Read at the start of Eastertide, 2023.

First published in 2021. American spelling (except for “Mum” in Rick’s mom) throughout, though this appears to be a British edition.

Klara’s religiosity surrounding the Sun. Even robots have “the religious sense”. The impetus to worship, to strive after infinity, is not simply part of mankind’s nature, but surfaces in our own intelligent creations. Tolkien’s “Mythopoeia”: We make still by the law in which we’re made. Klara has presumably never been taught about any god, so she worships the only source of her life and being she knows. Some signs of Klara’s religiosity or other religiosity in the book:

• The Sun is personal and masculine and very powerful. Occultatio mysteriorum and Klara’s secrecy around her tasks involving the Sun.
• The Sun’s miracles of healing
• Celestial Sun god vs. chthonic Bull god
• Religious despair as Klara tries to cross the field alone and thinks she will get swallowed up by the earth, despairs that the Sun isn’t kind and is deliberately not healing Josie
• “Sunday’s always the best day for Morgan’s Falls … It’s like the waterfall knows about it being a Day of Rest.”
• Klara makes petitions to the Sun
• Kara makes a covenant with the Sun
• Klara makes a sacrifice of her power, her health, her own self to the Sun, in exchange for Josie’s health
• Klara uses the innocent love of a boy and girl, a true and lasting love, as the highest offering

The potentially supernatural elements, namely Beggar Man and his dog’s healing, Josie’s healing, Klara’s vision or knowledge of Rosa meeting a bad end, are written in such a way that you are free to believe or disbelieve in them, but I think the balance is in favour of miracles. See the following quote regarding the coexistence of the natural and supernatural, from a 2015 interview of Ishiguro by David Barr Kirtley of Wired Magazine:

I am very fond of The Odyssey and The Iliad, actually. Those two Homer works I read regularly in different translations as they come out. I just read the recent translations of both of those books by Stephen Mitchell. I enjoy reading old Greek stuff in general: Euripides, Aeschylus, where the acts of gods are there in a very intimate way — in an almost banal way. People are never surprised at the intervention of particular gods when they do remarkable things, even on the battlefield — as in The Iliad, where they just shrug and say, “Ha! I would’ve got that guy if Athena hadn’t intervened and whipped him away.” So I like that coexistence of gods and the supernatural alongside the banal and the everyday. I was also brought up on a lot of samurai stories as a child — not just samurai folktales, but I read a lot of manga-type stuff featuring samurai. And it may be true to say — maybe I’m generalizing falsely here — that in a lot of Japanese samurai tales, once again, fantastical elements seem to exist very easily and naturally. There’s no big deal about it. A samurai wanders into a town, and the townsfolk say . . . “We’ve got a demon problem on that bridge over there. This demon keeps appearing and frightening people. Could you do something about it? You’re a samurai, you’re good with a sword, please do something about it.” And he says, “Well, all right, give me a nice meal for free, and I’ll see what I can do.” That kind of thing is very typical in not just folktales, but Japanese stories featuring samurai. They’re set in relatively modern times, like nineteenth- or eighteenth-century. And in that landscape, there always seems to be the coexistence of things like oni, as they’ll be called in Japanese folklore, which is a demon-cum-ogre, I guess, and foxes that are shape-changers. Things like that are very, very common, and it seems to tap back into something ancient and profound. So that all comes very natural to me.’

Avoidance of loneliness in an increasingly fragmented society seems to come up throughout this story. Children tend to grow up alone without any friends. AFs (Artificial Friends) are designed to keep their children from getting lonely. Interaction meetings are organized for the children. The AFs in the store are concerned about whether they will get a child and a home to go to. The AFs they see out the window are embarrassed about passing by the store because they think their children might abandon them for newer and better ones. Real children have to get lifted in order to have any hope of a good future. Unlilfted ones are left behind in some way, they can no longer keep up with the other children. Danny, the boy from the Interaction Meeting acts tough but secretly has a toy dog with him to keep him calm during these social occasions. Rick is reluctant to try to get into Atlas Brookings because it will mean leaving his mother on her own (even though she’s really encouraging him to go for it). If Josie and Rick’s plan to live their lives together does not work out, Klara is afraid that neither she nor her mother will be able to stave off her loneliness. If Josie and Rick’s families are representative, then family sizes are small, one or two children, parents don’t stay together. Josie’s mother works Saturdays and only has Sunday off to spend with Josie.

By what mechanism is it that children don’t grow up around each other? Is it just that being lifted requires a specific kind of education that is only available remotely? Only children even more common? Is society fragmented in other ways? People still drive cars, so not sure.

Ishiguro can’t help but express his love for England, the people and the countryside, even in a novel set entirely in the United States. Here he does so mainly through Miss Helen and her aside about hedges.

Similarities with The Remains of the Day: Praise of English countryside, unreliable narrator (Ishiguro is really good at creating these) who is also a devoted servant, both are reflections on one’s past, especially one’s heyday, the peak of one’s career. TRotD feels more like something an old man who’s won a few Nobel Prizes would write, whereas KatS feels more like an experimental, early work!

How does Klara know that Rosa is broken, met a bad end? Her sensitivity goes beyond the natural, extends to some sort of telepathy?

Sal’s bedroom is Klara’s Utility Room?

Criticisms: a little slow-paced. Could have had a bit more action or something in it. I liked the scene in Mr. Capaldi’s building when Klara is able to leave the cubicle, sneak around the balcony, and use her abilities to avoid anyone noticing, and even enter the studio door code that she’s seen Mr. Capaldi enter twice already. Sometimes you forget that Klara is a robot, but funny moments like that jolt you back to the reality when she displays abilities that no human has. Similarly moments like when she tells Rick she has no sense of smell, she lacks abilities that all humans have. More scope for playing with that maybe.

Why was Klara so frightened by the bull? What role does it play in the story? Is it simply the negative aspect of the Sun, his wrath? Interview quote regarding Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: ‘And the “panting ogres” are never mentioned again, they’re just part of the landscape, like unfriendly bulls or something.’

Paul’s “fascistic” or alternative community breaking out of a dystopian society.

What souvenirs is Manager collecting at the end?

