents are employed as “carers” for other organ donors following their donation surgeries. Ishiguro unfolds this tale by dropping breadcrumbs of increasingly troubling and harrowing details regarding the operations of Hailsham and Kathy’s working life. It is precisely because of Ishiguro’s gifts as a writer that the story unfolds with grace and an eerie dose of acceptance and peace. It is not a graphic horror story, despite its underlying premise. Like Remains of the Day, it is a tale about dignity and what it means to be human and to be of service to others. 

Klara and the Sun, is also a dystopian science fiction tale, but one set in an unnamed  future time. It is a time when humanoid robots are ubiquitous. Department stores include robot departments where families can come in and shop for a robot companion for their children. The narrator’s voice startles from the first page–it is that of a particularly humanistic and arguably emotionally attuned robot, awaiting selection by a family. Klara is ultimately selected by Josie and her mother, and is taken to live in their home. In the universe Ishiguro has constructed, the robots are adaptive and progressively learn more and more about their paired child or teen. Klara is a particularly well-programmed robot model and rapidly learns more and more of Josie’s likes, dislikes, habits, mannerisms and even her thought and speech patterns. 

There are some aspects of Klara and the Sun that do not land as seamlessly as the world of Hailsham and Kathy’s life as a carer in Never Let Me Go. There is what feels and inordinate number of pages devoted to traffic patterns and public works in the town. Klara’s operating system seems stumped by the what she views as the god-like and magical daily rising and setting of the sun (which seems a rather obvious programming omission), and it is a not-so-subtle nod to the concept of a higher power in a dystopian scientific world. The awkward gatherings of teens and the othering of families who are not participating in the robot program are less artfully drawn than one expects from Ishiguro. Ultimately, the horrific reveal toward the end of the story, which has crept upon the reader like a nasty flu, is brilliantly written, though nauseating and then made more so when the robots’ ultimate role is revealed. I will remain obtuse here because the book is thought-provoking and well worth reading and knowing too much would spoil the experience. 

I recommend reading Never Let Me Go First, and then Klara and the Sun. Both are the works of a Nobel laureate writer, and even for one not inclined to be a fan of science fiction or fantasy, are both well worth the read. 

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