Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun

Kazuo Ishiguro. Where does one begin? How do we evaluate a novel like “Klara and the Sun,” or any of his other most widely read novels, except for “The Buried Giant” which had me at my wit’s end? People have described Ishiguro’s latest work as unbearable and unsettling, and it is both. It can be read on so many levels, interpreted as a book about faith, about loneliness, memory, love, sacrifice, or even as an examination of the power of technology along with a fear or distrust of the same. In other words, perfect book discussion material.

In a not-too-distant future, in an unnamed city, an artificial friend, I dare not call her a robot, sits in a store front window waiting to be purchased as a companion for an unknown child. As she bides her time, Klara acutely observes her surroundings, often making logical deductions that are beyond the ken of her cohort. Klara is special, and because she is the narrator, we are privy to her innermost thoughts. Ishiguro has created an artificial being more human than any of the other characters we will meet, and it is this fact that renders his novel so painful to read.

Josie has had her eye on Klara for a long time. No other AF will do. Josie suffers from a mysterious illness that keeps her mother constantly on guard. The mother worries that Klara will not be up to the special care that Josie needs but she needn’t concern herself. Klara is programmed to do what ever is in her power to protect her charge. As a solar powered “device” she is keenly aware of her relationship with the Sun, capitalized because in Ishiguro’s imagining the Sun seems to be a symbol for God or at least a higher power, one that can, perhaps, be bargained with.

Ishiguro is a master at depicting the foibles of human nature and the complicated relationship we humans have with each other and with ourselves. Josie, for instance, like a typical teenage girl can run hot and cold. Loving and generous one moment, dismissive and disdainful the next. We learn through her friendship with her neighbor Rick that there is a hierarchy at work that pits family against family, not unlike what we see today, in which children who are “lifted” (think, cognitively enhanced) have an advantage in terms of college and careers. Families who choose not to lift their children for ethical or monetary reasons find themselves sidelined. And children, Klara notes, can be very fickle.

I found myself dreading the ending of this novel. After all, what do we do with items that have outlived their usefulness? But then I realized that an AF’s “slow fade” is no different from what we humans face. In fact, what can be more human than understanding that, when we are born, we are limited to a finite amount of time. And if we are very fortunate, we will make memories over our years that will sustain us in our own slow fade.

 

Should We Stay or Should We Go-Lionel Shriver's Mighty Question

Have you ever tried to fill in the blanks on a living will? Have you ever talked with family or partner about how you envision your so-called golden years? Have you ever admitted that you hope that you’ll die in your sleep? We should all be so lucky! But if you’ve lived even a little bit then you know what a fool’s game it is to try to outsmart the future. The best laid plans…etc.

Wonderful, controversial, massively talented writer Lionel Shriver has skewered the health care system (“So Much for That), the economic crises (“The Mandibles), and the crazed Peloton generation (“The Motion of the Body Through Space”), in novels just made for book discussion groups. Now she’s cast her jaundiced eye on the indignities of the aging process in “Should We Stay or Should We Go.”

We first meet Kay and Cyril shortly after they’ve returned from her father’s funeral. It seems that the old man has held the family hostage to his years long battle with Alzheimer’s to the detriment of their own lives and it was with a sense of relief that they put him in the ground. They open a chilled bottle and begin a serious discussion about the long, horrific process of aging, the cost to the National Healthcare System (we are in London), and the suffering of caregivers.

That’s when Cyril proposes his bright idea, a suicide pact. Not until they’re eighty, mind you, a long, long ways away. Still, as a physician Cyril prefers to obtain the necessary drugs sooner rather than later while Kay wonders how they will account for the fourteen-month gap in their ages. Will he go at eighty and she wait around, or will he cheat her out of her extra year and four months by expecting her to go along with him? They decide that the fairer thing is to wait until her eightieth.

The years go by, and we are treated to the inner workings of a very happy marriage. They spar over politics, career choices, the ups and downs of their three kids’ lives, and sensibly, since they’re leaving, they refinance their home in a bid to travel a bit and enjoy life before Covid locks them down. Suddenly, by page seventy, their final week is looming.

And this is where Shriver throws you for a completely unexpected loop. Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure series? I’m not even sure I should say any more. Shriver paints various futures for Kay and Cyril that are contradictory, hilarious, revolting, terrifying, but sadly, all possible. Lionel Shriver has written one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read this year. The trouble, or perhaps the gift, is that my friends and I are barreling toward eighty ourselves and there’s nowhere to go but forward!

Not Flying Yet? Visit Italy with Camilla Trinchieri

Readers who know me well will understand the siren song of a novel that’s dubbed “A Tuscan Mystery, Book 1.” I salivate as if a steaming bowl of ribollita had been set before me accompanied by the house red and a warm loaf of crusty bread. Camilla Trinchieri https://www.camillatrinchieri.com/ serves up Tuscan recipes galore along with the dead bodies in this first book in her new series.

 “Murder in Chianti” has everything you want in good mystery, a vibrant sense of place, a couple of sympathetic carabinieri open to the help of a retired American police detective, a victim everyone loved to hate, and a plethora of red herrings. (I didn’t guess who the culprit was until he confessed!) Set in Gravigna, a fictional village in the wine-soaked region of Chianti, not too far south of Firenze, the people are just what you’ve experienced if you’ve ever stayed in an Italian village, open, friendly, and accepting of the American newcomer Nico Doyle who buried his wife Rita in the family plot and stayed on to feel closer to her.

He keeps his police creds quiet, helps in the family’s restaurant, and renovates a cottage that overlooks a vineyard where his landlord Aldo harvests and bottles cases of wine and olive oil. This idyll is shattered early one morning when a single gunshot interrupts his musings over coffee on his patio. Following the frantic yips of an animal, thinking someone got a head start on the boar hunting season, Nico discovers a bloody dog and a body that looks just as horrific as anything he’d seen back in his homicide days in the states.

Salvatore Perillo, the local chief of police, has done his homework and is familiar with Nico’s NYPD background. Only having ever faced one murder in his long career in Gravigna, Perillo can use all the help he can get but must woo Nico with plenty of whiskey, wine, and food to get him on board with the investigation. Once a cop, always a cop, and soon Nico is in the thick of it along with Perillo’s new young computer guru and second in command, Daniele.

These three break the mold of so many novels by actually working well together and with the public. There’s no tasering of suspects, no guns drawn, no illegal pressure on witnesses, just good, smart policing that earns them the respect of the villagers and of us, the readers. Spending time with them is a pleasure and Trinchieri creates many delightful secondary characters as well. The whole book just feels so real and authentic. If you’ve loved Donna Leon’s Venetian series, then you must give this a look.

 Imagine how happy I was to learn that Trinchieri’s second in the series will be out in a few days. “The Bitter Taste of Murder” is the name. Watch for it!