Klara and the Sun: Dystopia, Utopian Desire and Altermodernist Estrangement in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Science Fiction

In the light of recent work (by Fredric Jameson, Timotheus Vermeulen, David James and others) that identifies tendencies in early twenty-first-century fiction towards forms of consolation, this article examines Klara and the Sun focusing on how the protagonist’s perspective enables the novel’s mildly dystopian world to yield quiet, uncertain forms of solace and even utopia. Ishiguro invites us to reflect on the performative power of hope, while maintaining a persistent undercurrent of scepticism and irony. To articulate this tension, I argue, he fashions an altermodernist aesthetics that, through the protagonist’s estranging gaze, interweaves enchantment and disenchantment. Ishiguro’s visual language draws on the legacy of the Post-Impressionist innocent eye, yet it is tempered by an acute awareness of the impossibility of recovering purity and a naive faith in progress within a post-liberal society in which technological advancements have destabilized and compromised human values and relationships.