Eugene Bookies

hi Bookies all, from up river recalling what good books we Bookies tend to read then further “improve” with our lively conversations, reliably over tasty food & drinks + absorbing side stories, I’m still totally taken  by William Maxwell’s SO LONG. And as usual, Jessica—in Maxwell style—you were wonderfully attentive to every detail, without fanfare, perfect . . . except for missing a few folks. So four of us around the table took on So Long, See You Tomorrow, an excellent replacement [we agreed], for our original choice, Saunders’ VIGIL.

Starting with the main players & frame, this story is set in Maxwell’s actual  hometown, Lincoln, Illinoise, 50+ years after he, as haunted narrator, tells the story of neighboring tenant-farmer families: 1) the Smiths: Clarence & Fern, who [when younger] loved another man, is reacting to her father: proving him wrong [ha] w/this marriage, then doesn’t really love Clarence, tho they have 2 sons: Cletus & Wayne + dog Trixie, beautifully drawn we agreed: a sympathetic character!]  & 2) the Wilsons [Lloyd, Marie, 2 sons, 4 daughters, & Grace: 2^nd wife].  Deep friendship, an affair, + divorce court settlement lead to the murder of Lloyd Wilson & suicide of Clarence Smith. The narrator [author] simultaneously shows us his own childhood, the ultimate tragedy: his mother’s death 2 days after the birth of her 3rd son, & how this along w/his failure to support fellow-construction-site-explorer Cletus, eldest son of the murderer, Clarence–how all this shaped him. We also noted Aunt Jenny as important—like other women & sisters, tending to be care-takers.  Much to admire & pour over, assess & take to heart, we agreed, in this small & unusually concise, sensitive book. 

We also felt some frustration w/the structure.  The way that  Maxwell explained his childhood through both the narrator’s reflections & the private thoughts of varied characters was sometimes challenging. Sense prevailed, however, assisted by the clarity of the author’s intent, his exquisite writing, understatement, social awareness, & heart.  Our respect seemed even deeper learning how closely the store adhered to his life: set in his hometown, his mother dying during a 1919 epidemic, that the book is based on an actual 1922 murder that occurred back when Maxwell & narrator were ~12 years old.

Hearing Maxwell/narrator characterize this book as “a roundabout, futile way of making amends” was difficult—even at the start (p.6) & reinforced at the end. We acknowledged the power of recognizing the boy who knew the murder’s son back when the crime occurred in 1922 as the narrator [& author!] writing this book 50+ years later trying to address his own regrets. Yikes. We also reminded ourselves of the historical context: set just after WWI—hard times with the influenza epidemic of 1918, the ‘20’s depression, struggles for newcomers—distinctions in surviving and optimizing the self, + how adultery destroyed families.

Quite a load of tragedies intensify the emotional tenor of the book, & we touched on the gentle way Maxwell helps us anticipate meaningful moments. In few words, he alerts us to significance, as with the causal bullets on page 6 that clue us to the significance of 1) the murderer as a father with a son known to the narrator & 2) a shameful event. Also telling is the narrator’s awareness that seeing his father happy in an old photo album is troubling—a threat: “It was not the kind of happiness that children are in, but why should that trouble me now? [20 years after his father’s death] I do not even begin to understand it.”  We get a clue this book will give no easy answers. Maxwell’s succinct style & vivid images embed, too—like the snake unable to swallow a big frog that “wouldn’t go down”—akin to the betrayal he felt w/his father’s marriage: another woman at the dinner table AND in his father’s heart!  Children’s feelings are conveyed w/respect, w/an emphasis on the mighty impact of adult behavior on children—parents in particular. We felt all this made for a sober plot, sad yet warmed by the  insightful resonant moments—images that stand, like the two boys walking the struts of the house the narrator’s family was building, departing from their explorations w/a simple So long, see you tomorrow. Until all changes: Cletus, another victim of the killing, and his family vanish.

