Christopher Banks is a celebrated detective in 1930s London. But he is driven by the memory of a long-ago mystery - the disappearance of his parents when he was a small boy and the family lived in Shanghai, where his father worked for a trading company and his mother campaigned against the British-run opium trade. Eventually he is able to return to Shanghai to carry out his own researches - but is he prepared for what he will find there?

The main focus of the novel seems to be Christopher's own personality. He is the narrator, with a very distinctive pedantic and dry voice - he lives very much in his own head and is rather an unreliable narrator - all this is quite reminiscent of the butler in The Remains Of The Day.

I found this quite a puzzling book. For a start, it didn't quite seem to hang together. In the first part of the book there were so many things which looked as if they were going to be leading somewhere - for example, Christopher's clearly unreliable memories of his past, the ambitions of the character of Sarah Hemmings, or the recurring references to a growing evil in the world. I didn't feel that any of these were ever really resolved.

There were also some implausibilities which got to me - for some reason, I found the fact that Christopher was meant to be a "famous detective" quite difficult in the context of a supposedly realistic story. Also, the idea that resolving his parents' case would in some way put an end to the world's growing evil would have been fine if it was an indication of his monomania, but other characters also seemed to buy into it.

Perhaps, thinking about it, the lack of resolution was deliberate - the message being that you can think that your life has a certain shape and direction, only to have that completely overturned. There certainly seems to be a theme that you can be implicated in the most awful things without realising. But for me this still ended up a frustrating read, although a very well-written one. ( )

I've made several attempts at reviewing this, and like all Ishiguros I've read in the past, I'm having major troubles. It's hard to put my finger on just what it is about his books that make the impact - but for me, there's no doubt that the impact is there.

For most of the book, you read away, and everything's quiet, simple, reflective. The protagonist narrator, Christopher Banks, is telling us about his life - recent events, memories of the past, detailed recollections of his childhood. Some of the memories are not quite clear, as memories often are. Events jump around in time. Our interest is held, we read on knowing all this is leading somewhere... and then wham. Action. Just in the last third of the book, suddenly it's all stops open and everything happens at once. And we get to the last few pages of the novel, finish it, and suddenly we realise that we have come to know Christopher Banks, really know him - what he's like; how he sees himself; how others see him; what has driven him all through life; his motives, ambitions, needs and ideas. And we care. And the ending, which, if told to us as bare bones would be almost meaningless, hits us hard.

Which brings me to so many other cool things about Ishiguro. One is how detailed his writing is, and yet there are many things he leaves unsaid, especially at the end. It leaves us thinking. His style is very distinctive, and consistent across all three Ishiguro books I've read so far. It's deceptively simple, detailed in an almost pedantic way - yet never once gets in the way of the action.

Another cool thing is that this book is an excellent example of an unreliable narrator. I myself don't know whether some of the things Banks tells us are actually 'true' or not. Banks himself seems to believe it utterly, but is he rewriting his own history so that he can deal with it better? Is he having himself on? Or is his memory simply innacurate? Or is it actually true, and the other people he talks to are the mistaken ones? Even during the action scene in the last third, some things seem almost like dream sequences. Could they really be 'true'?

Then there's the character study. Banks is a fascinating person, and as I said before, we come to know him very well. He's full of flaws, contradictions, and little quirks that make him so vulnerable and so, well, human. In the action sequence, his singleness of purpose is depicted wonderfully well, and... well, I'll stop there before I start on the spoilers.

Most of the authors who I really admire are dead - Ishiguro is one of the few exceptions. Vive Ishiguro!

What I liked:
- The writing; it's like velvet. It's the first book I've read of Ishiguro's and I was impressed.

- Character of Sarah Hemmings; the pages with her sizzle.

- The villian; I won't give away the ending, but the bad guy is truly evil and the final confrontation is memorable.

- Setting in Shanghai; the description of imperialism, corruption, and the opium trade were of personal interest.

- The elements of nostalgia, the fogginess of memory, the 'good and evil' of man, lack or loss of parental love in childhood (for several), and the transience of life ... it all adds up to create a unique feeling.

What I disliked:
- There are aspects of the plot which are unbelievable; the delay in starting his investigation back in Shanghai, the odd expectation and certainty of success, an encounter that you'd expect to be one in a million, etc. Perhaps it's meant to all be symbolic of chasing childhood memories and the elusiveness of recovering the 'good days' and parental love, but I think this is a weak point.

- The personal mission to rescue parents and 'clean up Shanghai' seems disproportinately played up as 'root of evil' (head of serpent) relative to the crisis in the world at large. Likely meant as a microcosm and the need to fight evil on small scale to defeat it on a large scale, but it came across as hyperbole to me.

I would recommend the book and debated 4 stars. I think Ishiguro reached just a little too far but I give him credit for the artistry.

