Kazuo Ishiguro's "Clara and the Sun": the duty of literature is to accompany

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"Clara and the Sun" is the first novel published by Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro after winning the award in 2017. This work inherits his usual delicate and profound tone, but there are also very different places. In a way, the narrative perspective of "Clara and the Sun" is reminiscent of the conscientious but taciturn senior butler in "The Long Day Is Ending." The theme above is reminiscent of "Don't Let Me Go", which depicts the theme of replicants, because the final question to be answered by this work seems to be: What is the thing that makes people unique?

But what makes Clara and the Sun even more unique is that he tells the story from the perspective of a robot. In other words, he began to reflect on the uniqueness of people from a robot that is often considered non-unique, but has been accompanying people all the time.

This feeling is completely different from exploring the meaning of life and existence from the perspective of a replicator. Because we are placed in an other that is completely different from ourselves and is not life. Although we encounter it every day, the robots we often see in life and movies have always been a very strange thing in people's hearts. Even a thing people are afraid of, especially when he is very similar to himself, he will feel more anxious.

The story of "Clara and the Sun" takes place in a distant future. Clara in the book is an AI robot named AF (Artificial Friend). Just like their English names, they are the "artificial friends" of mankind. They were created to accompany children to grow up. In a way, it's a bit like a child or a personal servant at home. In some cases, Eve is a large toy for children. Children with Aifu usually show off with a robot in front of everyone, and order Aifu to perform certain tricks to show how powerful their Aifu is, or what advanced equipment or technology they have.

In the book, Clara is not the latest model of Ave, but compared to other models, she is a curious and observant Ave. When she was still in the shop window with other robots for sale, she often watched the crowd outside the window, observed the interaction between people and asked questions and expressed her observations to the manager, which amazed the manager.

She noticed that although she, like most Aifu, was looking forward to finding a home in the future, she looked forward to and imagined how she would get along with the children in that family. But getting along with people is not as simple as it seems. While many Aifu envied an Aifu and a child walking on the road, Clara saw from some of their subtle interactions that the child and that Aifu were not happy. Many times, although Aifu is the "person" who spends all day with the child, the relationship with the child may be the worst. As she observed: "A girl may smile at her Eve, but she's actually mad at him and is thinking about how to fix him in that moment."

On the other hand, the interaction between people is the same. Compared with the joy and laughter that many Aifu see in people's behavior, Clara has seen people's loneliness in people's smiles from the very beginning. and resentment.

Clara's observations have always been deeply focused on the emptiness within people. And this emptiness in the story is related to people's desire for companionship and understanding. Jushi was the child who later chose Clara as her companion, but the longer Clara stayed in the house, the more she realized that the reason why she was chosen was not simply because Jushi saw her love at first sight. Fu.

From the beginning of observing Qiushi's walking posture, Clara knew that Qiushi suffered from a serious illness that was not easy to recover. Later, she even learned that a sister of Qiushi had passed away because she could not survive the same disease. Although Qiushi survived several outbreaks, she is still in the shadow of illness and may die unexpectedly at any time.

On a certain occasion, Qiushi was resting at home because of a relapse. Regardless of her daughter's thoughts, Joshi's mother forced Clara to the waterfall where she was going to go on an outing. There, Josie's mother asked Clara for the first time to imitate her daughter to interact with her. Next, Clara slowly learned that the reason why her mother chose her was not only because Qiu Xi liked her, but also because she was observant and had strong empathy for this model. The first time I saw Qiushi, I observed her pain, remembered her features, and at the same time, I could imitate the appearance and tone of Qiushi's walking and talking. Therefore, I hope she can observe and collect all kinds of information about her daughter while accompanying Qiushi. If her daughter really passed away like her sister Sarah one day, she hoped that Clara would be able to replace her daughter. Don't hesitate to hire a designer to redesign a sculpture Aifu that completely imitates her daughter's figure. If Qiushi dies unfortunately, she will pour all the data about Qiushi carried by Clara into this work, making it a new one. "Jushi" works.

They want to believe that in this age of technological advancement, there is nothing in a person that cannot be converted into data, and thus replicated and manipulated. Just like the following passage from the designer to convince his mother:

"We've always believed that there's something in each of us that's untouchable, something unique and untransferable. But now we all know that there's no such thing in the world. You know, for people our age, it takes It's so hard to let go. We have to let go, Chrissy, there's nothing there. There's nothing in Jussey that Clara of this world can't carry on. The second Jusey won't be a replica. She'll be the same person , and you have the right to love her as you love Josie now..."

In another paragraph, Joshi's father asks Clara whether Jushi really has a "heart" that cannot be replicated:

"Clara, I have a question for you. Do you believe in the human heart? Of course, I don't mean the organ. I mean in the poetic sense, the human heart. Do you think there is such a thing? The one that makes each of us Something that becomes a unique individual.”