In good Bookies style, we also indulged varied asides. Local writer Lauren Kessler’s latest book Everything Changes Everything: Love, Loss, and a Really Long Walk, drew attention—prompted by recent local readings + Margie’s reading of it. Also a memoir, this one involved with grief after the deaths of her husband  & daughter [his cancer/death-with-dignity, hers a drug overdose], Kessler walks off across the world alone on a 500-mile Camino trek, step by step processing, believing  she will reset the clock, establish a firm Before-After line & move forward, NOW,  This contrasts w/Maxwell’s way; living decades with his material, he sleeps, eats, ages 4 or 5 decades, finally writing this book after a long absorption/digestion process attentive to detail & disclosure.  These  unlike responses brought to mind Sybil, of The Correspondent, & her treatment of the tragic death of her 8-year-old son—turning to books, letters, distancing & avoidance, until circumstances force her awakening to freshened awareness, & like Maxwell recognize that the actions of adults have huge impacts on children. Death and shame, we see, elicit a range of distinct responses—and books!

As suggested to us by SO LONG’S narrator,  this is not to be a book about happiness, which I think Jessica also emphasized (or Margie? Laura?).  This led us to the sobering scene when Lloyd’s 1^st wife Marie, mother of 2 sons & 4 daughters, asks of her husband, “How could you do this to him? —emphasis on “him,” & the betrayal of the men’s deep friendship, not on the wrong he had done his wife by engaging in an affair with his best friend’s wife.  We were reminded that the divorce settlement found Clarence to be the meaner man rather than the victim of adultery + set a steep monthly alimony beyond his reach. & w/his farm-tenant status lost, what options did he have?  Murder, suicide. And what was his final statement?  The detached ear of Lloyd, an  image that holds without much discussion, mention of these being pre-Freudian times saying enough. 

Taken with this writer’s backstory, we recalled the strength of THEY CAME LIKE SWALLOWS, written in 1937, set in 1918, the year of  Maxwell’s mother’s death, struck by his lasting commitment to this material, all the way to SO LONG, published 43 years later, 1st  in The NYer in 1979 in 2 parts, after he finished his 40-year stint as Fiction Editor [1936-1975}, bringing all that editorial prowess to his writing for another full quarter century. Master of understatement, he made every word count! This book, referred to as one of his seven novels, yet also described as “autobiographical metafiction,”  may not have resolved Maxwell’s feelings of shame, but he sure researched, imagined, dreamed fully to tell/feel the story true. Named a 1981 Pulitzer finalist, the story won a 1982 National Book Award—+ pleased us Bookies, and roused my curiosity: was Maxwell a family man as well as writer & famed NYer editor?  Sure enough!  I’ll attach a touching obit, confirming the kind awareness we sensed in this book, & bringing  to the forefront what was missing that day in the halls when the narrator spotted Cletus–meaningful eye contact.

 —P.S. speaking of other books to read, several arose:  The Things We Never Say, Elizabeth Strout; LAND by Maggie O’Farrell; WHISTLER—Ann Patchett;  The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson [The Lottery]; THE WITCH [mundane & magical, dreamy & disquieting] by Marie N Daiye, translated from French 2025;  & maybe Ruth Ozeki, The Typing Lady?  What did I miss [amidst all I added!]?  —from Mary Ann:

“I’m about halfway through The Gathering by Anne Enright & sort of wishing it was nearer the end. Probably not her best? Difficult family dynamics. Lots of Irish in my family so the imprint is familiar but in this book too fraught for me. I loved her short story in the July 27 ‘25 New Yorker, The Bridge Stood Fast.  

And maybe Arundahati Roy’s Mother Mary Come to Me, another memoir. Or Jayne Ann Phillips, Small Town Girls? also a memoir! Or Jennifer Erpenbeck, Kairos, shortlisted for the Booker. And coming up, June 16 at 6 :00 at Laura’s, NYer short story Cat Person ! This by Kristin Roupenian:  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person  Then Patti Smith’s new memoir Bread of Angels , & who knows, with how impressively Maxwell’s 1980 volume pairs w/his 1937’s They Came like Swallows, we wondered if we might find ourselves settling into another from his 1934 through 1995 works.

Also, as several of us have noted, it’s troubling–devastating–to read that Marjane Satrapi, exiled in France, is gone at the age of 56—“died of sadness.”  Thoughtful NYer article—thank you, Margie, our responses consistent: enormously talented & tenacious,  descriptions of war-torn Tehran … harrowing;  “brave and talented and she had a big impact,” daring outspoken, gone too soon.  Jessica also thought of Rabih Alameddine & “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible. . . “ w/his descriptions of the attacks on Beirut. And again, like Maxwell’s  SO LONG, Satrapi’s “Persepolis” is autobiography: her life growing up in Iran during the 1979 revolution  & its aftermath—and now war again. Heart break.