Favorite quotes:
"The evil ones are much too cunning for your ordinary decent citizen. They'll run rings around him, corrupt him, turn him against his fellows. I see it, I see it all the time now and it will grow worse. That's why we'll need to rely more than ever on the likes of you, my young friend. The few on our side every bit as clever as they are."

"I think it would be no bad thing if boys like you all grew up with a bit of everything. We might all treat each other a good deal better then. Be less of these wars for one thing. Oh yes. Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won't be because of great statesmen or churches or organizations like this one. It'll be because people have changed. They'll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy."

"So identical were their pitiful whispers, the way their screams gave way to desperate entreaties, then returned to screams, that the notion came to me this was what each of us would go through on our way to death - that these terrible noises were as universal as the crying of newborn babies."

"'Those were splendid days', I said. 'We didn't know it then, of course, just how splendid they were. Children never do, I suppose.'"

"But for those like us, our fate is to face the world as orphans, chasing through long years the shadows of vanished parents. There is nothing for it but to try and see through our missions to the end, as best we can, for until we do so, we will be permitted no calm." ( )

Christopher Banks is a well-respected British detective who seems to approach other people as he does clues, holding them at arm's length and dispassionately examining them. Yet we soon discover there is one unsolved mystery that haunts this rather aloof soul - the disappearance of his parents in Shanghai many years before. Ishiguro lays out a tantilising trail of clues, many of which are the sketchy remnants of Banks' sometimes misremembered childhood. Though the pace is more languid than is typical of a crime novel, the reader is quickly drawn into the quest for answers.

While not always easy to follow, When We Were Orphans is a beautifully written novel which will satisfy fans of Ishiguro and the crime genre alike. ( )

Having just finished this book, I am left slightly frustrated and confused. For the first half of 'When We Were Orphans', I was completely engaged with the main character, enjoying Ishiguro's excellent writing and felt like the plot was building up to an exciting conclusion. However, as others have remarked in their reviews, the plot becomes a bit strange in the second half - I suspect that it deserves further contemplation.

This book is certainly thought-provoking, and Ishiguro's prose is a pleasure to read. The book is cleverly crafted so that nothing is entirely clear to the reader, and you begin to doubt things that you previously accepted as truth. Certainly not the straightforward book that I initially expected, but very enjoyable nonetheless. ( )

Yes, Ishiguro's writing is certainly high quality. Yes, I realize some of the best books ever written require the reader to inhabit the mind of a thoroughly unlikable protagonist (e.g. Lolita). However, when I spend the vast majority of the book wanting the punch the protagonist in the throat and shake him out of his self-absorbed mania...well, that will make enjoying the story far more difficult.

It's odd because Christopher Banks has a great deal in common with another Ishiguro protagonist--Stevens from Remains of the Day. Both leads tragically misinterpreted the world around them and are thoroughly representative of the interwar years in Britain. However, in "Remains," Ishiguro spent the book showing how Stevens's perceptions were flawed and more importantly has STEVENS himself come to the realization. Banks doesn't get what an obtuse asshole he's being until just before the epilogue--then Ishiguro skips ahead a couple of decades.

This isn't a typical bad book because Ishiguro is so talented. His descriptions of war-torn China and the people forced to aid Christopher on his journey are fantastic and I probably would have liked this book more if I was allowed to get out of Christopher's head and into theirs. There are also moments when it sneaks through the narrative that despite Christopher's delusions of grandeur, the world sees him for the damaged person that he is. However, when the author asks you to see the world through the eyes of someone monstrously self-absorbed, these moments do not provide the welcome relief they otherwise could.

If it was just a mediocre book, I would have put it down and never picked it back up. But because the author was so talented, I wanted to believe I would find something in Banks to hold onto besides endless, witless, obtuse self absorption. Unfortunately, that was not to be and I was stuck with the odious Banks to the bitter end. ( )

Christopher Banks spent a happy in childhood in Shanghai at the beginning of the 20th century as the son of privileged British ex patriates living in a large house supplied by the opium importer for which his father worked. He spent his days playing make-believe games with his best friend, the Japanese boy who lived next door. But then first his father, then his mother disappeared—kidnapped by ruthless Chinese criminals. An orphan, Christopher is sent to England where he grows up determined to become a famous detective like Sherlock Holmes and solve the mystery of his parents’ disappearance.

Gradually, as Christopher narrates his story—alternating between 1930s London where he lives as an adult, having fulfilled his ambition of becoming a famous detective, and his recollections of his childhood in Shanghai—the reader becomes aware that the narrator’s view of reality is skewed. Indeed, it seems that Christopher is living in a fantasy world where he believes his parents are still alive, even decades later, and that his return to Shanghai to find them will somehow avert the disastrous war brewing between the Chinese and Japanese. By the time he gets back to China, we feel like we can trust nothing that Christopher says, and that is the genius of this novel.