Characters

Klara
Rosa
Boy AF Rex
Manager
Josie Arthur
Chrissie Arthur, Josie’s mother
Sal (Arthur?), Josie’s dead sister
Paul (Arthur?), Josie’s father
Melania Housekeeper
Rick
Helen, Rick’s mother
Rick’s dead father
Henry Capaldi
Vance, who works for Atlas Brookings, Helen’s “old flame”

Part One

pp. 1–44, Klara in the store

• p. 1, the store is on the West side of the street, the RPO building is on the East side of the street
• Straightaway when Klara is new her attention is focussed on the window and what she can see out of it
• Straightaway the Sun is given the masculine pronoun, and a capital S
• The store also sells magazines
• “The Sun’s pattern” is its light, e.g. reflected on the floorboards here
  • “nourishment”, “kindness”, “light”, all synonyms?
• The store has some Red Shelves (capitalized) with something arranged on them
  • Upside-down coffee cups, p. 20
• Klara straightaway has a different personality from other AFs of her same generation and sex
• p. 2, there are girl AFs and boy AFs and they themselves believe the difference is significant
• p. 3, most AFs in the store are nervous about not getting enough Sun
• p. 4, Rex, the boy AF, is a B2, third series
  • This model has solar absorption problems, but Manager says no worries unless you live in Alaska or down a mineshaft
  • Klara and Rosa are presumably the same model
  • p. 31 confirms they are not B3
  • p. 42 confirms that at least Klara is is a B2, fourth series
• p. 5, being in the window is the “special honor [sic, American spelling]” of representing the store to the world, cf. The Remains of the Day (“Prologue: July, 1956 — Darlington Hall”, p. 11) when Stevens is worrying about his clothes as he travels, since he represents Darlington Hall
• p. 6, unlike Rosa and the other AFs, Klara is curious about the outside world
• p. 7, we start to see some of the cute, unusual terms Klara uses for things consistently
  • overhaul men = workmen of some sort
  • oblongs = tablet or mobile phone of some sort
• p. 8, Klara more sensitive to children’s emotions, more perceptive and interested in the differences between them, than Rosa
  • Manager knows this
• p. 9, Josie is about 14½ years old
  • p. 13, Josie’s mother is about 45 years old
• p. 10, Josie’s Mom and Mrs. Jeffries are in the taxi talking with the metre still running
  • Mrs. Jeffries is also in high-ranking office clothes, can’t remember whether she will ever come up again, whether we learn any more about her, or is she just in this scene
  • They are obviously very rich and important, people of “society”, cf. p. 129
• It was Josie who asked her Mom to stop at this particular store because she had seen Klara in the window the previous day
• p. 11, Josie thinks Klara looks French because she’s neat, with short hair
• Unlike humans, AFs can look directly at the Sun
• p. 12, Even Rosa forgets herself and stares in astonishment when Josie says that from her room you can see the exact place where the Sun goes down
• p. 13, Rosa notices that they see very few AFs out the window
  • p. 14, Klara notices that when you do see an AF, it is usually on the RPO Building side of the street, and when they do pass by on the store side, they act embarrassed
  • p. 15, perhaps not embarrassed but afraid of newer models, afraid of getting replaced by them, afraid of their children losing interest in them
  • AFs can suffer from loneliness?
• p. 18, Rosa is especially naive or insensitive to human emotions and does not even recognize a fight that breaks out between two taxi drivers as such
• p. 19–21, Raincoat Man and Coffee Cup Lady
  • “I named her in my mind the Coffee Cup Lady because from the back, and in her thick wool coat, she seemed small and wide and round-shouldered like the ceramic coffee cups resting upside-down on the Red Shelves.”
  • Why are the Red Shelves always capitalized?
  • Why are there little upside-down coffee cups in the store? Do they sell coffee cups? Unlikely if they are upside-down. Do they sell coffee? It’s never mentioned, nor any other food or drink. No staff members besides Manager are ever even mentioned.
    • Manager vacuums, p. 27, this menial task is not relegated to some lesser staff member
  • p. 21, Klara tries to imagine how she would feel if by chance she came across Rosa again a long time from now, like Raincoat Man and Coffee Cup Lady; would there be both pain and happiness?
• p. 25, Manager does not praise them at the end of their last day in the window
  • Is she disappointed either that they did not sell or bring in much business?
  • Are sales bad in general? Is this an early hint that all is not well in the AF world/industry? We will go on to find out to find out that AFs are controversial, e.g. p. 242, outside the sushi place and the theatre
• p. 25–26, Klara’s vision is partitioned into ten boxes after she gets off the darkened window sofa and looks back into the store
  • This is the first of many times when she describes this happening
  • Three of the boxes are of Manager, and one is just her eyes, her mouth shows anger and frustration
  • What are the commonalities between each time this happens? It seems to occur when there is suddenly a lot for her to take in, a lot going on, a lot of new and unfamiliar things. This could be a lot of action or motion going on, such as at Morgan’s Falls, driving in the car, a crowded street, etc.; it could be when she is observing emotions on people’s faces, the different parts of their face that tell that emotion, etc.; it could be when there is a sudden change, such as opening a door and looking into the Open Plan
• p. 27, Klara’s view of the street is partitioned into several vertical panels when the Cootings Machine starts operating
• p. 28, the store sells bracelets
  • They are in a glass Display Trolley
• p. 31, Klara rejects the spiky-haired girl
  • This is very interesting, how does she know to do this?
  • She puts a lot of faith in Josie, because of her kind face
  • Perhaps the spiky hair seems like a bad sign to her! Klara is very perceptive
  • The Manager is very surprised by this
  • Is Klara destined for Josie?
• p. 34, Rosa is bought for a boy
  • She is too excited to listen to any of Klara’s advice or her reminder about the Sun’s nourishment
• p. 35, the B3s don’t wish to have anything to do with the B2s and they move away from their Manager-given positions so that they look like a separate group
• p. 36–38, Beggar Man and his dog
  • What happened?
    • The first time I read this, the possibility occurred to me that it might be a ghost story, that Klara had some weird ability to see the souls of the dead man and dog.
    • Or is the Sun a god that has raised them from the dead through a miracle. I think this includes the possibility that the living, Christian God has raised them from the dead and Klara attributes this power to the Sun, who is the most powerful being she knows of.
    • The null hypothesis, i.e. that Klara was mistaken about them being dead in the first place, and nothing really happened except the Beggar Man and dog happened to sleep through most of a day.
  • The blank doorway between the RPO Building and the Fire Escapes Building
    • Is this an alleyway, possibly gated?
    • A bricked-up doorway?
    • A door, but completely featureless?
    • Something else?
  • p. 36, Klara notices the Beggar Man and his dog dead in “an afternoon so gray some taxis had on their small lights”
  • p. 37, “Eventually the Sun was almost behind the RPO Building, and Beggar Man and the dog were exactly as they had been all day, and it was obvious they had died, even though the passers-by didn’t know it.”
  • The next day, “The Sun was pouring his nourishment onto the street and into the buildings, and when I looked over to the spot where Beggar Man and the dog had died, I saw they weren’t dead at all—that a special kind of nourishment from the Sun had saved them. Beggar Man wasn’t yet on his feet, but he was smiling and sitting up, his back against the blank doorway, one leg stretched out, the other bent so he could rest his arm on its knee and with his free hand, he was fondling the neck of the dog, who had also come back to life and was looking from side to side at the people going by. They were both hungrily absorbing the Sun’s special nourishment and becoming stronger by the minute, and I saw that before long, perhaps even by that afternoon, Beggar Man would be on his feet again, cheerfully exchanging remarks as always from the blank doorway. Then soon my six days [in the window] were finished.”
• p. 39, the store has silver vases
• p. 40, Mother has heard B3s have better cognition and recall, but are less empathetic
• p. 41, Josie’s description of Klara: cute, smart, looked almost French, short hair, quite dark, clothes dark too, the kindest eyes, so smart
• p. 42, Klara is a B2, fourth series, “which some say has never been surpassed.”