Meeting Recap from Deb:

Ever a special evening together, Bookies! —and Jessica, your hosting, deck & home, offered sweetly conclusive summer unanimity. The dinner was scrumptious—and beautiful, consistent with the broader view—and nice the way the pieces always tend to fit to make a tasty meal combo. Unlike some books.  Perfect to pair all the upbeat (seeking balance!) with the less positive reception to BEAR, which clearly did not draw a rousing round of approval—tho’ I really appreciate being in a group that reads closely + feels deeply, and that we can disagree— + fully promote our various perspectives.  

BEAR did sometimes lag & repeat, as was noted, and maybe the main characters didn’t seem to advance much [tho didn’t Danny and Ben help?], but I sure was prime for a book that kept at heart the animal within us, the secrets we humans keep even among our loved ones—and our varied ways of seeing and not seeing (clawing and growling), + the mother/child sis-to-sis dynamics—caring for + getting in the way—relevant stuff to me, for which I’m grateful to Julia Phillips for bringing us this wedding of person & bear —head chomp (Bear turning to Elena for comfort: “It [He!] bit into her to be close, closest, made one.  …wed” . . . The intimacy of it.  The ecstasy.).  Together. Transformed—fairy tale brought to life just up the valley in the San Juans. 

From Margie:

As to Absolution, one of the themes I found most powerful involved the precarious and unpredictable results of our individual moral choices. When we try to “do good,” should we be judged by our intentions or by the consequences of our actions? In order to control those consequences, should we limit our activity to small-scale, well-considered situations? Or should we go big — acting the “lady bountiful” while figuring that there will be impacts both good and bad? 

From Deb:

 An insightful and skilled writer, McDermott, I’d still maintain, spent too long setting up the banality of these military women/wives & their garden parties and healing-fixes in the first half of the book (OK, + miscarriages), but yes, the pace picked up, dynamics kicked in: wahoo! There’s much more could be said about  “helpmeets,” “inconsequential good,” what is assumed & what goes unsaid–friendships!  (“she’s yours.”)

  Meeting wrap up from Deb on Covenant of Water by Verghese:

Agreeing with what’s been praised: such hospitality—comfortable setting from the beautifully evolving porch on through & tasty spread: thank you, Kim—& others for additions, everyone for making last night into a special evening centered on a splendid book (my modifier, not the group’s!).  Though we DID all confirm what a really BEST-ever book-group we are, & that heart-felt consensus feels great.  Differing on elements of THE COVENANT is part of what I value, too: varied perceptions, with solid sources.  Maybe it did go on too long with 2 or 3 too many substories, or could have been trimmed.  Though for me, I don’t want to lose any strands or little forecasters: am wowed by all the perspectives brought to this multi-faceted epic—which seemed even more impressive as each of you contributed from your own areas of expertise (as you were noting, Jessica), & awareness, adding more from studies, travel, priorities, + varied takes on weight, direction & credibility.  I appreciate all that input, feel we could meet again on this one!

Also, a couple points (of dozens possible despite our focused discussion) I want to note: late in the book, when under stress speaking to Mariamma  about Elsie’s leprosy (p. 712), Digby’s old Scottish accent slips into his speech.  At first the words hit me as typos but then the accent was acknowledged: another move that could be considered distracting, or an insightful enlargement!  I love it!  And the way that Mariamma realizes the gift she possesses of being able to look at a 2-D rendering & create it 3-D, at 1^st seems minor but as is often the case w/Verghese, the detail grows in significance as the book progresses.  Plus the way she talks to the Stone Woman, acknowledging it’s not a “tumor of thought” as a component of The Condition that she needs to pursue  (as she pours over Philipose’ 200 journals!), or solving its mystery that she is after, but her mother!  (Then she realizes it’s her mother who has held the cup she has put coins into —the Beggar Woman at the corner!  That’s almost too much?) And how many characters lost their mothers?  Many tracks that might be mapped, intersections flagged. And so much that could be learned—like about Naxalites & changes in medicine, including bedside manner & treatment of patients, as noted–that we got a start on!.

