すでに日本語に翻訳されて、アマゾンの読後感想もかなり出ています。『私を離さないで』Never Let Me Go との類似や他のSF小説との類似も指摘されています。最後にご用済みで廃棄物として捨てられるクララの最後への不満や批判もあります。しかし、オリジナルを検索するとKindleで安く購入でき、英語も読み安いとありました。また批評の中で以下の英国の方のReviewがとても良かったので、ここに備忘録として貼り付けておきます。クララがより人間性を表わしているとの評価はいいですね。犠牲をいとわないというか、アルゴリズムがそう仕組まれているとの指摘にハットしました。またマクロ・ナラティヴの指摘にもなるほどと思いました。村上春樹さんが、石黒さんの小説に対してそう指摘しているのですね。なるほどです。【ミクロ・ナラテイブ（私的なディ テール）をマクロ・ナラティブ（社会的な一般化、社会的言説)にまで引き上げる認知、感情、行動的な作業）】
MarcusさんのBOOK Reviewです。以下を読んで著書を注文しました！やはり小説の持つ暗喩【メタファ】の力はすごいと思います。
5つ星のうち5.0 Emotionally gripping and thoughtful -- a masterpiece
2021年3月27日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
All of Ishiguro's novels are compelling and emotional, but for some of them the prevalent emotion is frustration or exasperation. Klara and the Sun is a return to Ishiguro's old form -- a book more like The Remains of the Day or Never Let Me Go.
Reading Klara and the Sun is a troubling experience. The emotional content is strong, while the world seems different from ours but disturbingly familiar. When I finished the book, I was left emotionally drained and it took me a few days to slowly arrange the book's ideas in my head. I really recommend this book.
--------- Spoiler Alert -----------【ネタバレ】
Klara and the Sun is set in the very near future, in a world that is clearly derived from ours. Technology is a bit more advanced, and inequality is even more pronounced. The novel is not conspicuously political, and the action of the novel is largely set in a distant out-of-town location where social reality barely intrudes. Yet there are half-hidden undertones of a disturbing political reality. Fascism is on the rise; big business continues to pollute the environment; society is divided between an elite class who can afford 'uplifting' for their children, though the process is risky, and an underclass who are effectively barred from higher education and decent jobs; most of society is 'post-employed'. It reminds me of how the social realities behind Jane Austen's novels -- slavery, the French Revolution, the oppression of women -- appear to be ignored in her vision of bucolic tranquillity but actually motivate her novels at a deeper level.
Klara herself is an AF, an 'artificial friend'. Klara has been designed to have a deep intuitive understanding of relationships and a real empathy for the humans she is supposed to befriend. However, Ishiguro goes to some lengths to show that these are really Klara's only skills. She has very little understanding of how the world works. Her mobility is limited and she has no senses of taste or smell. She can visually perceive simple scenes, but when there are too many people, or the setting is new to her, the scene breaks up into boxes that are barely connected. Sometimes she relates objects visually to views from her memory that are irrelevant: a line of coffee cups in the shop with a line of objects in the barn. Patterns of sunlight from a window which a human would ignore, have significance for Klara. Klara's world is different from and much simpler than ours.
Klara's simplicity, and her own dependence on solar power, leads her to a home-made religion of sun worship. Ishiguro's skill as an author makes it very believable that Klara's strong sense of empathy with human beings combined with her lack of knowledge of the real world leads her to the intuitive sense that the sun has human feelings and super-human capabilities.
Klara goes on to potentially sacrifice herself to persuade the sun to cure her human, Josie, from a disease that we eventually find is related to the process of 'uplift' that is to give her a chance of a career in this dystopian society. Klara believes that her sacrifice is what saved Josie. If true, it means that Klara has denied herself the role of 'continuing' Josie, by acting as her -- something that could have won Klara the love of 'the mother' and Ricky, 'the boyfriend'. It is very reminiscent of the butler in The Remains of the Day, who sacrificed his chance of love for a cause that proved to be pointless.
Klara ends up in a scrapyard, only able to move her head around so she can see the sky, and to slowly put her memories in order. It is a heartbreaking end to a story where she has given everything and received nothing in return, but where Klara has no bitterness at all because that ability was not programmed into her.
On one level, this is a story about artificial intelligence and an ethical side that has so far almost been ignored -- if we create beings that are capable of love and empathy, we should then be responsible for how we treat them. Mary Shelley understood this problem when she wrote Frankenstein, but most of the discussion of the ethics of AI today focusses only on the effect on humans.