Part Two

pp. 47–110, Klara at Josie’s until the Morgan’s Falls trip

• p. 47, the store sold bracelets and silver earrings? For people? For AFs?
• p. 49, Is Melania Housekeeper cold towards Klara because she is worried about Josie’s health? Because she knows about the plan to use Klara as a substitute? Part of the general societal distrust of robots that we see later (e.g. p. 242)?
• p. 54, Josie has been to Mr. McBain’s barn once with Rick when they were younger, before she got sick, although it wasn’t at sunset time
  • The barn is open on two sides (a winnowing barn?)
  • Klara wants to know if there was anything unusual near it, such as a gateway or steps going down into the earth, but Josie says no
• p. 57, Klara goes alone to the Open Plan to tell Melania Housekeeper they are going outside
  • The Open Plan looks to Klara like a series of interlocking grids, and Melania Housekeeper is hard to spot at first
• p. 63, lifted children have “interaction meetings” where they socialize with other lifted kids
  • This contrasts with Josie’s organic friendship with Rick whom she grew up alongside
  • Josie’s Mom: “By the time I got to college, I’d had years of being alongside other kids each and every day. But for you and your generation, it’s going to be pretty tough unless you put in some work now.”
  • Remote education is not just because of Josie’s illness; everyone, or at least all the lifted kids, do
  • Seems to imply Josie’s generation may be the first to be lifted
  • Perhaps lifting is necessary in order to compete with AI jobs and avoid being “substituted” like Paul (who was an intelligent and talented engineer)
  • This book was published in 2021, so I wonder if there’s any influence from lockdowns
  • We find out later that old-fashioned schools do exist for the unlifted, but they are not mandatory, p. 146
  • Somehow society has reached a point where middle class children don’t generally grow up around each other
• p. 65, all of the accompanying adults at the interaction meeting are female
  • Mothers seem highly invested in the success of their lifted children, in terms of education and making sure they are properly socialized; they get AFs and organize interaction meetings
  • Is society even more gynocratic? Hard to say, since women are normally highly risk averse around their children and “lifting” them seems to come with a certain risk, mortal danger in fact. Are the women perverted from their natural instincts?
  • Women also seem very career-driven; Josie’s Mom works Saturdays and only has Sunday with Josie, p. 94
• p. 66, one of the adult guests: “Europe. The best housekeepers still come from Europe.”
  • Is Melania Housekeeper from Slovenia, like Melania Trump? The name isn’t specific to Slovenia though.
• p. 66, the adults are all awkward around Rick
  • Maybe they don’t want their kids to socialize with the unlifted
• p. 67, Klara compares a large woman’s figure to a blender; this is reminiscent of Coffee Cup Lady
• p. 70, at the interaction meeting, “the Sun, noticing there were so many children in the one place, was pouring in his nourishment through the wide windows of the Open Plan.”
  • As Klara comes in the sight is portioned into 24 boxes in two tiers so that it takes her a while to make sense of things
• p. 70, Klara’s vision is sometimes synaesthetic, if that’s the right word
  • “There was an unpleasant tint on the three boxes containing the boys on the sofa—a sickly yellow and an anxiety passed through my mind.”
  • Cf. p. 52, Klara sees the sky in an variety of unlikely colours
• p. 72, Rick is a big curiosity to the kids, more so than Klara at first
  • p. 73, Rick: “You know what? I like movies in which horrible things happen. Insects coming out of people’s mouths, things of that nature.”
  • Why does he say this? Does he think it will confirm what they think about him as an unlifted? And then they won’t bother him anymore?
  • Is it the truth that he likes this kind of movie?
  • Why was Josie speaking and looking at him angrily just before demanding he tell them what he likes to watch?
  • Was it also true what he said on the previous page about liking watching old moves with his mother?
  • Is this a kind of rebellion against the sanitized world of lifted kids, whose parents would never let them watch “horrible things”? Cf. Josie’s car crash oblong game that her mother disapproves of, p. 91
• p. 79, to save Klara, Rick embarrasses a lifted boy, Danny, by pointing out the soft toy dog in his pocket
• p. 81, the Open Plan is no longer segmented once most of the children have left.
• p. 86, “Josie remained tired for much of the day. But in the late afternoon, once I raised the bedroom blinds to let the Sun’s pattern fall over her, she became noticeably stronger.”
  • And Klara is a very perceptive, observant robot we are told
• p. 88, Sal died when Josie was little, she doesn’t remember her much
  • Sal is 11 years old in the photo of Morgan’s Falls
  • Josie thinks Sal did not have the same sickness as her, but “something much worse”
  • Is that true?
• p. 88, Josie, “Sunday’s always the best day for Morgan’s Falls. There’s a good atmosphere on Sundays. It’s like the waterfall knows about it being a Day of Rest.”
  • The Day of the Sun!
  • p. 94, Mother works Saturdays
• p. 91, Mother is bothered by the oblong game Josie plays in which people die in car crashes
  • Another instance of this being a very sanitized culture that can’t handle “something awful like that”? Cf. what Rick likes to watch, p. 73
• p. 94, Mother speaks to Melania Housekeeper very authoritatively, peremptorily
  • Melania Housekeeper is at first conflicted about her order to cancel the trip and remove Josie from the car, thinks Josie will “maybe” be okay
• p. 99, Josie’s father was once a rising star at Kimball Refrigeration but he was “substituted”
  • Does this mean made redundant due to AI? Surely his job was highly creative and intellectual though?
• p. 100, Klara sometimes remembers having seen things or concepts in her store’s “interesting magazines”, e.g. a bull (p. 100), a waterfall (p. 87)
  • Were the magazines meant to educate the AFs?
  • We also learn that Manager encouraged the AFs to study different people’s accents, particularly the English accent, p. 146
• p. 100, Klara is freaked out by the bull in the field, though it is far away, she stops and cries out
  • “I’d never before seen anything that gave, all at once, so many signals of anger and the wish to destroy. Its face, its horns, its cold eyes watching me all brought fear into my mind, but I felt something more, something stronger and deeper. At that moment it felt to me some great error had been made that the creature should be allowed to stand in the Sun’s pattern at all, that this bull belonged somewhere deep in the ground far within the mud and darkness, and its presence on the grass could only have awful consequences.”
  • The bull’s raw masculinity is at odds with Klara’s programming and indeed the gynocratic society that programmed her?
  • Here is a chthonic deity set up against the celestial Sun god (who is also masculine however)
  • In a 2015 interview with David Barr Kirtley of Wired Magazine about his then new novel The Buried Giant, Ishiguro talks about where some of his ideas came from for that novel. Some of his inspiration came from reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and he talks about the short passage describing Sir Gawain’s travels across the harsh England of those days in between the two castles. Ishiguro: ‘the bit that really caught my imagination: It says that, “Often he’ll be chased down to villages by wolves or wild boar, or by panting ogres.” And the “panting ogres” are never mentioned again, they’re just part of the landscape, like unfriendly bulls or something. And then he reaches the castle and the story continues, but it was literally a few lines that described some imaginary ancient Britain that really caught my imagination. I thought, “I would like to put my story down there.”’
• p. 101, of the ice-cream stand at the waterfall: “Passers-by were now standing in line there.” Cute robot-y use of “passers-by”.
• p. 103, Mother is weirdly close-lipped about how Sal died, and gets angry when asked.
• p. 104, Mother instructing Klara to pretend to be Josie does remind me of how you tell Chat GPT to assume a role, and the whole AI-is-an-improv-actor thing.
• p. 105, Klara as Josie: “But Mom, Sal was sick with something different. I’m going to get well.”
  • Mother: “Okay, Josie. So tell me how you’ll get well.”
  • K as J: “There’s special help coming. Something no one’s thought of yet. Then I’ll be well again.”
  • M: “What is this? Who’s this talking?”
  • K as J: “Really, Mom. I’m going to be fine.”
  • M: “That’s enough. Enough!”
  • Already Klara believes that help will come from the Sun, cf. p. 115
• p. 106, “As we passed the spot where we’d seen the bull, I looked over the field right into the distance, but the terrible creature was now nowhere to be seen, and I wondered if it had been taken back down into the ground.”
• p. 107, “driving back from the falls, Klara sees sheep, “each one of them was filled with kindness—the exact opposite of the terrible bull from earlier.”