Meeting followup by Deb:

As everyone has noted, a wonderful and well timed, lovely evening together, comfortable & tasty on all levels, Jessica: thank you!   Such a good feeling to have six of us comfortably gathered around a grand new table in such a welcoming colorful chirp-happy yard to take up Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing!

—so a few thoughts sifted from our conversation, agreeing that before we disperse next time each person might offer a blurt/blurb/bit to pin to our monthly book report? —additions, edits welcome now, including input from you absent adventurers, too.’ massively misguided painful decisions—w/parallels to prohibition noted—and the extraordinary strength of Cassidy Hutchinson, barely 23 when she was taking in the Oval Rm January-6 events,  we segued from her disclosures of the day to our book, SING. We noted its closing with the youngest child of the book’s three generations, wee Kayla, holding vision, voice, singing the Unburied home—an uplift in the bleak narrative of our country’s injustices, pretense of equality with the end of slavery . . . straying—delving!—into the ongoing strings . . . Relevant.

Noting the narrative weaves in time—past & present (assisted by the dead—Given & Richie), we explored the impact of the multiple voices, which sometimes seemed problematic + generated curiosity about how the story would read from an omniscient viewpoint—observing that probably Ward would be effective from that perspective, too. What we wouldn’t want to lose is the powerful attachment achieved by beginning with JoJo on his 13th b’day when Pop slaughters a goat to cook up for dinner—with JoJo’s help keenly detailed.  Within very few pages we love Jojo, sense his importance to the narrative, his family, little sis Kayla—Michaela (Michael & Leona’s 2^nd child). We plunge into a tangle of relationships among characters we come to know through varied view-points, raising questions about the coherence of addicts (& how tough it is), & thoughts on artist-writers’ license & Ward’s command (+experience with car-sickness & vomit, mother of two!).

A reviewer notes parallels w/Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, which led to talk about other echoes that Ward acknowledges, including the Odyssey—two tempting trouble-coated sirens bearing Michael home [road-trip reworked from prison now], this a book Ward researched seriously, covering history & places she had not known & now would etch for us—like Parchman Farm, the “work-camp” Pen. She achieves her goals, we seem to agree (although Salvage the Bones might be stronger yet + tougher to read? And Men We Reaped, her memoir offers another personal perspective on racism).  Also, Ward credits her editor as prompter to give voice to 12-yr-old Parchman prisoner Richie as one of the narrators: bring back the dead + bury the dead!  This is not unrelated to vomit, which we also discussed after dinner: throwing up the past, which doesn’t swallow-down digest easy.  [Also, worth adding is that the importance of Pop to Richie went the other way, too (p. 69): that Pop, like his great grandmama was “made a animal.  Until that boy came out on the line until I found myself thinking again.  Worrying about him. Looking out the corner of my eye at him lagging crooked like a ant that’s lost scent.”]  —a reminder that not only is Ward able to drive a strong narrative, but is poetic: P279: “Kayla patted his arm again, but she didn’t ask for another pecan.  Just rubbed him like Pop was a puppy, flea-itching and half-bald, starved for love.”   or 253 in a Jojo Chapter when Pop is providing the “end” to Richie’s story: “He is balanced on his toes, and he could be made of stone. But every part of Pop moves: his hands as he speaks, his shoulders folding forward as softly as a flower wilting at the hottest part of the day.  I’ve never seen them do that.  His face, all the lines of his face, sliding against each other like the fault lines of the great fractured earth.  What undergirds it: pain.  The sledgehammer fallen.” –another place that Ward enlarges beyond a speaker’s likely perceptions. Effectively.

We might have talked more about death—introduced by Jojo at the start, made concrete on p.235: “What happens when you pass away?” he asks. . . . It’s like walking through a door, Jojo, Mam answers. . . .  Death a great mouth set to swallow.  . . . [becoming a ghost] only happens when the dying’s bad. Violent . . . so awful even God can’t bear to watch. … [but not me] I’ll be [here] on the other side of the door.