Christopher comes to an abrupt reckoning with the truth following a harrowing sequence in which he wends his way through a bombed-out Chinese slum, avoiding the battles going on in the streets around him while trying to locate the very house where he believes his parents are still being held. When he finally learns the truth, he returns to England defeated but still quite self-deluded.

While on the surface, When We Were Orphans is a crime novel written in the style of Arthur Conan Doyle, in actuality it is a complex psychological study of a character stranded at a traumatic point in his childhood, unable to move beyond his fantasies. ( )

I liked this book pretty well in the beginning, but it just got stupid. Christopher Banks is a totally annoying and frustrating narrator, and unfortunately you can't escape him. It starts off as an interesting personal mystery but the character loses all sense of reality and takes you with him. This premise could work for me, but Banks was just so ridiculously self-centered and deluded that I could not take him seriously or have any empathy whatsoever. The writing was good, his usual style. ( )

I picked this book up at a charity book sale two years ago for $1, the other day when I was looking for something new to read I thought it might have potential, I have never read anything else by Ishiguro. I do own The Remains of the Day but I hate starting out with a book by an author that is supposed to be really good since it makes the ones afterwards disappointing.

As soon as I started reading I found Ishiguro's storytelling pretty engaging, and the different aspects of life in Shanghai and London I always find interesting. I was developing my own ideas of what might have happened to Christopher's parents and near the end I was actually mad because I found the book to be so predictable but then WAIT! That's not what happens!

Ishiguro had everything that I look for in a really entertaining read, and I can't wait to read some more by him. ( )

Understated story of a man apparently orphaned as a child in Shanghai with his parents thought to be abducted by war lords. He is adopted by his rich English aunt and becomes a detective determined to find out what happened to his parents. He returns to Shanghai as World War II and at great personal risk finds out that the truth isn't what he expected. ( )

I loved the setting of the 1920s and 1930s in England and Shanghai. The tone of the narrator is set well, but I wanted more insight into how he works, not just his idealized memories. He's a detective, but his major cases are never described, and then his case in Shanghai is severely bungled. I hoped for more happiness in his life and more of an escape for me, and instead the reality is very cruel. ( )

Was a little tough to follow the story line. some chapters felt like you had just been dropped off at the party with out being filled in on who the guests were before hand. ( )

This book presented me with a dilemma. It is beautifully written. It evokes 1920's wealthy London and 1930's Shanghai beautifully. It casts light on the colonial life in 1930's Shanghai and the politics of the period in a thought provoking but effortless way. At first I was enthralled and interested in the main character, but by the end of the book I was outraged by his self absorption, his lack of grip on reality, and by his absolute lack of empathy for other characters. I thought he was mad. Perhaps that's the point. However, this book is definitely worth reading, particularly if you enjoyed Remains of the Day. ( )

A really weird book. The author constantly keeping one in a sort of dull suspense over what's actually going on, since we're rarely informed about was has happened or what's going to happen. We're just told what's happening. But it's still rather intriguing... ( )

This was my second attempt to read this book. I think the first time must have been about six years ago, and I gave up before I got even a quarter of the way in. It just wasn't 'its time' then.

I'm glad I picked it up again. I have never read an Ishiguro book before, and wasn't too sure what to expect, never even seen "The Remains of the Day" so had no concept of his writing. I found it to be very well set and the language he used was very much 'of the time'. There was a lot of detail and I was able to visualise his descriptions easily - something I'm not always able to do when reading a book!

The story was quite slow, but I did not find that to be too much of a chore (perhaps that's why I gave up last time?), it was probably what I would call steady, and didn't really build up to any tension until the last quarter of the book. The ending was enjoyable (if that's the right term), and although it probably wasn't as satisfactory as some may have wanted it to be, I felt it was the right ending and followed the general tone of the book.

I wasn't sure whether to give this a 3 or a 4, so plumped for 3.5, but it probably errs more on a 4. ( )

As always, Ishiguro's narrative is complex and interesting, his writing beautiful, and his narrator fascinating. The book picks you up from the beginning, and it follows through. My only qualm with the book (and the reason it doesn't get five stars from me) is that there is a portion involving war where, honestly, many of the actions of characters (and the narrative itself) just seem a bit unbelievable and appear to put Ishiguro out of his element. Still this isn't a central part of the novel, and a small problem with a book that is otherwise overwhelmingly engaging, believable, and worthwhile. You'll fall in love with his characters, and worry over them even as at other times you may be infuriated. The book is beautiful and worth reading. On a somewhat separate note, I do wish Roddy Doyle had read this book before writing Paddy Clarke--there are some effects here which Ishiguro accomplishes admirably and apparently effortlessly in his rendering of children, that I found to fall flat in Doyle's work. When I read the first portion of this, my immediate reaction was to think yes, this is how you do that. I strongly recommend this book for any writer or reader--it is a wonderful wonderful work that lives up to its author's reputation for excellence and individuality. ( )

this book is a slow,slow burn plotwise..i kept thinking the protagonist was Insane..but, given the fact that Memory is the Great Trickster, insofar as we accept or deny indivisual recollections...the slow pacinng is/was perfect..creepy, but perfect...i even loved the rather pedestrian ending which was perfect, in this case, given the over-excited buildup of plot and action..a great read! ( )