Part Three

pp. 113–180, Josie is ill, Klara’s petition to the Sun

• p. 113, “What was becoming clear to me was the extent to which humans, in their wish to escape loneliness , made manoeuvres that were complex and hard to fathom, and I saw it was possible that the consequences of Morgan’s Falls had at no stage been within my control.”
• p. 115, Klara outside on her own wonders “why the Sun hadn’t yet sent his special help as he’d done for Beggar Man and his dog.” … “Now with Josie so much weaker, and so many things concerning her future in uncertainty, it was puzzling why he continued to delay.”
  • She concludes the Sun must be very busy.
  • Beggar Man was known and seen daily by many people, so anyone could have drawn the Sun’s attention to him. She decides she must draw his attention to Josie.
  • Klara also remembers that the Beggar man incident was not long after the Cootings Machine was taken away.
• p. 122, listening to Rick and Josie chat and play the “bubble game”, Klara realizes “the significance of this plan [of Rick and Josie’s future together] for my own aims; that as the future unfolded, even if the Mother, Melania Housekeeper, and I could remain near her at all times, without the plan, Josie might still not keep away loneliness .”
• p. 124, Rick passes on filling in the speech bubble in a drawing of some eyeball-headed people staring at a girl who seems to enjoy being stared at.
  • Josie: “I’m disappointed, Rick.”
  • Rick: “Then don’t draw pictures like that one.”
• It is clear from Rick’s frequent visits that he does not go to school. Seems like education is not compulsory or at least not for unlifted kids.
  • This is more or less confirmed on p. 146 when Klara talks to Miss Helen
• p. 129, Josie says her Mom has “society” and Rick’s doesn’t
  • “It means you walk into a store or get into a taxi and people take you seriously. Treat you well. Having society. Important, right?”
  • p. 130, “My Mom drives too fast. But at least she’s got courage. It goes wrong with Sal, but even after that she finds the courage to go ahead with me all over again. That takes courage, right?”
  • p. 131, Rick’s last bubble game visit ends in him captioning Josie with: “I wish I could go out and walk and run and skateboard and swim in lakes. But I can’t because my mother has Courage. So instead I get to stay in bed and be sick. I’m glad about this. I really am.”
• Pencils are always “sharp pencils” for Klara.
• p. 139, Klara visits Rick’s house to give him Josie’s special drawing.
  • Rick: “I suppose you noticed the smell.”
  • Klara: “I’m not able to smell.”
  • R: “Oh sorry, I didn’t realize. I assumed smell would be an important faculty. I mean for safety. Burning, things like that.”
  • K: “Perhaps for that reason B3s have been given limited smell. But I have none.”
  • R: “Well that’s lucky for you just now. Because this place still smells. Even though I did the hall this morning. Did it over and over.”
  • K: “Rick’s mother isn’t well?”
  • R: “You could say that. Though she’s not sick in the way Josie’s sick. I’d rather not talk about Mum if you don’t mind.”
• p. 143, Klara asks Rick’s advice about Mr. McBain’s barn, but won’t tell him what her plan is for helping Josie, “I shouldn’t confide just now, in case it’s necessarily a secret.”
  • Occultatio mysteriorum, what she will do is a religious mystery, necessarily a secret.
• p. 145, Rick’s Mum, Miss Helen: “Apparently I wasn’t at my best last night.”
• p. 146, Klara: “English people often came into the store.”
  • The city must be fairly cosmopolitan.
• p. 146, “Rick used to go to a school, you know. I mean a real, old-fashioned one. It was rather lawless, but he made some nice friends there.”
  • … “Well, the long and the short of it is that Rick left the school to take up home tutoring like all the smarter children. But then, well, as you may already know, things grew complicated.”
  • Rick was never lifted like the other children. We are not told their reasons. Maybe the risks were too great for Helen?
• p. 148–149, what Miss Helen saw out the window
  • “What I saw was Chrissie, Josie’s mother, that is. I saw her come out of the grass, just over there, holding someone by the arm. I’m explaining myself rather poorly. What I mean is, it was as if this other person had been trying to run away, and Chrissie had been after her. And she’d caught hold of her, but hadn’t been able quite to stop her. So they’d both of them tumbled out, so to speak. Just over there out from the grass onto our land.”
  • Klara: “Do you mean that you saw Josie’s mother come out of the grass with a child? One other than Josie?”
  • Miss H.: “Chrissie was trying to hold back this person and then she did manage to impose some control. Just out there. Chrissie had both arms around the girl. Rick got here in time to see that part. Then they both vanished back into the grass.”
  • … “The other one looked like Sal, Josie’s sister. That’s why I called Rick. This being a good two years after Sal is supposed to have died.”
  • Rick laughs at the implication that Sal is still alive, hiding in a cupboard
  • But Miss Helen says, “What I’m saying is that the person I saw, trying to run away from Chrissie, looked like Sal. That was all I said.”
  • Is this story part of the reason why Rick is suspicious of Josie getting her portrait done?
• p. 151, Miss Helen: “Incidentally, before you ask. The answer is yes. I do miss England. In particular I miss the hedges. In England, the part of it I’m from anyway, you can see green all around you, and always divided by hedges. Hedges, hedges everywhere. So ordered. Now look out there. It just goes on and on. I suppose there are fences somewhere in the midst of it all, but who can tell.” … “You can tear down a fence in a moment. Then put up another somewhere else. Change the entire configuration of the land in a day or two. A land of fences is so temporary. You can change things as easily as a stage set. I used to act, you know. Sometimes in decent theatres. Wretched theatres too. Fences, what are they? Stage design. That’s the nice thing about England. Hedges give a sense of history properly set down in the land.”
• Josie thinks Rick’s mother is the problem, not wanting to let Rick go, wanting to keep him at home (p. 130), but in fact we see here that Rick’s mother is desperately trying to do what is best for him and get him into Atlas Brookings any way she can (even risking significant humiliation before her old flame). Rick is the one reluctant because he doesn’t think he can leave his mother on her own . At Atlas Brookings he’d be a day’s drive away.
  • Klara is even surprised by Miss Helen’s encouragement of her son and points out that it would leave her “in loneliness ”.
  • p. 154, Klara: “Until recently, I didn’t think that humans could choose loneliness . That there were sometimes forces more powerful than the wish to avoid loneliness.”
  • Miss Helen: “A mother’s love for her son. Such a noble thing, to override the dread of loneliness. And you might not be wrong. But let me tell you, there are all kinds of other good reasons why, in a life like mine, one might prefer loneliness . I’ve often made such a choice in the past. I did so, for instance, rather than stay with Rick’s father. Late father, very sadly, though Rick has no memory of him. Even so, he was for a while my husband, and not an entirely useless one at that. It’s thanks to him we’re able to get by this way, even if we don’t exactly live in splendour.”
  • In The Remains of the Day, could we say that Stevens has chosen loneliness by serving, giving his best to Lord Darlington, for good or ill?
• p. 157, Klara is crossing the fields on her own to Mr. McBain’s barn: “While crossing one particularly unkind box, I heard around me the cries of an animal in pain, and a picture came into my mind of Rosa, sitting on the rough ground somewhere outdoors, little pieces of metal scattered around her, as she reached out both hands to grasp one of her legs stretched out stiffly before her. The image was only in my mind for a second, but the animal carried on making its noise, and I felt the ground collapsing beneath me. I remembered the terrible bull on the walk up to Morgan’s Falls, and how in all probability it had emerged from beneath the ground, and for a brief moment, I even thought the Sun wasn’t kind at all, and this was the true reason for Josie’s worsening condition.”
  • Klara experiences a kind of religious despair, maybe even demonic attack
  • Is her vision of Rosa true? Sees it again at the barn, p. 165
  • p. 158, “But I’d accepted now that I would soon fall into the ground, that the Sun was angry with me, and perhaps unkind, and that Josie was disappointed with me.” — more despair
• p. 158, Klara at first sees Rick in the grass as two traffic cones, one inserted into the other.
  • Has she run out of memory, because of all the unfamiliarity of the terrain, all the alerts that she’s bombarded with, that she can’t take in Rick’s figure fully yet? She seems to lack depth perception.
  • See the part outside the theatre after the sacrifice of her brain fluid where she has similar experiences, p. 235
• p. 161, Mr. McBain’s barn is a roof supported by two walls, to the left and right, but no walls front or back
  • “The wind, I knew, was even then blowing right the way through with barely any obstruction. And the Sun, I saw, had now fallen behind the barn’s structure, and was sending his rays through the rear opening back out to us as we approached.”
  • Again makes me think of a winnowing barn, separating wheat from chaff, judgement
  • p. 163, there is to the left a low platform of stacked hay bales, with a gap between it and the wall
  • Fixed to the wall Klara sees the Red Shelves from the store with the upside-down ceramic coffee cups displayed on it in a line
  • What???
  • To the right is a section of wall “almost identical to the front alcove” and a small metal folding chair, open
  • p. 165–166, Klara’s petition to the Sun, and offer to destroy the Cootings Machine
  • Klara gets answers from the Sun through her memories, e.g. Boy AF Rex saying, “You’re so selfish, Klara,” remembering the bull, but also through the quality of the light, its “gentle aspect”, or “friendly darkness”
  • p. 165, she remembers Manager saying, “That’s not going to be possible,” but I can’t find this in the text
    • Could this be Manager refusing to give her a third turn in the window or something?
  • “I saw again Rosa, on the hard ground wearing an expression of pain, reaching forward to touch her outstretched leg,” cf. p. 157
  • p. 167, Klara at the end of her interview goes to the back opening of the barn and sees the Sun sink into the “ground behind a line of trees” then walks back through the barn the way she came
  • p. 168, Klara tells Rick an “undertaking” or “contract” was made; or a covenant?
• p. 174, Josie’s and her mother’s surname is Arthur, Rick calls her Mrs. Arthur
• p. 176–178, Melania Housekeeper is very distrustful of Mr. Capaldi and the “portrait”, very dubious and concerned about Josie, she wants Klara to keep a close eye on Mr. Capaldi when she goes into the city with them
  • “We same side,” she says to Klara