Character development was generally praised—Pop offering a strong resilient model for Jojo to look-up to, and also embodying such wrenching experiences that it’s hard to fathom the pain of the challenges faced by him and others.  Then, after 282 pages we follow Richie up the tree, get to the birds/feathered leaves/women, men, boys & girls, black, brown, smoke-white baby, —ghosts approached by Kayla (w/a catalogue of atrocities they’ve experienced inserted, p.282); she sings them home.  [and Ward makes sure it registers “the way she takes all the pieces of everybody and holds them together is all her. Kayla” —our history carried with us, & a reminder how things CAN add up—even skipping generations!) The character of Mam & Leonie are comprehensive, too—one the ultimate care-taker, the other “ain’t got the mother instinct . . . She aint never going to feed you” as Leonie’s mother Mama says—and seems at the base of why to Jojo, Gram is Mam, Mama is Leonie, and Jojo nurtures Kayla. We talked a bit too about how Ward doesn’t pin specific causes down, showing how living in poverty as victims of racism takes its toll on many who don’t have the strength of Mam & Pop—like w/brother Stag. An impressive feat, and excellent read.

And CK finds a link back to the main characters of Ward’s earlier book, Salvage the Bones: Ch. 10 (Leonie) page 197: Skeetah & Esch are walking a black dog on a chain on a street in Bois!   What else?   Received 2017 National Book Award!

From MaryAnne: Characters live in watery environment and flooding is a constant threat. Water also shelters dangerous animals and powerful spirits.

Thanks to Deb for an excellent recap:

What a special evening: dinner reunion, astounding book, sweet welcome bit of catching up among us + discussionà eager for us ALL to gather, + still delighting in the book & night—& going to indulge in waxing wordy since I’ve missed after-din responses & we didn’t get to Zoom everyone in!  What a book & evening together!  We all seemed fully impressed with the way Swiv tells the 3-gen- story from her 9-yr old perspective –framed as a letter. or letterS [tho we really didn’t talk about structure much, other than commending the tight knit of details] —mainly a letter to her Dad who has split, Mom—Mooshie—who is freaking out with her geriatric pregnancy & Grandma with one foot in the grave, Gord inside readying for his first appallingly nude [ultrasound] photos!  And where’s Dad? That, Gram says, is the $64,000 question, in her aptly articulated way.   Adventures abound, timing is perfect w/jump cuts prevailing & as noted, knit nicely, too: the two cobalt candle holders Momo gives Gram 2 wks before Momo dies reappearing 200 pages later when nephew Lou has a candle for Gramma to take home to put in those holders from his Auntie. It’s empathetically cast, deadly serious, and LOL funny in a genius way (sure seems Toews’ due a MacArthur!) w/narrator Swiv’s insights uncanny, the language she hears & repeats eerily alive in Toew’s innovative way of conveying dialogue. 

       And besides appreciating the LETTER set-up, the 2 parts are fitting, too—moving from HOME to AWAY w/Swiv & Gram traveling to the USA, to see nephews Lou, who is struggling (in pain?), & Ken, w/Swiv along as caretaker—+ driver of Ken’s convertible [meeting those cool teen guys—ever husband/lover potential!]after Grandma finds her way to the Old Folks Home to see her not-yet-dead friends & does a little dance for them w/a high kick lays her flat, leaves her w/a missing tooth & lisping + broken arm—& ailing heart, maybe ODing on the T-3s she miscounts. Swiv such a care-taker, and Ma-mooshie searching, Toews drawing on her own life w/impressive timing, wisdom, humor, & empathy [!], Gram’s responses to the Lobby caretaker & hospital worker who must bill her for her sling truly respecting the needs of the vulnerable (not lesser but with more at risk)—an amazing feat, + letting the Rat guy who defends rats as just trying to survive also offers his wisdom: divorce breaks you down & you have to reinvent yourself (which Toews also seems to know)—all building to Gram’s “negotiated surrender” already forecast as being timed with Gord’s birth way back at the start [!] . . .   [stop, deb.]

—SO, this book’s genius achievement really gets complicated / extended w/Toew’s unusual (to say the least) “Personal History” essay “THE WAY SHE CLOSED THE DOOR, Facing the past on a frozen river in Winnipeg” in the NYer Feb 14 & 21 issue. Thanks to the reader/s who mentioned it [Laura, Margie ?!]. Talk about an incredible piece of writing—sentences that cover decades + cross continents & marriages, imagining a conversation that didn’t quite take off, back in Paris a decade + earlier, (waiting for a “boyfriend” who wants to be called a husband) a conversation over coffees to hold Toew’s History (not unlike the letter format of FIGHT NIGHT but even more wacky & enjambed).  Anyway, she leaves me marveling, as did dinner: Margie, your multi-faceted Persian feast especially unusual & tasty, setting completely conducive to relaxing & relishing being together unmasked, in person, + reflecting on this amazing book. Deep thanks to each of you for all you bring to our group (even when absent, a sense of you’s with us!).

love, deb — & not to forget Gram’s subversive advice [p20]:

We loved this book! Laura, Deb, Catherine and Margie shared additional information.

