NPR's review headlines the book as "A Masterpiece", and the first line of its review is "This is unbearable." I read Never Let Me Go so I know what this means.
Nice article. I have a new year’s resolution to read more good literature and listen to more classical music. Anyway, Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go has been on my Audible wish list for a year so I just bought it. Thanks Adam for posting this.<p>Sorry to be a little off topic, but I notice that most of my friends and family spend a lot of time watching movies and other streaming media, but from conversations it seems to me like they spend little time reading (with some exceptions). We all get to allocate our own time, but I like limiting myself to a maximum of one movie a day, but I feel good about spending much more time reading, choosing an active pastime of visualizing the people and world depicted in books, rather than passively watching streaming content. A movie has to be really fantastic to get the same effect as just a good book.
I don’t like articles with lengthy preludes, here’s where the discussion about the book starts:<p>... Klara, the narrator of Ishiguro’s new novel, is a kind of robot version of Stevens, and a kind of cousin of Kathy H. She’s a carer, a servant, a helpmeet, a toy. “Klara and the Sun” opens like something out of “Toy Story” or the children’s classic “Corduroy” (in which a slightly ragged Teddy bear, waiting patiently in a department store, is first turned down by Mother, and finally plucked by her delighted young daughter).
I thought this would be about Ishiguro using gpt3 exclusively for one of his characters (the ai character) in the novel.<p>In his kafka-like universe it might even work.
Very good book; plausible and relevant wrt current discussions surrounding AI, although possibly with a few narrative-facilitating concessions. Relatedly: apparently this same reviewer had some very harsh words for The Unconsoled in his review of that book (anyone have a copy of the review?). Now, he calls him a "master", so that's definitely progress.
He was on an Economist podcast recently discussing the same topic: <a href="https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2021/03/04/is-ai-capable-of-falling-in-love" rel="nofollow">https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2021/03/04/is-ai-capable-...</a>
Good review, but I felt like some things about the plot were spoiled. I think sometimes "literature" reviewers feel that plot isn't really important, and so spoiling it doesn't matter.