Part Four

pp. 183–264, in the city, Klara’s sacrifice

• p. 188, after Josie’s father arrives at the apartment, he gives Josie “his latest creation”, a small mirror that shows you your image but not mirrored
  • “I’d like to claim [credit for inventing it] but the real credit goes to my friend Benjamin, one of the other guys in the community. He came up with the idea, but he didn’t know quite how to pull it off in real-world terms. So I did that part.”
• p. 190, Klara does notice black people (also there was the Interaction Meeting lady, p. 68)
  • Though it’s tempting to think Melania Housekeeper is black due to her speech and role (and meaning of name!), her skin is never mentioned by Klara
  • The bit from the Interaction Meeting the about the best housekeepers coming from Europe also implies that Melania is from Europe, so perhaps Greek because of the name’s origin, or Slovenian (like Melania Trump?)
• p. 191, Paul is talking to Chrissie about her work in the law department of a company called Goodwins
  • Paul: “You know, Chrissie. I really do wonder if it’s worth it. You hanging on in this way.”
  • Chrissie: “I’m not sure I understand. What is it I’m hanging on to?”
  • P: “Goodwins. Your law department. This whole… world of work. Your every waking moment determined by some contract you once signed.”
  • Paul is trying to get Chrissie to let go of the dying world she inhabits and possibly to join him in his more free but less stable life: “I think the substitutions were the best thing that happened to me… [they] made me take a completely fresh look at the world, and 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. They all came down the same road, some with careers far grander than mine. And all of us agree, and I honestly believe we’re not kidding ourselves.”
• p. 193, Klara sees her store is gone, replaced by “a display of coloured bottles and a sign saying ‘Recessed Lighting’”.
• p. 196–211, at Mr. Capaldi’s building
  • p. 195, Mother takes Klara’s hand and walks her from the car to Mr. Capaldi’s building and calls her “honey” for the first time
  • Mr. Capaldi’s first name is Henry, Klara estimates he is 52 years old
  • p. 198, Paul: “This portrait. Let’s say it gets finished. What bothers me is that I won’t get to have it with me. Because your Mom will want it with her.”
    • Since he knows the plan, does that mean he actually likes the idea of a replacement Josie?
  • p. 199, Paul objects to being called a scientist by Mr. Capaldi: “I was an engineer, never a scientist. I think you know that. In any case, AFs were never in my territory.”
  • p. 206–211, the conversation between Mr. Capaldi, Mother, and Klara
    • After the final puzzle piece is revealed to Klara on p. 209, namely that she is not meant to train the Josie AF but to inhabit the Josie shell that Mr. Capaldi is creating, Klara doesn’t actually speak anymore in this scene, not until Mother and Klara are in the car
    • This is easy to miss because Mother and Mr. Capaldi are speaking a lot in the remaining pages of this section
  • Since it is later (p. 216–218) clear that Paul knows all about the “portrait” and probably had some involvement in commissioning it, it is confusing why he is so upset with Capaldi and storms out, taking Josie with him, but not Klara
  • Most likely he was also in on the previous animated bereavement doll of Sal, since Helen seems to imply (p. 231) that Paul and Chrissie have only been divorced for 4 years, and Sal died when Josie was too little to remember her well (p. 88), and Helen and Rick saw the Sal doll “a good two years” after Sal died (p. 149, so Rick must have been still fairly little also), Josie also remembers the Sal doll (p. 240)
  • Was it just the shock of seeing the empty Josie shell that made him storm out?
  • We later learn he dislikes Capaldi because he’s afraid that he’s right, about there being no soul in a human being, nothing that cannot be replaced (e.g. by an AI), p. 224
  • The argument he has with Capaldi seems to be about the ethics of what he’s doing, but Klara only hears and reports pieces of it:
    • Capaldi: “There are always ethical choices around any work. That’s true whether we get paid for it or not.”
    • Paul then seems to imply that Mr. Capaldi is without morals: “It’s no wonder… a guy like you would struggle to understand what I’m saying here.”
    • Paul’s Parthian shaft: “I’m surprised you’re not requesting a sample of her blood.”
  • p. 206, after Paul has left, Chrissie confesses she has misgivings, but not about what Paul said, but about whether she will accept the new Josie as Josie
  • She is scared of being alone again if she can’t accept the substitute Josie
  • Mr. Capaldi says a couple of times that she shouldn’t lose faith (p. 206, 207)
  • He really believes that the new Josie will be Josie, a continuation of Josie
  • Klara says a couple of times that she thinks there’s hope Josie will get better, but no one particularly reacts to that, instead they correct her assumption that she will train the Josie AF
  • p. 210, after they tell Klara she will inhabit the Josie doll, Mother talks more about her doubts (Klara is now silent), and Mr. Capaldi explains that there is nothing unique inside a person that cannot be replicated, that can’t transfer, “Nothing inside Josie that’s beyond the Klaras of this world to continue.” … “It’s not faith you need. Only rationality. I had to do it, it was tough but now it works for me just fine. And it will for you.”
  • Has Mr. Capaldi also lost a child through lifting-gone-wrong?
• p. 213, alone in the car with Klara outside the Grind Our Own Beef building, Mother: “I don’t blame Paul. He’s entitled to his feelings. After Sal, he said we shouldn’t risk it. So what if Josie doesn’t get lifted? Plenty of kids aren’t. But I could never have that for Josie. I wanted the best for her. I wanted her to have a good life.”
• Klara wants to know what will happen to her current body if she inhabits the new Josie.
  • The Mother doesn’t care and probably hasn’t thought about this at all.
  • It’s interesting that Klara is attached or sentimental about her body, as a robot, as if she considers it an integral part of herself.
  • Klara is anti-Gnostic.
• p. 214, the Mother points out that if Klara “continues” Josie, she will inherit not only the Mother’s love, but Rick’s love.
  • That seems a very naive thing to say, as Rick seems to have a healthy scepticism about AFs, based on his initial reactions to Klara; it naively accepts that Mr. Capaldi’s right in every way, that an AF could “continue” a child for a parent, and a lover for a lover
• p. 218–219, the Father asks Klara whether she thinks it is possible to learn Josie’s heart, her inmost self, not just to impersonate her
