Hello, I've just finished Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun, and I've read a lot of posts on here about its themes and meanings and what people took away from it, but one theme I haven't seen discussed much is that of love and what exactly love is.
I think this theme may even be central to the book. Think about when Klara was sharing her musings about where the thing that makes someone so special and loved resides – she determines that thing is not inside a person (Josie) herself but inside the people who love her. When I read this, it made me think about the idea that "love is selfish". Actually it reminded me of one of my favorite lyrics that says "I've read the books, I know that love's a selfish thing." But is it? Or if it's selfish, is it actually love?
So Klara determines that love is people's reaction to a person – it's almost a thing they impose upon a person, with or without their consent. Consider how the people who purportedly loved Josie wanted to (without her consent) create a monster of her just to soothe their own grief if she were to die. Josie would obviously not want this, but her feelings weren't considered. The family wasn't devising this plan for what was inside Josies, they were doing it for what was inside them.
Now consider – does Klara "love" Josie? Can a machine love? For this we have to consider what love is. Is love the thing that hurts inside you when someone's gone? Or is it more the force that makes you do what's best for them, even if it minimized your own needs and your own pain.
Klara is great at doing what's best for Josie. This is a recurring theme – Klara is constantly making her judgements and planning her actions based on what's best for Josie (she's literally programmed for it). And in the end, she does an excellent job of that, by keeping hope and trying even the most absurd things to keep Josie alive, rather than capitulating to Josie's looming death and supporting the plan to recreate her. I think this argument would be strengthened if Klara had explicitly disagreed with the plan to continue Josie, but oh well.
My proposition here is that Klara and maybe also the readers assumed that only humans could love each other. However, the book's exhibits of humans purportedly loving each show a dark, scary, anguished kind of love. Meanwhile, the "unfeeling" robot comes across as perhaps the most loving character in the book, only because of her willingness to do what's best for the person she "loves". I think that in terms of love, the book supports bell hooks' idea of what love is: it's not pain or attachment or grief. It's an act of will – a will to nurture and support another person, to help them realize their full physical and spiritual growth.
by runnering