1 of 1- Kokipy
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Klara and the Sun
Has anyone read this one? I believe StarLady was reading it. I finished it the other day. Like all of his work, I believe it was well written and clever but I didn’t love it. A lot of the time I feel he is doing allegory and I hate allegory, and otherwise I just don’t find the central premise credible. I don’t believe any parent would do what Chrissie did to Sal and Josie. And despite Klara’s conviction that Josie was kind, I didn’t like Josie much. And the whole AF thing, soup to nuts, was damnable and basically I didn’t like any of the what if’s in this book.
from this one and Never Let Me Go (which I liked better in a perverse way) I think he is fixated on a central premise that our society is capable of evolving into a culture that selfishly creates and then eats, metaphorically to some extent, the vulnerable. Are we that society? Perhaps the books have served their purpose if they make us reflect on the question, but I didn’t enjoy it. I am kind of into escape these days.
- Surtac
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Re: Klara and the Sun
No, and I'm unlikely to given my reaction to his earlier work.
Some here might remember our discussion of Never Let Me Go years back. I recall thinking that the actual writing was lovely but the book was just another example of a so-called literary author slumming it in an sf-nal ghetto and getting things badly wrong in terms of internal logic and the societal implications of the story premises he had created.
Maybe he was trying for slipstream and missed the target. Klara and the Sun sounds to me like another attempt at something similar.
It's a strange world. Let's keep it that way.
- starexplorer
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Re: Klara and the Sun
I can’t speak for Starwoman in detail, but she did recently read this. I feel confident in saying she had problems with it, and as she described them, I too was reminded of the aggravating and infuriating logical flaws and missteps in Never Let Me Go. It’s unfortunate. I hope those of his works I have not read were indeed worthy of the Nobel.
One world -- or none
- Kokipy
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Re: Klara and the Sun
I also read Sleeping Giants, I think it was called, and didn’t like it either. I did like Remains of the Day quite a lot. But his ventures into speculative fiction and fable don’t work for me at all. I well remember our so engaging discussion of Never Let Me Go. I agree with your comments on it, Surtac and Star, but I also remember finding it very moving. So that one worked for me emotionally, even though it had gaping flaws as aforementioned. Klara also was pretty good at emotion tho inferior to NLMG. And I thought he did a good job of showing that the humans totally underestimated the character of the Artificial Friend Klara, but again, that is a real flaw in the world building.
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