Manipulative in the register of 80s Amblin almost-kitsch: masterfully so, and with expert control of the dials. Not to say it never missteps; parts are too cute, and Klara is occasionally obnoxiously precocious, or uncomprehending to the point of estrangement; I suspect this book's divisiveness comes down to how willing the reader is to entertain their sentimental streak. If you are not, then you can take a look at the other review for this book on the site and get a good feel for how sour this can be to a savoury palate. I'm a softy, though, so I appreciated how bleak Ishiguro was willing to make something so approachable.

Ishiguro is a good (some would even say great!) writer of works without necessarily having much of a command over the words within. He freely admitted to such in an interview with The Guardian last year; he knows his talents lie in the emotional undercurrents he taps into. Young hope, the dissonance of faith in an uncompromising and uncomprehending world, that love, deep and true, can be dumped on the side of the road like a bag of garbage; I like how much you can tell these things bother him. That's what really connected me to this work, not the profundity of its observations; many of them are really quite simple, if elegantly communicated through Klara's alien perspective. No, I really adored how disturbed Ishiguro was by his own conclusions. The narrative's coda is quite something. Ishiguro is almost devastated to report that Klara, a life and personhood almost entirely subservient and then left to rot, a being whose existence was defined by her true faith in the world's invisible goodness, a goodness that she is never afforded, exits this story open-hearted and without regret. I felt similarly deflated, and it is in this connection to the man behind the curtain that I hear the strongest resonance. How could these beautiful and naive and simple truths not be enough? I don't know, man, but I wish they were too.