Kazuo Ishiguro

That's really interesting, the connection you have made between being 'in service' and autism. I think I see what you mean. The idea of following instructions and a routine, working towards a 'greater good' without having to come up with one's own path in life. Am I understanding you correctly? That does seem reassuring, if there was an authority to follow that could fully be trusted, unlike the one in which poor Stevens placed his faith. If you are interested in other novels with benevolent AI, I must recommend 'Machines Like Me' by Ian McEwan. It's a good companion to 'Klara and the Sun' because McEwan has similarly made his artificial character 'good' in a way that the human characters are not. Also, the best unreliable narrator I have ever read was in 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' by Shirley Jackson. It's told from the POV of an 18 year old girl who lives a reclusive life with her older sister and one of them may or may not have killed the rest of the family by poisoning. It's obviously dark, but not gruesome or straying into horror - in fact, you might like the way of life the sisters have built together which follows a calm routine with elements of superstition and family eccentricity. It's quite appealing - murder aside! Apologies if you don't want book recommendations, I'm a librarian and it's hard to resist sometimes! Do you have any for me? Which are your other favourite Ishiguros? I would say 'The Buried Giant' does have an unreliable narrator but more because he can't remember things rather than self-deception or trying to deceive the reader.

My mother wanted to be a librarian (she and my father both had 'attention to detail' in common as she became a primary school teacher with a particular interest in English (spelling, grammar, punctuation etc) and my father was a senior accountant all his career overall) and was involved at the school libraries she worked at as a teacher at the same time. I respect libraries and have used them a lot, what's your library like? The poet Philip Larkin was a librarian his whole career while writing his poetry on the side, I especially like his poem 'This Be The Verse' which I can relate to a lot.

Maybe_Sally said:

Am I understanding you correctly?

Yes, you get the idea. Thank you for the recommendations, I'll look out for them. I treated myself to 3 Olivia Laing books in the last year, The Trip to Echo Spring and The Lonely City I've read and am pleased I did and To The River I look forward to reading in time 

I had never heard of Olivia Laing and, having looked up their books, they really sound like something I might enjoy too - especially 'The Lonely City'; so I have ordered this one through the county library service. I am trying to come to terms with loneliness myself and I look forward to reading about loneliness, art and New York. Thanks, good recommendation :D

I work in a school library, in a big comprehensive school with a sixth form - we have around 12000 books, adult fiction and non-fiction as well as junior fiction, comic books, manga, etc. It's also used as a social space by students for playing chess, Dungeons & Dragons, etc. It's great! But I am certainly no Philip Larkin.

How about you?

I like reading poems and reciting them out loud sometimes but haven't got into writing them myself. Synchronistically, a poem I particularly like is this one by Henry Normal https://henrynormal.com/

I went along to see him live again last month and he did this one too as is popular generally

The Olivia Laing books are definitely high quality and relatable enough (as opposed to too high brow etc) to me too. I hope you and some of the students find them interesting and helpful 

At school I hung around the school library quite a lot e.g. in break times as it was a more peaceful (+ safer) place to be 

I've got into playing Backgammon in recent years (online mainly so far, for fun / social and not using real money) partly as it is good exercise for using numbers instead of words / language for a change 

I like reading poems and reciting them out loud sometimes but haven't got into writing them myself. Synchronistically, a poem I particularly like is this one by Henry Normal https://henrynormal.com/

I went along to see him live again last month and he did this one too as is popular generally

The Olivia Laing books are definitely high quality and relatable enough (as opposed to too high brow etc) to me too. I hope you and some of the students find them interesting and helpful 

At school I hung around the school library quite a lot e.g. in break times as it was a more peaceful (+ safer) place to be 

I've got into playing Backgammon in recent years (online mainly so far, for fun / social and not using real money) partly as it is good exercise for using numbers instead of words / language for a change