  • Klara thinks this is difficult but possible, using the metaphor of a house with many rooms, “Even if Mr. Paul is talking in the poetic sense, there’ll be an end to what there is to learn. Josie’s heart may well resemble a strange house with rooms inside rooms. But if this were the best way to save Josie, then I’d do my utmost. And I believe there’s a good chance I’d be able to succeed.”
  • Klara is after all a robot. A materialist though? She does worship a sun god.
  • She is still not convinced that this is the best way to save Josie, because next (p. 220–221) she “speaks frankly” to Paul and asks for his help to locate and destroy the Cootings Machine
  • When Paul realizes she is sincere in her belief that this will help Josie (p. 222): “Hope. Damn thing never leaves you alone.”
  • p. 224, 225, Paul: “I think I hate Capaldi because deep down I suspect he may be right. That what he claims is true. That science has now proved beyond doubt there’s nothing so unique about my daughter, nothing there our modern tools can’t excavate, copy, transfer. That people have been living with one another all this time, centuries, loving and hating each other, and all on a mistaken premise. A kind of superstition we kept going while we didn’t know better. That’s how Capaldi sees it and there’s a part of me that fears he’s right. Chrissie, on the other hand, isn’t like me. She may not know it yet, but she’ll never let herself be persuaded. If the moment ever comes, never mind how well you play your part, Klara, never mind how much she wishes it to work, Chrissie just won’t be able to accept it. She’s too… old-fashioned. Even if she knows she’s going against the science and the math, she still won’t be able to do it. She just won’t stretch that far. But I’m different. I have… a kind of coldness inside me she lacks. Perhaps it’s because I’m an expert engineer, as you put it. This is why I find it so hard to be civil around people like Capaldi. When they do what they do, say what they say, it feels like they’re taking form me what I hold most precious in this life.”
• p. 225–228, Paul’s explanation of how they could destroy the Cootings Machine and Klara’s decision to make her sacrifice
  • Damaging Klara is convenient to Paul, since it thwarts Mr. Capaldi, and possibly protects Chrissie from heartbreak when she realizes that Klara cannot continue Josie
  • Cynical take: is there a possibility that the Cootings Machine was not destroyed, since the act of pouring in the fluid was not described, nor was the actually destruction (presumably the next day) witnessed by the characters? And Paul merely tricked Klara into damaging herself?
  • I prefer to think that actually Klara did destroy that Cootings Machine, she made a sacrifice of herself, which appeased the Sun; and Paul was happy to lend a hand since both outcomes (Josie getting better and damaging Klara) were good to him, whether likely or not
  • The fact that we don’t see the sacrifice happen is more occultatio mysteriorum
  • This seems to be confirmed by p. 242, 243, outside the theatre where Paul picks up again with Klara, asking, “Exactly what did we do back there?” Klara does not tell him, but I think this suggests that they did destroy the Cootings Machine, since Paul is so bemused and curious, wondering whether there might have been something to it after all.
  • Also, p. 248, in the diner with Rick, Helen, and Vance, Klara has a flashback to the sacrifice, “Miss Helen was watching silently, a gentle smile on her face, her glance moving from Mr. Vance to Rick’s notebook. At that moment, I felt once more, fleetingly but vividly, the Father’s hand holding my head at the required angle, and heard the trickling noise as the fluid entered the plastic bottle he was holding up close to my face with his other hand.”
  • Also, p. 262, while they’re all in the car on the way home, but before she sees the New Cootings Machine, Klara has another flashback to the sacrifice and the destruction of the Cootings Machine; she remembers Paul telling her the fizzing sound means that it has worked, then him asking her whether she’s okay
• p. 230, at the sushi café Paul is impressed by Rick’s drone notebooks
  • “Lifted or not, genuine ability has to get noticed. Unless the world’s completely crazy now.”
  • Further demonstration of Paul’s community’s disillusionment with society
• p. 231, Helen implies that Paul and Chrissie have been divorced for 4 years now
• p. 231,regarding Vance, Helen’s “old flame” who works for Atlas Brookings, the only university that accepts unlifteds
  • Helen says to Paul: “He too has fascistic leanings.”
  • Paul denies the implication, “No, Helen, I can’t have this. And in front of the kids too. What I was saying earlier has nothing to do with fascism. We have no aggressive agenda beyond defending ourselves should the need arise. Where you live, Helen, maybe you don’t have to worry yet, and I sincerely hope it’ll be that way for a long time. Where I am, it’s different.”
  • Josie then asks why he doesn’t just move out
  • “Because that’s my community, Josie. It’s not nearly as bad as this makes it sound. I like it there. I’m sharing my life with some very fine people, and most of them came down the same road I did. It’s become clear to all of us now, there are many different ways to lead a decent and full life.”
  • Helen makes a false apology and then points out they are all white and former professional elites who have to arm themselves against “other types”
  • Paul: “There are different groups where we live, I’m not denying it. I didn’t make the rules and it’s just the way it naturally divided. And if another group won’t respect us and what we have, then they need to know they’ll have a fight on their hands.”
  • p. 235, later on Paul continues to Miss Helen outside the theatre: “It’s all very well calling me a fascist. Call me what you want. But where you’re living now, it may not always remain so peaceful. You hear what happened in this very cty last week? I’m not saying you’re in danger right now, but you need to think ahead.”
  • Paul further mentions that if things don’t go as planned both she and Rick would be welcome to live in his community
• p. 235, the crowds of people outside the theatre become simplified polygons in Klara’s eyes, similar to Rick’s appearance at first when he rescued Klara crossing the field to Mr. McBain’s barn (p. 157, 158)
  • I love this chaotic style of this scene outside the theatre, I think it’s well done: Night is falling, Klara’s vision is not working well, it takes her a while to recognize people, there are loads of people she doesn’t know, there are theatre goers and theatre staff, everybody’s having different conversations with big reveals in them but we only get snatches of them, then later the same person having a different conversation with someone else, there’s a protestor with a painted face, there’s someone who doesn’t like AFs, etc., etc.
