Klara and the Sun

I am ambivalent about 'Klara and the Sun' by Kazuo Ishiguro. It left me feeling sad, rather I feel, on reflection, like I felt sad at the end of 'Never Let Me Go'. It is told from the perspective of Klara, an Artificial Friend. I grew to like her, but it was strange, because Klara does not think of herself as a 'person', appears to have few desires of her own, and little understanding of the world, and I wondered how this rather hollow human shaped thing was supposed to make a good 'friend'. All the futuristic aspects of the story are left ambiguous, unexplained; there is some kind of genetic enhancement, making better babies, and only the better ones get advantages, but it is never made explicit. Why does this supposedly sophisticated robot not know anything? She is solar powered and has these weird ideas about the magical power of the sun. She seems to spend much of her time just standing around like a piece of furniture until someone feels like interacting with her. The style is rather stilted, because Klara has such limited life experience she doesn't have much of interest to say and her observations are mostly superficial. It gradually emerges that Klara's role is to learn to replace her owner Josie, who may be dying of some vague wasting condition, raising the question of course of whether there is more to a human being than their physical presence, their way of interacting with the world, their ways of talking. Klara thinks she could learn to imitate Josie, but is not sure that will make her an adequate substitute. In some ways it did remind me of 'Machines Like Me' by Ian McEwan, because nobody is really accepting that the artificial creation is actually the equivalent of a human being, in neither book are they treated as anything other than a thing, a possession. Klara has no autonomy, she is unsure about making choices for herself, does not go places without permission, does not initiate anything, accepts that her role is to be a thing for Josie, not that Josie owes her anything in return. Now while, in some ways, that might be seen as the definition of love, to selflessly sacrifice for someone else, it's rather more akin to slavery, since she is not doing it voluntarily, she has no notion of living a life for herself. She ends up in a junk yard, which was just a huge waste in my opinion; why create this supposedly amazing (and presumable expensive) thing, and then just discard it. So, in the end, I was left profoundly dissatisfied. When I imagine artificial intelligence I think of 'Ex Machina', a robot who wants a life for herself, and will stop at nothing to attain it. Here Klara beats herself up over a trip that she takes alone with the Mother:

"Naturally then, in the days that followed, I thought often about why the interaction meeting should cast no shadows at all, but Morgan's Falls, despite my complying with Josie's and the Mother's wishes, had produced such consequences. Again, the possibility came into my mind that my limitations, in comparison to the B3's, has somehow made themselves obvious that day, causing both Josie and the Mother to regret the choice they'd made. If this were so, I knew my best course was to work harder than ever to be a good AF to Josie until the shadows receded. At the same time, what was becoming clear to me was the extent to which humans, in their wish to escape loneliness, made manoeuvres that were very 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.113)

Stay safe. Be kind. Love the real humans around you.

Day 11 - insect life

 Tish will regularly come around the garden with me and admire all the new growth and new blooms. We spotted some dreaded aphids the other day, for which the most eco-conscious solution is ladybirds. We don't seem to have any ladybirds, so I sent off for some. These are ladybird nymphs that will crawl out of little paper bags and munch on the aphids ... hopefully.

She also spotted this curious little chrysalis on the buddleia... we will try and see what emerges:

Then in searching for places to put the ladybird nymphs I noticed ants doing curious stuff on the dogwood, apparently they are milking the aphids:

Stay safe. Be kind. Love the bugs.

What's new in the garden today

 New things popping up all over.

Perennial wallflowers sent by mum:

Strawberry plants covered in potential deliciousness:

Little sage plant putting out some flowers:

Don't know what this is, but I've been waiting for weeks for it to open

(mum says it's a campanula):

A few ox-eye daisies, in the wildflower pots:

Heucheras flowering delicately all over the place:

The first year it felt like the best thing about the yard was this purple thing. It colonises the walls, pokes out from the window sills and round the edges of the concrete, flowers abundantly and the bees love it. It dies off and comes back each year and give me much joy:

I need my mum to visit and put names to everything, though not knowing what a plant is does not stop them being wonderful.

Stay safe. Be kind. Have a cuppa in the garden.

Day 8 Platt Fields Park

 

Monkey did her last second year exam this morning so when she had finished we all went for a walk to Platt Field park, mainly to spot the cootlings and the cygnets. We did see a dragonfly but it didn't sit still long enough to take a photo.

As we came around the lake we wandered from the path and found a lovely wildflower area, busy with honey bees. Also saw a lovely red-tailed bumble bee, also to busy to pose for photos.

Orange hawkweed

This one might be flax, but I cant be sure:

Come back rain, all is forgiven. 

The water butttt is empty, I have ordered him a friend.

Stay safe. Be kind. Watch the bees.