The New Yorker reviewer was not quite as taken as we were. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/04/anthony-doerrs-optimism-engine

Literary Mood Board: The delightfully obscure items that inspired Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land https://ew.com/books/cloud-cuckoo-land-anthony-doerr-literary-mood-board/

NPR Review:Anthony Doerr’s New Novel Spans Centuries, Yet Fits Together Like Clockwork https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041004908/anthony-doerr-cloud-cuckoo-land-review

The New York Review of Books: The Other Rome (Incomplete article here. See Margie’s email for entire article.) https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/02/10/the-other-rome-peter-brown/

By Radhika Jones

• Published Feb. 23, 2021Updated March 1, 2021

KLARA AND THE SUN
By Kazuo Ishiguro

About halfway through “Klara and the Sun,” a woman meeting Klara for the first time blurts out the kind of quiet-part-out-loud line we rely on to get our bearings in a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. “One never knows how to greet a guest like you,” she says. “After all, are you a guest at all? Or do I treat you like a vacuum cleaner?”

This is Ishiguro’s eighth novel, and Klara, who narrates it, is an Artificial Friend, a humanoid machine — short dark hair; kind eyes; distinguished by her powers of observation — who has come to act as companion for 14-year-old Josie. Like that childhood stalwart Corduroy, she’d been sitting in a store, hoping to be chosen by the right child. AFs aren’t tutors. They’re not babysitters (though they’re sometimes chaperones), nor servants (though they’re expected to take commands). They’re nominally friends, but not equals. “You said you’d never get an AF,” Josie’s friend Rick says, accusingly — which makes Klara the mark of some rite of passage they didn’t want to accede to. Her ostensible purpose is to help get Josie through the lonely and difficult years until college. They are lonely because in Josie’s world, most kids don’t go to school but study at home using “oblongs.” They are difficult because Josie suffers from an unspecified illness, about which her mother projects unspecified guilt.

“Klara and the Sun” takes place in the uncomfortably near future, and banal language is redeployed with sinister portent. Elite workers have been “substituted,” their labor now performed by A.I. Clothing and houses are described as “high-rank.” Privileged children are “lifted,” a process meant to optimize them for success. Readers of Ishiguro’s 2005 novel “Never Let Me Go” will viscerally recall the sense of foreboding all this awakens. If I am being cagey about it, it’s to preserve that effect. But for the inhabitants of the novel, the older generation of whom remember the way things were, these conditions have been normalized, to use the banal language of our own era. Here is Josie’s father, a former engineer: “Honestly? I think the substitutions were the best thing that happened to me. … I really believe they helped me to distinguish what’s important from what isn’t. And where I live now, there are many fine people who feel exactly the same way.” Through Klara, we pick up bits of overheard conversation: a mention of “fascistic leanings” here; a reference to Josie’s mysteriously departed sister there; the woman outside the playhouse who protests Klara’s presence: “First they take the jobs. Now they take the seats at the theater?”

For four decades now, Ishiguro has written eloquently about the balancing act of remembering without succumbing irrevocably to the past. Memory and the accounting of memory, its burdens and its reconciliation, have been his subjects. With “Klara and the Sun,” I began to see how he has mastered the adjacent theme of obsolescence. What is it like to inhabit a world whose mores and ideas have passed you by? What happens to the people who must be cast aside in order for others to move forward? The climax of “The Remains of the Day” (1989), Ishiguro’s perfect, Booker Prize-winning novel, pivots on a butler’s realization that his whole life has been wasted in service of a Nazi sympathizer. (“I gave my best to Lord Darlington. I gave him the very best I had to give and now — well — I find I do not have a great deal more left to give.”) A subplot in Ishiguro’s first novel, “A Pale View of Hills” (1982), involves an older teacher in postwar Nagasaki whose former student renounces his way of thinking. “I don’t doubt you were sincere and hard working,” the former student tells him. “I’ve never questioned that for one moment. But it just so happens that your energies were spent in a misguided direction, an evil direction.” In “Never Let Me Go,” clones “complete” after fulfilling their biological purpose. In “Klara and the Sun,” obsolescence reaches its mass conclusion: Whole classes of workers have been replaced by machines, which themselves are subject to replacement. It nearly happens to Klara. In the story’s first section, a new, improved model of AF arrives and bumps her to the back of the store.