Is everything about human beings data that can be replicated by machines? became the central theme of Clara and the Sun. This question also became a contradiction in Clara's own "heart". From a certain point of view, Qiushi's mother is her own employer, and most of her orders should not be disobeyed. But on the other hand, according to the original purpose of being made, his mission and responsibility should be to become Qiushi's "best friend" until she abandons herself to the best of her ability to accompany her to grow up. And the two will collide. Even if I can completely imitate and replicate Jushi's personality, emotions, thoughts and all behaviors, is such a replacement really good?

What Clara began to think about here, in addition to the question of whether the inner man can be replicated, is actually asking the meaning of her company. Because companionship is for the purpose of observing, recording, and copying other people's data? If not, what is the point of accompanying a person outside of observation?

There is a plot in the novel, small but interesting. It happened when Joussy took Clara to find her lover, Rick, for the first time. At that time, after seeing Clara, Rick complained to Qiushi, why did she buy an Eve to accompany her? Because isn't it said that the two of them only need each other? Why buy another machine? Could it be that he is not even better than a machine? "It's not like that," Jussey explained to Rick, and then he turned around and started quietly playing with a row of robotic birds he'd built. Watching them fly line by line in the sky without a word.

Although they have no intelligence, aren't these robot birds like Eve who accompanies Rick? From this point of view, the "machine" represented in "Clara and the Sun" is a substitute for companionship. Or, it is the companionship of a part of a person who cannot be accompanied and understood by others. In this part, others who are human like themselves cannot accompany him, because he is often a selfishness that human beings cannot share with others. At certain moments, just like the desire of Jussey's mother that Clara could replicate her daughter, a person sometimes wants others to be who they want to be, or to understand themselves according to their own ideals. This is exactly why robots and dolls are created, because it seems that only dolls, robots, and virtual idols can act and accompany the side of their hearts that is difficult to tell and cannot be accompanied, understood, and experienced by others. "Machine" is not something external to people, but resides in the "heart" that people cannot tell others from the very beginning, representing the loneliest and loneliest part of human beings.

"These things have benefited me a lot, not only did I understand that 'change' is part of Josie, and I have to be ready to adapt to them, I've learned that it's not just Josie's character. People tend to feel that there are It’s necessary to show people a certain aspect of them as if they were in the window, and when things change, it doesn’t have to be taken too seriously.”

In Clara's observation, we see a delicate writing, but also a profound companionship. Kazuo Ishiguro seems to have told us that the task of literature is actually a kind of companionship, just like reading. And if the machine accompanies the part that people cannot accompany and understand, then writing may be the earliest artificial AI invented by human beings.

This may be why the world is filled with many works featuring machines, dolls, and human beings who have lost their emotional abilities, describing their journey from the beginning without emotion, to the journey that finally develops emotion, innerness, and love. Because people do not understand what emotion is from the beginning, but through the experience of practicing writing, practicing getting along and practicing love, they finally create their own emotions.

"Mr. Capaldi believed that there was nothing special in Jussey's mind that could not last. He told his mother that he had been searching for a long time, but could not find it. But now I believe he was looking in the wrong place. There is indeed a special Things, but not in Jushi's heart, but in the hearts of all those who love her."

Regarding "uniqueness", Clara later gave her own answer. The most unique thing about a person does not exist in that person, but is given by others. It exists and is born in the company and interaction of people. We can copy and retain all of a person's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, and turn them into data that can be converted back and forth. But to understand the uniqueness of this person, in the end, you can't just look in this person, but you must go back to everyone who has come into contact with him.

On the other hand, the reason why the novel is called "Clara and the Sun" may also be because, for Clara, even if the sun has no words, it has always been with her, and has always provided her with a source of energy for free. On the other hand, the human beings in the story, the sun is even in the whole play, and has been with Clara until the end, who has been working hard for human beings.

Is this constructing the myth that "machines" are actually more emotional and even more "human" than humans? I don’t think so. In fact, even these delicate and empathetic observations and actions of Clara are a projection of the “machine” (a kind of inner loneliness) that we humans write about. What Kazuo Ishiguro wants to do is to briefly take us away from the human perspective, and tell us that there is nothing unique about human beings, because "uniqueness" has always been given by others.

The irony is that perhaps with the advancement of technology, people increasingly use the processing and transformation of machines to understand their relationship with others, and no longer have the energy and time to face others who are always around us. Therefore, it is no longer possible to understand and appreciate the uniqueness that exists in the interaction between people. We want others to understand us, but we no longer learn to accompany us. We can only cast a kind of utopian about others and ourselves into the machines we create, hoping that through "machines" and non-human "animals", human beings will not face To each other, they can say that they are "unique".

(This article is simultaneously published on Fanggezi Blog: Literature Lab )

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