Bass Rock

 

I love Evie Wyld (and have reviewed her other books here and here) so 'Bass Rock' jumped onto the library list as soon as I read about it. It follows several different story lines, and while I liked all the individual strands of the story, the more historical one seemed to lack a connection to the rest of the story. There were also several passages, apparently unconnected, describing horrible violence against unnamed women that simply left me disturbed and horrified. The main thread of the story in the 1950s follows Ruth, a newly married and step-mothering young woman, moved to Scotland to a big old house to care for her husband's two boys. The main other strand turns out to be her granddaughter Viv, coming to 'sort out' the house as it is being sold. The story of Sarah, the suspected witch, and the family who rescue her seems entirely separate. They trek aimlessly through the woods away from their village, until the group gradually dwindles, and the young boy, once fascinated, begins to see her as a threat. It is a sad book, the women in it lead small lives, lacking in connection and love. Both their relationships and society in general seems to conspire to keep it that way. 

Here Ruth is at her sister's wedding:

"Ludwig performed a small dance at the base of the fence, his ear turning themselves pink-way out. The clamour rose again and Ruth looked at the wagtail. 'Hello, Anthony,' she said to it, and then wondered what had gone wrong to produce that kind of nonsense, that her dead brother had come to the wedding reception disguised as a small bird. Aunt Josephine had been stood not too far away, and had given her a look of great compassion, Ruth had thought, but later it turned out that Aunt Josephine had reported it back to her mother and, combined with her behaviour later that year, it had been used to install Ruth for a fortnight in a sanatorium in Deal, which had been humiliating and alarming, and where she had learned a thing or two about pretending." (p.25)

This one I liked because of the memory it evoked, and then I thought, surely the author is too young to remember vinyl covered chairs, they were a 1970s thing, so she must have read or heard it somewhere, but the detail is lovely:

"The kitchen table remains, its yellow-vinyl-cushioned chairs, a split on each seat that pinched the backs of your thighs if you sat on them with shorts. Funny, that memory - so strong and yet I could count on one hand the number of warm days we spent at North Berwick. The shorts would have been worn along with a thick scratchy fisherman's jumper and hat. The estate agent requests the broken seats are kept hidden underneath the table." (p.54-5)

I like Viv because of how much she lives in the past. She spends a lot of time thinking over her childhood, not in a nostalgic way, but just dwelling on it, and often feeling herself to be the same:

"I turn the radio off. It is near to midnight. I imagine a wolf man running alongside the car. I used to do this on the drive to Scotland when I was a kid. When you look into the scrub at the side of the road, when you peer into the dark, it's easy to see them, waiting to race you, willing you to break down. London is warm and comfortable, street lights and rain-wet pavements. Everyone is sleeping, the wolves have turned into foxes." (p.640

And back to Ruth, who sinks into alcohol with the isolation (both physical and metaphorical), and the gaslighting by her husband after she tells him she has seen him with his mistress. Just love the last sentence here:

"Ruth pushed herself back from the desk, hands in lap. She rose from the seat and looked out of the window at the water, the same gunmetal grey as the dead shark. The whole landscape was a giant monster, the sky indifferent, the golf course a wasteland. She knelt and then lay on the floor, folded her hands over her chest. The ceiling dipped in and out of focus. She felt her heart rapping on the wood off the floor, through the back of her ribcage. One, two, three, four, five, six. It seemed that, instead of calming her, her heart's thud was becoming stronger and louder, knocking a tide of blood into her head, banging against the drums of her ears, and she closed her eyes and felt the floor slope under her. Her body danced with prickles." (p.209-10)

Not a 'lovely' book but very emotionally intense and engaging. Nicely drawn minor characters too, like Betty the housekeeper and Maggie, a homeless woman who befriends Viv. It's all about the women, so what's not to like.

Stay safe. Be kind. Finish that baby blanket. 

Flowers for day 4

 

This is an ajuga, loves damp and dappled shade. It was hidden under the huge fern and only just noticed it had come into flower.

These irises were bought last year and poked randomly into the bed. I had forgotten about them. They have been long leafy stalks for several weeks but the sunshine finally opened them up:

This pink (red?) campion (not sure, they are very similar) must have been in the wild flower bee bombs that were planted last year. There was a disappointing show with a few poppies but not much else, but several other things have popped up in pots this spring that have been lovely:

The viola were also grown from seed last year but had remained scrawny little plants that overwintered in a small pot looking mostly dead. I potted them up this spring and they have come on a storm, lots of flowers in several different shades of purple:

Have been pottering and rearranging things over the last week. Found a sixth even tinier oakling among the new ones. Potted some up that were in too small pots, and have made them into a tiny forest:

Stay safe. Be kind. Love the flowers.

Day two - 30 days wild

 

Yesterday was the start of 30 Days Wild and I was too busy in the garden to post anything.

Lovely bees buzzed excitedly, and noisily, in the dog rose.

And then Tish spotted a dreaded Rosemary beetle. If you find any the RHS have a survey page where the spread of the beetle is being studied. They are so pretty we didn't want to squash it so she took it to the park. (I mean slugs are pretty ugly but I don't want to squash them either, I'm not prejudiced).

Things are progressing in the garden but we had some nasty orange rust mildew on the lovely pink flowers that the bees like so much, and I had to just chop down two big patches of it. I hope it will come back as it seems to come from multitudinous rhizomes all along the side bed. I am waiting for everything to look lush and flowerful to make a little video.

Stay safe. Be kind. Do something Wild.