“Klara and the Sun” lands in a pandemic world, in which vaccines hold the promise of salvation but the reality of thousands of deaths a day persists, and a substantial portion of the American population deludes itself into thinking it isn’t happening. Our own children have been learning on oblongs and in isolation. The crisis of this novel revolves around whether Josie, with Klara’s help, will recover from her illness — and whether, if Josie doesn’t recover, her mother, with Klara’s help, will survive the loss. It turns out that to “lift” her daughter, to ensure Josie will thrive amid her world’s “savage meritocracies” (I’m quoting from Ishiguro’s 2017 Nobel lecture, an enlightening document as to his state of mind), her mother has knowingly risked Josie’s health, her happiness, her very life — a calculation that sounds terrible on paper until one realizes how common it already is.

Considering the place of “Klara and the Sun” in Ishiguro’s collected works — which cohere astoundingly well, even “The Unconsoled” (1995), powered as it is by the dreamlike absorption and reconciliation of unfamiliar circumstances — I found myself thinking of Thomas Hardy, the way Hardy’s novels, at the end of the 19th century, captured the growing schism between the natural world and the industrialized one, the unclean break that technology makes with the past. Tess Durbeyfield earns her living as a dairymaid before agricultural mechanization, but she channels early strains of what Hardy presciently calls “the ache of modernism.” She represents a mode of being human in nature before machinery got in the way.

Klara is a man-made marvel. She lacks the fluidity of human mobility such that to negotiate a gravel driveway is a project of careful intention. But like the great outdoors, she runs on solar power, and she ventures deliberately into the natural world at critical points in the story, communing with the sun to try to help Josie with matters bigger than either one can comprehend. Klara’s perception, too, is at once mechanical and deeply subjective. Fields of vision appear in squares and panels, so that you can imagine (through her eyes) pictures processed and bitmapped, resolving themselves the way a high-definition image resolves on a screen, but with a shifting focus that seems tied to her interpretation of the events and environment around her. Seeing the world from Klara’s point of view is to be reminded constantly of what it looks like when mediated through technology. That might have felt foreign a century ago, but not anymore.

Klara is likable enough — as she was manufactured to be — but it’s hard to empathize with her on the page, which is maybe the point. The stilted affect that so often characterizes Ishiguro’s prose and dialogue — an incantatory flatness that belies its revelatory ability — serves its literal function. Klara’s machine-ness never recedes. Unlike most of Ishiguro’s first-person narrators, however, she seems incapable of deluding herself. Her technological essence presents some childlike limitations of expression, but are they more pronounced than the limits born of the human desire to repress, or wallow, or come across better than we are? “I believe I have many feelings,” Klara says. “The more I observe, the more feelings become available to me.” This statement had the peculiar effect, on me anyway, not of persuading me of her humanness but of causing me to consider whether humans acquire nameable feelings all that differently from her description. Which is maybe also the point.

In an interview with The Paris Review in 2008, Ishiguro said he thought of “Never Let Me Go” as his cheerful novel. Never mind that it centers on a trio of clones bred specifically to have their organs harvested. “I wanted to show three people who were essentially decent,” he said. Klara carries that quietly heroic mantle. Look at the characters Ishiguro gives voice to: not the human, but the clone; not the lord, but the servant. “Klara and the Sun” complements his brilliant vision, though it doesn’t reach the artistic heights of his past achievements. No moment here touches my heart the way Stevens does, reflecting on his losses in “The Remains of the Day.” Still, when Klara says, “I have my memories to go through and place in the right order,” it strikes the quintessential Ishiguro chord. So what if a machine says it? There’s no narrative instinct more essential, or more human.

Radhika Jones is the editor in chief of Vanity Fair and holds a doctorate in English and comparative literature from Columbia University.