On another level, this is a story about us now -- about how we use other people and are used by them. Klara and the Sun rings true emotionally because it is talking about exploitative relationships of a kind that we have seen, maybe experienced, ourselves. The political and social backdrop of the novel, so like present-day America where social inequality and individuality is taken to extremes, mirrors the way Klara is exploited. Klara's sacrifice and prayer to a non-existent sun-god likewise show humanity's response to that inequality and soullessness, in religion and sacrifice.
Klara's naivety and intuition lead her to a sacrifice that may be pointless, but show her to be the only real human in the book.
Reading Klara and the Sun is a troubling experience. The emotional content is strong, while the world seems different from ours but disturbingly familiar. When I finished the book, I was left emotionally drained and it took me a few days to slowly arrange the book's ideas in my head. I really recommend this book.
--------- Spoiler Alert -----------【ネタバレ】
Klara and the Sun is set in the very near future, in a world that is clearly derived from ours. Technology is a bit more advanced, and inequality is even more pronounced. The novel is not conspicuously political, and the action of the novel is largely set in a distant out-of-town location where social reality barely intrudes. Yet there are half-hidden undertones of a disturbing political reality. Fascism is on the rise; big business continues to pollute the environment; society is divided between an elite class who can afford 'uplifting' for their children, though the process is risky, and an underclass who are effectively barred from higher education and decent jobs; most of society is 'post-employed'. It reminds me of how the social realities behind Jane Austen's novels -- slavery, the French Revolution, the oppression of women -- appear to be ignored in her vision of bucolic tranquillity but actually motivate her novels at a deeper level.
Klara herself is an AF, an 'artificial friend'. Klara has been designed to have a deep intuitive understanding of relationships and a real empathy for the humans she is supposed to befriend. However, Ishiguro goes to some lengths to show that these are really Klara's only skills. She has very little understanding of how the world works. Her mobility is limited and she has no senses of taste or smell. She can visually perceive simple scenes, but when there are too many people, or the setting is new to her, the scene breaks up into boxes that are barely connected. Sometimes she relates objects visually to views from her memory that are irrelevant: a line of coffee cups in the shop with a line of objects in the barn. Patterns of sunlight from a window which a human would ignore, have significance for Klara. Klara's world is different from and much simpler than ours.
Klara's simplicity, and her own dependence on solar power, leads her to a home-made religion of sun worship. Ishiguro's skill as an author makes it very believable that Klara's strong sense of empathy with human beings combined with her lack of knowledge of the real world leads her to the intuitive sense that the sun has human feelings and super-human capabilities.
Klara goes on to potentially sacrifice herself to persuade the sun to cure her human, Josie, from a disease that we eventually find is related to the process of 'uplift' that is to give her a chance of a career in this dystopian society. Klara believes that her sacrifice is what saved Josie. If true, it means that Klara has denied herself the role of 'continuing' Josie, by acting as her -- something that could have won Klara the love of 'the mother' and Ricky, 'the boyfriend'. It is very reminiscent of the butler in The Remains of the Day, who sacrificed his chance of love for a cause that proved to be pointless.
Klara ends up in a scrapyard, only able to move her head around so she can see the sky, and to slowly put her memories in order. It is a heartbreaking end to a story where she has given everything and received nothing in return, but where Klara has no bitterness at all because that ability was not programmed into her.
On one level, this is a story about artificial intelligence and an ethical side that has so far almost been ignored -- if we create beings that are capable of love and empathy, we should then be responsible for how we treat them. Mary Shelley understood this problem when she wrote Frankenstein, but most of the discussion of the ethics of AI today focusses only on the effect on humans.
On another level, this is a story about us now -- about how we use other people and are used by them. Klara and the Sun rings true emotionally because it is talking about exploitative relationships of a kind that we have seen, maybe experienced, ourselves. The political and social backdrop of the novel, so like present-day America where social inequality and individuality is taken to extremes, mirrors the way Klara is exploited. Klara's sacrifice and prayer to a non-existent sun-god likewise show humanity's response to that inequality and soullessness, in religion and sacrifice.
Klara's naivety and intuition lead her to a sacrifice that may be pointless, but show her to be the only real human in the book.
＊＊＊＊＊
小説の最後に泣いたとか、悲嘆の声が書かれています。しかしこの方の指摘は実はクララがより人間的だと締めくくっています。
なぜIshiguro Kazuoさんの小説が読みたくなったかと言うと、今日のオンライン授業でDesigner babiesが話題になったからです。人間の臓器移植のために作られたクローンの話しが出て、『私を離さないで』の石黒さんの小説が登場しました。人間のために奉仕するためのクローン人間の存在です。この『クララとお日さま』は人間の友達ロボットの物語。人間に貢献するために作られたアンドロイド人間の物語です。近未来小説に込められた人間世界の真実へのメタファなんですね。生きるとは何なのか。存在の意味、相対的な世界の比喩でしょうか。
