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Loading... When We Were Orphans (original 2000; edition 2005)by Kazuo Ishiguro
Work InformationWhen We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro (2000)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. It took a while to realize that the narrator was not entirely reliable and at that point I was getting fed up with the "important case" that everyone was supposed to stop and help with. I was never sure exactly which evil it was that this case was supposed to deal with. But overall I thought the book was wonderfully written and it had me caught up entirely, so for me, it was a very good read. ( ) This book was truly disappointing. I wanted to like it. It started off with a very promising storyline, but around a third of the way through the book it became clear that it wasn't going to pan out, and the end of the book was excruciating. Quite simply the plot, character development, and main character himself were all terrible. Very few of the motivations of characters' actions made sense, and the story itself wasn't compelling because it was so nonsensical. After The Remains of the Day, I had assumed Ishiguro was a generically good writer, and that I would enjoy most of his books. Now I realize that Ishiguro is only worth reading when his topic is good. The Remains of the Day, while simple plot-wise, was the correct style of book for him to write. The plot lent itself naturally to the protagonist's introspection, and little needed to happen over the course of the book for it to remain compelling. When We Were Orphans, on the other hand, was set up initially as a very plot driven book to that point that it could not retain itself unless the speed and intrigue of the plot were maintained. I think Ishiguro's writing does not lend itself to this style, as the second half of this book demonstrates. Find my full review here : https://sravikabodapati.wordpress.com/2024/02/08/book-review-when-we-were-orphan... Obviously, I have a big book crush on Ishiguro. When We Were Orphans isn't my favorite of his, but I did cry like a baby at the end. What is it about his books that gets to me? If I had to boil it down, I'd say it's that they're these beautiful tragedies. And (is this getting too sloppy?) that's what kills me about life. It's sad. It's beautiful. Gosh. I might start crying right now just thinking about it.
When We Were Orphans may well be Ishiguro's most capacious book so far, in part because it stitches together his almost microscopic examination of self-delusion, as it plays out in lost men, with a much larger, often metaphorical look at complacency on a national scale. Christopher Banks is a fashionable society detective, solving fashionably ghastly crimes in 1930s England. In his past, however, there is an unsolved and traumatic crime which continues to torment him. He was brought up in Shanghai, with a father heavily involved in Western complicity in the importation of opium Das neue Buch ist eine Überraschung. Denn es kommt so ganz anders daher, es tut so, als werde hier einmal Handfestes geboten, ein Kriminalfall! Ein Kind verliert seine Eltern. Ein schreckliches Familiendrama. Eine historische Erzählung, die sich im China der Opiumkriege entfaltet, Kolonialismus, Bandenkrieg, es birgt, natürlich, auch die Geschichte einer vergeblichen Liebe, und es gehört zum Abenteuerlichen dieser Lektüre, dass wir alle paar Seiten der Illusion erliegen, nun aber endlich zu erahnen, worauf wir uns hier einzulassen haben. Ahnungen, die uns mit dem Wenden einer Seite weggeschlagen werden, was die Gedanken nicht unangenehm verwirrt, so wie wenn die Achterbahn abrupt die Richtung wechselt und es uns herumschleudert und wir die Gravidität der Gehirnmasse kribbelnd spüren. Kein Wunder, es ist die Lebensgeschichte eines Verrückten. AwardsNotable Lists
"England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in Old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Now, as the world lurches towards total war, Banks realizes that the time has come for him to return to the city of his childhood and at last solve the mystery - that only by doing so will civilization be saved from the approaching catastrophe." "Moving between London and Shanghai of the inter-war years, When We Were Orphans is a story of memory, intrigue and the need to return: of a childhood vision of the world surviving deep into adulthood, indelibly shaping and distorting a person's life."--Jacket. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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