"Klara and the Sun": On Friendship and Being Seen

On Kazuo Ishiguro's AI novel, the existence of the soul, and what makes for a great friendship.

1.

I speak with my aunt far more often than I used to, now that she’s no longer alive. When she was here — with us in the material sense that makes modern thinkers comfortable when considering existence — she and I talked with each other at length and about an ever-widening range of topics. Wherever I was in the world, I could reach her, wherever she was in the world, with the ease of thumbing the FaceTime app on my phone; all we needed to ensure a conversation was to line up our timetables and time zones. That ease of contact meant I’d go a few weeks or months without saying much to her until the next videocall. Now that there are no videocalls, no “next time I hear from her”, I tell her what I’m thinking a few times every few days. In spite of her corporeal absence, she’s no less responsive.

I’m hesitant to describe the words that originate in my mind and which I ventriloquise into a mental representation of my beloved aunt as her “speaking” to me. It feels like reverse plagiarism, a …