# Klara and the Sun [[readwise/Books/Klara and the Sun]] ## Themes ### Hope ### Loneliness Loneliness is a necessary effect of loss. - Josie's loneliness from her illness - The Mother's loneliness from grief at Sal's passing, the separation with Paul, the illness that threatens to take Josie from her. - Paul's loneliness from being ideologically different from his peers and his ex-wife, from losing his daughter(s) - Helen's loneliness from being separated from Vance, from having a child that wasn't "lifted" - Klara's loneliness from being a replacement and an outsider - Rick's loneliness from not having been lifted, from tension between him and Josie, from not being among intellectual peers ### Superstition Superstition is deriving meaning, purpose, or causality from mundane objects or occurrences, and allowing them to generate irrational hope about the future. How superstitious we are may reflect to some degree how lonely we are. As irrational as superstition is, however, sometimes we need it to survive. - Klara believing the Sun would save Josie, and making a pact with the Sun to destroy the Pollution machine - The Mother believing that an AF could fully replace Josie - The bubble game that Josie and Rick play, that gives them hope about the future - Paul, Rick, and even Melania Housekeeper all hoping against hope based on Klara's own superstition ### Genetic editing (AGE) ### Imperfection What are things that must be corrected? - Superstitiousness? - Irrationality? - Illness? - Ideological differences? Weaknesses - Paul: fascist tendencies - Klara: technological limitations from not being a top-of-the-line model, inability to completely understand irrational human behaviours - Rick: not having been genetically modified - Chrissie (Mother): having made the wrong decision to to go through with lifting for her second daughter - Vance: inability to let go of a lost love - Helen: anxiety, mistakes made with Vance - ### Is it moral to be superstitious? It is, but only if it is an intentional decision, borne out of careful deliberation, rather than an accident and intellectual laziness. - Comparison between Chrissy (The Mother) and Helen (Rick's mother) - Helen decided not to have Rick lifted, but didn't really decide it consciously. It just happened out of a lack of effort to decide intentionally. - Chrissy decided not to have Josie lifted based on her previous experience with Sal.