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Monday: book group
Sep. 12th, 2022 11:00 pmI read the rest of _Klara and the Sun_, by Kazuo Ishiguro. This is one of those literary kinda-sorta science fiction books. I mean, it’s definitely science fiction, and it’s actually fairly well done _as_ science fiction (not great, but not horrible), and I mean look at the author. As these things go, if I want an out-of-author writer of science fiction, I’m gonna go back and reread Doris Lessing and see what I think of her now. (This probably is a bad idea, so I’ll just pre-emptively concede anything you have to say on the topic, because I’m not really going to go back and reread it. Probably.)
A. not my daughter had suggested _Yiddish Policeman’s Union_ but I found that so emotionally painful to read, that I just couldn’t finish it (also, a remarkable book, so this is a failing in me, not in the book). J. recommended this one. I just cannot emphasize how hilariously weird these recommendations are, which hilarious weirdness I was careful not to emote where anyone might notice. I mean, I barely let myself think about the hilarious weirdness.
Anyway. _Klara and the Sun_ is long, and was described by J. as being a very fast read, and if you are prepared to skim the hell out of it, this is indeed true. About halfway through the book, I realized I had a choice before me: I could either sit there and pay attention to every little bit of Look At All the Research I Did On How Machine Vision Works! And how Bipedal Robotic Walking Is Tricky! And admire how Ishiguro presents these absolutely _massive_, multiple pages long infodumps in Absolutely Perfect Show Don’t Tell form as every “Literary”, “I am not a genre novel” piece of writing advice insists is Correct. OR I could absorb just enough of the plot and weird details to be able to make sense of the end of the book where Ishiguro was going to show me how fucking clever he is in getting me to play along with a wildly unreliable narrator and make me question whether anything that happened in the book happened at all, and if so how and to whom AND oh, by the way, this is fiction ha ha ha!
Fuck you, Ishiguro. This is why I don’t like “literary” novels. We are all here because we want to be immersed in the world. Insisting on the reader understanding and appreciating the machinery suggests that you didn’t really enjoy the process of creating the world I didn’t really enjoy the process of reading which raises all kinds of questions about why are we all doing this anyway? Let’s just go get a burger instead.
Fine. Let’s do this.
Ishiguro has sketched in a very complex colonial background, with multiple people _in a very tiny cast_ actively exiting the elite they are members of or adjacent to, and choosing violence rather that continuing to participate in striving and climbing the ladder. Book group members did not give a shit. There is not really enough going on to get any sense of whether I might approve of disapprove of this choice on the part of The Father or Rick or The Manager, altho certainly the choices being made on the part of members of the elite on behalf of their own children are pretty damn sus.
Ishiguro has presented a simplistic mash-up of colonialism / caste systems / slavery and artificial intelligence based “life” forms. A bunch of the people who are members of or adjacent to the elite and who are in the process of exiting have huge issues with AFs and similar. But it is impossible to tell whether Ishiguro wants the reader to think that the disapproval is based on a principled aversion to owning a person, or an aversion of a made-person. Like, is this bigotry against AFs, or is this a principled objection to enslaving a person. I do not think that this is an accident. I think this is a big chunk of whatever Ishiguro is trying to accomplish here.
Ishiguro has written _another_ book from a servant’s perspective, exploring in relentless detail both how servants _act_ in tolerating being in servitude and how servants _think_ as a result of being in servitude. And even the distortion of feeling that results from a lifetime of servitude. One of the clunkiest details, and the hardest for me to resolve in my own mind is Capaldi’s return to ask Chrissie / The Mother for access to the inside of Klara, to understand and to make known to those who fear AFs what exactly is going on in there. If Chrissie really did defend Klara against this most complete violation of Klara’s privacy and thus — at least in Ishiguro’s framing — personhood, and argued in favor of Klara having a right to a “slow fade”, I do kinda wonder how exactly Klara landed in the Yard, where she is ruminating, and telling us how all the machinery works because the author wants to make absolutely certain we understand just how unreliable a narrator Klara really is.
But if Chrissie _did not_ defend Klara against Capaldi’s curiosity, how did Klara wind up in the Yard? I mean, it at least sounded kinda destructive!
It’s always a little weird when a book isn’t mentioning skin color except to describe people in passing as having a different (and darker) skin color, and yet still manages to have a “magical Negro”. And yet, the book is ultimately structured around how Klara bargained with the Sun to save Josie. And while Klara isn’t _really_ sure that it worked, it sorta did (if you trust Klara’s memories, which you should not!), and people responded to how Klara talked about her bargain with, if not trust, then at least a willingness to play along to nurture faint hope in an emotionally devastating situation. The Father was willing to go the furthest along this path, but a number of others specifically comment on Klara, AF “wisdom” and how hope keeps grabbing or getting one. This is a shitty trope. This entire book is built around a shitty trope. And it’s exactly the kind of shitty trope that one cannot attack in a book group if one hopes to keep one’s friends, who read the book on the sentimental level and who enjoyed it.
And you know what? Sure. Why not. Enjoy it. I wish I could have done.
No matter what level I tried to access this book, it defied any attempt at making it make sense and it was quite repulsive in the process of doing so. I can only conclude that the author thought it would be funny / awesome / epic / pretty cool to get one group of people to read a book superficially and enjoy it as a fairy tale, and another group of people to try to engage with it at a deeper level and be continually frustrated.
