Catherine Cusset's 3 favorite reads in 2023

I loved everything about this novel: the elements of surprise, the family dynamics, the character development, and the more significant issues—trauma, childhood, envy, animal cruelty, and activism.

In the first page, we learn that the narrator lost both her brother and her sister, so we suppose the novel will be about this double tragedy. It was admirable that the narrator didn’t tell us for so long that her sister was a chimp. I probably wouldn’t have cared as much if I had known earlier, as I never had a pet and never gave much thought to animals. By tricking me, Fowler created empathy and made me care for an animal.

This novel has a deep impact, but it is done in a light way. Fowler is funny, caustic, and witty. She manages to speak of deep issues in a hilarious way—a very moving, funny, absorbing novel.

I love Ishiguro so much that I was apprehensive about starting Klara and the Sun. Would it be as good as Never Let Me Go and Remains of The Day? I was not disappointed. I love Ishiguro because I am totally immersed in his world, and at the same time, he makes me think.

The novel raises lots of interesting questions at a time when we wonder so much about AI. Through the character of Klara, Ishiguro explores the power of religion and makes us wonder whether neurons and science can explain human beings or whether there is something specific about the human heart.

Klara, a robot who functions through solar energy, believes that the Sun is a God, and she personifies it, but the reader is aware of her naïveté. Klara’s limitations as a robot symbolize our limitations as humans and our attempts to make sense of what we perceive of the world around us. I don’t read much sci-fi (apart from Philip Dick), but I find Ishiguro incredibly human and authentic. I can even identify with his robots! Klara and The Sun is a very skillful and subtle novel—a pleasure to read.

I read this novel because the great writer Milan Kundera died this summer. He was my favorite writer when I was a young woman. The Unbearable Lightness of Being was his last novel, written in Czech while living in France.

The voice in this novel is so strong (and light at the same time), and the novel is so rich and so full of ideas! It's almost impossible to summarize it. I remembered the love story between Tomas and Tereza, the truck accident that caused their death, and Tomas telling women: "Take off your clothes." Today, he would be in trouble! At the time of communism, freedom experienced through sex was the only freedom possible. But there is so much more—Kundera's hate of kitsch, what he calls "The Great March."

This novel is a testimony about the events of the time, but it also transcends history, and there is something universal in it. I must say that it is quite demoralizing. The characters love each other, but they are suffering. Every possibility of hope seems to be destroyed. Only the dog, wonderfully named Karenine, brings relief and tenderness at the end.