• p. 237, 238, Cindy, a waitress that Josie talks to knew and loved Klara’s old store
  • Josie asks if she knows where it’s moved to
  • “Oh, I’m not sure if they moved…” is all we get though
  • p. 242, a bit later on Cindy says there’s a new store that’s opened and maybe some of the AFs from Klara’s store would have relocated there
• p. 239, Chrissie asks Helen if she regret not lifting Rick and she says yes
  • “I feel I didn’t do my best for him. I feel I didn’t even think it through, the way you and Paul did. I was somewhere else in my mind and I just let the moment go past. Perhaps that’s what I regret more than anything else. That I neer loved him enough to make a proper decision one way or the other.”
• p. 239–240, a man with black hair and a white-painted face is protesting the eviction of 423 “post-employed” (substituted by AI?) people from a building
• p. 240, Paul finds out Josie knows something about the portrait
  • To Chrissie: “You told her about the portrait?”
  • Ch.: “I only told her it wasn’t a painting. That it was a kind of sculpture. She remembers Sal’s doll, of course…”
• p. 242, a lady in a “high-rank blue dress” is upset about machines taking up seats in the theatre, “First they take the jobs…”, etc.
• p. 243, Josie to her mother: “But that’s all I wanted to say. I definitely don’t want you sealing it up, the way you did with Sal’s. I want it so Klara gets sole use of my room and she gets to come and go as she pleases .”
  • The word “it” here is ambiguous, is “it” a room, or an AF?
  • Does she mean don’t seal my room up like you did Sal’s room?
  • Or does she mean, don’t seal Klara up like you did the Sal bereavement doll?
  • Does she now understand, and accept , that Klara is meant to replace her if she dies? I.e. let Klara be me and don’t seal her up, and let her come and go as she pleases?
  • Or is she saying, don’t seal my room up like you did Sal’s because I want Klara to live there if I die?
  • “Seal up” sounds more like it refers to a room.
  • So if that’s true, Sal’s old bedroom is a room in the house that is now sealed up and disused somehow.
  • Relevant passages about the shape of the house
    • p. 55, “Josie and I had many friendly arguments about how one part of the house connected to another. She wouldn’t accept, for instance, that the vacuum cleaner closet was directly beneath the large bathroom.”
    • p. 61, from the outside, the house was “slightly smaller, and its roof edges a little sharper, but otherwise much as I’d estimate from the inside.”
    • If there is a sealed room that Klara hasn’t seen, wouldn’t the house look larger from the outside?
    • My hypothesis is that “sharper roof edges” refers not to the eaves being very sharp somehow, but that the slope of the roof is steeper and therefore there is a larger attic/loft room above the house than she thought there would be
    • So was Sal’s room the Utility Room that Klara retires to eventually after Josie’s healing?
    • Utility Room passages on p. 293–296
    • The Utility Room is on the fourth floor of the house in North American terms, or third floor in British terms, i.e. three floors above the ground floor, two floors above Josie’s room
    • It has a single window high up with a westward facing view over the same fields as Josie’s window
    • It is full of storage items
    • Sal’s bedroom is never otherwise mentioned
    • The fact that Klara “found” it after having lived in the house already for many years may imply that this was the “sealed” bedroom of Sal; it is at least disused such that she was never aware of it before
    • p. 149, Rick to Klara, after his mother tells the story of seeing the Sal doll outside, “Mum has some weird theories. Like one about Sal still living in the house, hiding in some cupboard.”
    • I tend to think the author has deliberately put this phrase into our heads, about Sal hiding in some cupboard, in order to get us to consider whether the Sal doll is also still in the Utility Room/Sal’s former bedroom
    • For some reason, Klara also finds her way there after Josie has no more use for her, though she doesn’t apparently discover the Sal doll
• p. 247, “lifting” is “genetic editing”
• p. 249, Rick gives a somewhat weak answer to Vance regarding the ethics of drones: “It’s for legislators to decide.”
• p. 256, despite the meeting with Mr. Vance ending disastrously, Klara says, “I may be mistaken. But I believe Mr. Vance is still very fond of Miss Helen and will decide to help Rick.”
  • He doesn’t apparently help Rick, at least not to get into Atlas Brookings, but perhaps we are to remember that Vance, like Paul, has what she calls “fascistic leanings”, which may really be a healthy scepticism about the state of society and the understanding that there are many ways to live a decent life (outside of the just-go-to-university path)
  • We know that Rick does go on to design drones without going to university (p. 289, 290, 300), and that he has friends in the city (p. 290), so it could be that some of this was facilitated or arranged by Vance (without Rick even knowing?)
• p. 258, Josie and her mother have had a private conversation back at the Friend’s Apartment and we get pieces of it as Josie talks sleepily to Klara:
  • p. 259, “I’d never let anything bad happen to you.” … “Nothing’s changing.”
  • K: “Did Mother discuss with you some new idea?”
  • J: “Well, I don’t think it was an idea. I told her nothing like that’s ever going to happen.” .. “Didn’t she already talk to you about it? It was nothing. Some vague stuff travelling through her head.” … “She was trying to… offer something, I guess. She said she could give up her job and stay with me the whole time. If I wanted that. She said she could become the one who was always with me. She’d do that if I really wanted it, she’d do it and let her job go, but I said what would happen to Klara? And she was like, we wouldn’t need Klara anymore because she would be with me the whole time. You could tell it wasn’t anything she’d thought through. But she kept asking, like I had to decide, so in the end I told her, look, Mom, this wouldn’t work. You don’t want to give up your job and I don’t want to give up Klara. That was just about all of it. It’s not going to happen and Mom agrees.”
  • K: “Perhaps the Mother thought if she stayed with Josie all the time, Josie would be less lonely.”
  • J: “Who says I’m lonely?”
  • K: “If that were true, if Josie really would be less lonely with the Mother, then I’d happily go away.”
  • J: “But who says I’m lonely? I’m not lonely.”
  • K: “Perhaps all humans are lonely. At least potentially.”
  • J: “Look, Klara, this was just a shitty idea Mom was having. I was asking her earlier about the portrait, and she got herself into a big knot and came up with this idea. Except it wasn’t an idea, it wasn’t anything. So please can we forget about it?”