I hope the money that Ishiguro makes from this book helps him realize whatever goals led him to create this monstrosity. I hope that at least for him, the end justified the means.
ETA:
We had a _very_ high rate of completion on this book, which is astonishing, given its length. While I skimmed the hell out of it, I once again recalled a lot more details than the people who … did not … which *shrug*. I won’t remember anything about anything in 20 years.
A. not my daughter had suggested _Yiddish Policeman’s Union_ but I found that so emotionally painful to read, that I just couldn’t finish it (also, a remarkable book, so this is a failing in me, not in the book). J. recommended this one. I just cannot emphasize how hilariously weird these recommendations are, which hilarious weirdness I was careful not to emote where anyone might notice. I mean, I barely let myself think about the hilarious weirdness.
Anyway. _Klara and the Sun_ is long, and was described by J. as being a very fast read, and if you are prepared to skim the hell out of it, this is indeed true. About halfway through the book, I realized I had a choice before me: I could either sit there and pay attention to every little bit of Look At All the Research I Did On How Machine Vision Works! And how Bipedal Robotic Walking Is Tricky! And admire how Ishiguro presents these absolutely _massive_, multiple pages long infodumps in Absolutely Perfect Show Don’t Tell form as every “Literary”, “I am not a genre novel” piece of writing advice insists is Correct. OR I could absorb just enough of the plot and weird details to be able to make sense of the end of the book where Ishiguro was going to show me how fucking clever he is in getting me to play along with a wildly unreliable narrator and make me question whether anything that happened in the book happened at all, and if so how and to whom AND oh, by the way, this is fiction ha ha ha!
Fuck you, Ishiguro. This is why I don’t like “literary” novels. We are all here because we want to be immersed in the world. Insisting on the reader understanding and appreciating the machinery suggests that you didn’t really enjoy the process of creating the world I didn’t really enjoy the process of reading which raises all kinds of questions about why are we all doing this anyway? Let’s just go get a burger instead.
Fine. Let’s do this.
Ishiguro has sketched in a very complex colonial background, with multiple people _in a very tiny cast_ actively exiting the elite they are members of or adjacent to, and choosing violence rather that continuing to participate in striving and climbing the ladder. Book group members did not give a shit. There is not really enough going on to get any sense of whether I might approve of disapprove of this choice on the part of The Father or Rick or The Manager, altho certainly the choices being made on the part of members of the elite on behalf of their own children are pretty damn sus.
Ishiguro has presented a simplistic mash-up of colonialism / caste systems / slavery and artificial intelligence based “life” forms. A bunch of the people who are members of or adjacent to the elite and who are in the process of exiting have huge issues with AFs and similar. But it is impossible to tell whether Ishiguro wants the reader to think that the disapproval is based on a principled aversion to owning a person, or an aversion of a made-person. Like, is this bigotry against AFs, or is this a principled objection to enslaving a person. I do not think that this is an accident. I think this is a big chunk of whatever Ishiguro is trying to accomplish here.
Ishiguro has written _another_ book from a servant’s perspective, exploring in relentless detail both how servants _act_ in tolerating being in servitude and how servants _think_ as a result of being in servitude. And even the distortion of feeling that results from a lifetime of servitude. One of the clunkiest details, and the hardest for me to resolve in my own mind is Capaldi’s return to ask Chrissie / The Mother for access to the inside of Klara, to understand and to make known to those who fear AFs what exactly is going on in there. If Chrissie really did defend Klara against this most complete violation of Klara’s privacy and thus — at least in Ishiguro’s framing — personhood, and argued in favor of Klara having a right to a “slow fade”, I do kinda wonder how exactly Klara landed in the Yard, where she is ruminating, and telling us how all the machinery works because the author wants to make absolutely certain we understand just how unreliable a narrator Klara really is.
But if Chrissie _did not_ defend Klara against Capaldi’s curiosity, how did Klara wind up in the Yard? I mean, it at least sounded kinda destructive!
It’s always a little weird when a book isn’t mentioning skin color except to describe people in passing as having a different (and darker) skin color, and yet still manages to have a “magical Negro”. And yet, the book is ultimately structured around how Klara bargained with the Sun to save Josie. And while Klara isn’t _really_ sure that it worked, it sorta did (if you trust Klara’s memories, which you should not!), and people responded to how Klara talked about her bargain with, if not trust, then at least a willingness to play along to nurture faint hope in an emotionally devastating situation. The Father was willing to go the furthest along this path, but a number of others specifically comment on Klara, AF “wisdom” and how hope keeps grabbing or getting one. This is a shitty trope. This entire book is built around a shitty trope. And it’s exactly the kind of shitty trope that one cannot attack in a book group if one hopes to keep one’s friends, who read the book on the sentimental level and who enjoyed it.
And you know what? Sure. Why not. Enjoy it. I wish I could have done.
No matter what level I tried to access this book, it defied any attempt at making it make sense and it was quite repulsive in the process of doing so. I can only conclude that the author thought it would be funny / awesome / epic / pretty cool to get one group of people to read a book superficially and enjoy it as a fairy tale, and another group of people to try to engage with it at a deeper level and be continually frustrated.
I hope the money that Ishiguro makes from this book helps him realize whatever goals led him to create this monstrosity. I hope that at least for him, the end justified the means.
ETA:
We had a _very_ high rate of completion on this book, which is astonishing, given its length. While I skimmed the hell out of it, I once again recalled a lot more details than the people who … did not … which *shrug*. I won’t remember anything about anything in 20 years.