David Rubenstein's Reviews > Klara and the Sun

Klara is an "AF". It is obvious from the beginning of the book, that she is in a store that sells robots with artificial intelligence. The book starts out with a startling simplicity, while we see how naiive the robots are. We learn about the world through Klara's eyes. Klara has a remarkable quality; her powers of observation are superb. She sees things and interprets them in ways that other robots simply cannot fathom. She understands subtleties in human behavior and emotions that most humans fail to see.

The robots get their power from solar energy, but to Klara, the sun is much more that a power source. The sun is a higher power, perhaps analogous to a god. It is interesting that in a sense, Klara the robot is more spiritual -- bordering on religious -- than any of the humans. She takes more of an interest in nature that the humans, and reads emotions better than the humans.

I will avoid any spoilers here. As the story progresses, new revelations are occasionally slipped into the narration. While many aspects of this world are futuristic, some of the same problems and issues of our world have still continued -- crime, poverty, inequality. The characters speak in a formal, very polite style; I initially thought that was because the book was translated from Japanese. But it was written in English by a Nobel Prize-winning author.

I didn't read this book; I listened to the audiobook, as narrated beautifully by Sura Siu.