Part Five

pp. 267–285, Klara’s final plea to the Sun, Josie’s recovery

• p. 269, Klara to Rick: “But I must also have something else, something with which to plead. This is why I must ask Rick now, even though it might be stealing privacy. You must tell me if the love between Rick and Josie is genuine, if it’s a true and lasting one. I must know this. Because if the answer is yes, then I’ll have something to bargain with, regardless of what occurred in the city.”
• p. 271, at the barn the Red Shelves are still there, but this time crooked, slanting
  • The coffee cups there are still orderly, but Melania Housekeeper’s blender is now with them
• p. 272, again the Sun responds to Klara using her memories, e.g. the angry parent at the Interaction Meeting, angry graffiti from the city, etc.
• p. 273, various examples of words like “sacrifice”, “hope”, “faith” in Klara’s plea
• p. 273, Klara remembers the lonely woman at the diner whom Klara hadn’t noticed at first (p. 250, “a lady of 42”) with her face pressed against the window glass staring out into the darkness, but now in Klara’s memory she looks like Rosa
• p. 274, Klara tells the Sun she is not certain that inhabiting the Josie AF would work (she previously told the Father should thought it would, p. 218–219), see also what she tells Manager in the Yard (p. 306), how there was something special that she couldn’t have replicated, not inside Josie but inside those who loved her
• p. 275, Klara compares Rick and Josie to Raincoat Man and Coffee Cup Lady, suggesting that even if Rick and Josie were separated for a long time, their love is true and lasting, and they deserve to be brought together again
  • Does this mean they will come together again after going separate ways?
  • p. 292, Rick: “I know I’ll always keep searching for someone just like her.”
• p. 276–278, the Sun is reflected on some stacked panes of glass
  • It’s like the Sun is now inside the barn
  • Klara can see a different face with a different expression, a different countenance on each pane, some aloof, some kind, etc.
• p. 279, Josie’s healing takes place six days after Klara’s 2nd petition to the Sun, that is on the 7th day

Part Six

pp. 289–307, Klara in the Yard

• p. 290, Rick: “Do you remember, Klara that morning the weather went really strange, and the Sun came right into Josie’s room?”
  • This sounds similar to when the Sun reflected off the panes of glass at McBain’s barn during Klara’s plea, when it felt like the Sun was right in the barn
• p. 292, though Rick and Josie are preparing to go their separate ways, he insists that their love was genuine: “That was no lie, Klara. And in a funny way, it still isn’t a lie now.”
• p. 292, Melania went to California
  • Klara: “When we last heard from her she was hoping to be accepted by a community there.”
  • Something like Paul’s community? Some alternative society?
• p. 293–296, Josie and the Utility Room/Sal’s old room
• p. 296–299, Mr. Capaldi’s visit, “Let her have her slow fade.”
• p. 300–301, why does Josie know Klara might also be gone soon?
  • Is the Mother going to throw her out?
  • Do all AFs leave home of their own accord, once their child has left? Are they hard-coded to do so?
  • Has the author left this ambiguous on purpose?
• p. 301–307, Klara in the Yard, a kind of scrap yard, but with some order to it
• p. 303, Klara is not able to move from place to place, she can only turn her head
  • Did she break down? If so, was this before or after arriving at the Yard?
  • Was she deliberately broken? If, so was this before or after arriving at the Yard?
• p. 304–305, Manager is no longer looking after AFs
  • “That finished some time ago.”
  • She comes to the Yard to collect small “souvenirs” in her pouch.
  • The workers know her.
  • p. 307, Manager has a limp
• p. 305, Manager: “Rosa? Yes, actually I did. I found her here, oh, it must be at least two years ago. Things didn’t go as well for Rosa as they did for you.”
• p. 306, Klara: “But however hard I tried [to continue Josie], I believe now there would have remained something beyond my reach. The Mother, Rick, Melania Housekeeper, the Father. I’d never have reached what they felt for Josie in their hearts. I’m now sure of this, Manager.” … “I believe now [Mr. Capaldi] was searching in the wrong place. There was something very special, but it wasn’t inside Josie. It was inside those who loved her.”