Now reading (The Book Thread)

[TheVat]

Klara and the Sun, by Nobel prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro.

Liked this more than his other sci-fi themed novel, Never Let Me Go. (Not that it's not also masterful) As in his other work, he explores what it means to be human (using the first person perspective of an AI companion, an android who has feelings and even forms spiritual beliefs centered on the Sun), and how society can create and exploit a new underclass. But no summary really captures the emotional and philosophical depths of an Ishiguro novel, or his power to spring a revelation on the reader. As always, he showed me something about how we deal with constraints in our lives while still finding transcendent moments.

I don't know, maybe I'm just gobsmacked right now, but I want to say this is his best work. But of course I say that every effing time I finish one of his books.

 

[exchemist]

Klara and the Sun, by Nobel prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro.

Liked this more than his other sci-fi themed novel, Never Let Me Go. (Not that it's not also masterful) As in his other work, he explores what it means to be human (using the first person perspective of an AI companion, an android who has feelings and even forms spiritual beliefs centered on the Sun), and how society can create and exploit a new underclass. But no summary really captures the emotional and philosophical depths of an Ishiguro novel, or his power to spring a revelation on the reader. As always, he showed me something about how we deal with constraints in our lives while still finding transcendent moments.

I don't know, maybe I'm just gobsmacked right now, but I want to say this is his best work. But of course I say that every effing time I finish one of his books.

I read and much enjoyed it too, a few years ago, though I found it possibly a bit slight compared to The Remains of the Day. But a very apt topic for the era we are entering and deeply thoughtful.

The one of his I found really hard going was The Unconsoled. That was weird.

 

[Pyab]

i am reading Harry Turtledoves World War series, I'm on book 8, although have read them all many years ago.
They centre around the arrival and invasion of an alien race in 1942 right smack bang in the middle of world war 2.

Its a very interesting concept, the aliens have a 50-100k year history but are very very slow to change, their level of technology is above what we have today but not by much, were they to invade today, we would be a match for them. Included are a large number of fiction character but mixed in are real historical figure such as Stalin, Molotov, and a variety of less well known, but not insignificant figures.

Their method of interstellar travel is hibernation at 50% of light speed, so they are cut of from home as its years away - due to their slow rate of change, and similar rates in the two other races they have conquered, they expect humans to be slow as well - fully expecting to find sword bearing medieval humanity as that is what their probe, sent 800 years earlier, showed us to be...... they get a huge shock to find us in spitfires and working on nuclear theories but they are stuck with what they have...

Its very "humanity fuck yeah!" at times as we give them trouble left right and centre, but doesn't shy away from our darker sides like the holocaust and treatment of black people in America at the time... very interesting to see a race of beings properly evaluate us against what they see as the standard for intelligent life and makes you wonder things like - would you side with a black hearted German SS officer when he is performing well against the alien invaders? Would you ever put race above species, even when your own species treats you in such a vile manner?

Its obviously all conjecture, but i think he does it very well

 

[TheVat]

I read and much enjoyed it too, a few years ago, though I found it possibly a bit slight compared to The Remains of the Day. But a very apt topic for the era we are entering and deeply thoughtful.

The one of his I found really hard going was The Unconsoled. That was weird.

RotD is a masterpiece, I wouldn't compare it to that. (Especially now having some morning-after clarity, and being able to acknowledge the singular POV does limit our understanding of the human characters - how, for example, do they feel about Klara's condition at the book's end?) But yes, apt to now, and possibly will stir up some readers on coming issues of AI rights, if they (AIs) were to become sentient at a human-comparable level.

I had to bail out of The Unconsoled. So I can't fairly comment. Did seem weird (and did not align with my experience of professional musicians, from being married to one).

 

[exchemist]

RotD is a masterpiece, I wouldn't compare it to that. (Especially now having some morning-after clarity, and being able to acknowledge the singular POV does limit our understanding of the human characters - how, for example, do they feel about Klara's condition at the book's end?) But yes, apt to now, and possibly will stir up some readers on coming issues of AI rights, if they (AIs) were to become sentient at a human-comparable level.

I had to bail out of The Unconsoled. So I can't fairly comment. Did seem weird (and did not align with my experience of professional musicians, from being married to one).

It felt like one long anxiety dream. Perhaps the sort of dream a conscientious Japanese musician (or author?) with a popular following might have? Autobiographical, even? But a very long-winded way to convey that idea, if that is what it was. I wondered if he was trying to write about a near breakdown he had had. I was amused to look up the Wiki entry on The Unconsoled and note that it makes no attempt whatsoever to interpret the book! Nobody has any idea what it is really about, I suspect.

One striking image I retain from Klara and the Sun is the horrible mother, too ambitious and busy to care for her daughter, even to the point of having made her ill by her ambitions for her - the ultimate Tiger Mum*. She is a character I recognise with a shudder. All too real.


* When my son was at school, an ambitious place in London with a large Asian (both South and East) contingent, the boys had a slightly rueful running joke about being what they called "Asian parented". It went something like this: "Why you only get 95% in maths exam? You bring shame and dishonour on family! Next time you get 100%, hah?