I have a big literary crush on Kazuo Ishiguro. The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go were two of my favorite books of the last five years. When We Were Orphans is a different animal. It's much more densely plotted and the tone is much less controlled. The book is about Christopher Banks, an Englishman reared in Shanghai whose parents disappeared mysteriously when he was six years old. He grows up to be a renowned (?) detective and returns to Shanghai in hopes of solving the case - and by doing so, resolving the Sino-Japanese war and saving civilization.

Ishiguro is playing with the idea of the unreliable narrator, and Banks comes across as pretty much delusional. He acknowledges through the book that he doesn't trust his own memory of events. But what's odd is that so many of the other characters seem to share in his delusion, and seem to believe that he is the man who will single-handedly save China. I think Ishiguro is attempting to portray a man's interior confusion through these snapshots of the outside world seemingly buying in - as a paranoid man might see external confirmations of his world view whether they are there or not. In any case, aspects of the book are confusing and certainly food for thought. The latter part of the book is almost hallucinatory, and incidentally reminds me of the climax of The Wicker Man, my favorite horror film. ( )

Christopher Banks was orphaned as a child when he lived in Shanghai. He insists that his family situation has had no effect on his life, but in reality, the novel reveals piece by piece how unreliable he is and how much his childhood has severely affected the rest of his life. Ishiguro contrasts his childhood in Shanghai with his immediate life as a British detective.

I adore Ishiguro’s writing. Something about his prose draws me in and I can’t look up until I’ve finished the entire book. It is restrained, elegant, but it always conveys a hidden depth of emotion and meaning. He says so much without actually saying anything at all, and I love it. This is probably why he’s a master of the unreliable narrator.

This book isn’t much liked compared to Ishiguro’s others, based on the LibraryThing rating and reviews. This seems to be largely because towards the end, Christopher makes some silly decisions. This didn’t bother me; it seems that when it comes to his parents he has a child’s mentality despite his brilliance in other areas (which is never actually demostrated to us, unfortunately).

When We Were Orphans has the most plot of any Ishiguro novel I’ve read - most of them seem to meander through time to come to a fixed realization at the end. This one doesn’t quite do that and actually the plot comes together to reveal something that the reader has known for a while. I definitely still enjoyed it, though, as it almost creates a feeling of suspense that isn’t present in his other novels, because it’s hard to say in the beginning why things are happening as they are.

What did I like the most? I think the ties between orphans, their shared childhood memories, and how it changed them, all of them, but also how they are connected because of their shared loss. It was poignant, bitterly sweet, something that Ishiguro excels at. This book is almost too full of his skills, and it has cemented his place as one of my favorite authors. I doubt he is ever again going to match the brilliance of The Remains of the Day, but this novel is still very, very good.

http://chikune.com/blog/?p=134 ( )

This book is very hard to review without giving away important aspects of the story that make it so enthralling to read. I'll just say that I was completely taken in by the narrative voice and really enjoyed this book. ( )

I did not find this to be the page turner that Never Let me Go was but it still is a marvelous book. It creates a picture of British society in pre WWII Shanghai in the "International Settlement". It is not a flattering portrait and it is a shocking reminder of the evil of the British exploitation of the opium trade. China was never a British colony so did not even have the so called benefits of security and law and order. The opium trade brought death and destruction to the ordinary Chinese but the British never gave it a moments thought. They sipped champagne in 1937on the balconies of their sumptuous hotels while watching the Japanese warships fire into the Chinese areas of Shanghai. It touched them not. When we Were Orphans is however a book about the human spirit, the loss of innocence, and precious relationships and friendships.. If I have a criticism, it would be that Christopher Banks seemed to maintain this innocence and ignorance a bit longer than seems believable. Perhaps however there was no limit to the narrowminded ignorance of the British. As much as Christopher rails against it , he is part of it in his assumption that his quest for his lost parents is more important than the terrible events around him.
Anyone who is interested in the history of this period and the opium wars should of course read "Empire of the Sun" by J. G. Ballard. Mr Ballard grew up in Shanghai during the 30's and was actually witness to these turbulent times. Yes, there is the Spielberg movie but I highly recommend the book.
Following my usual practice, I wrote my review and then read the other reviews. I saw that other readers had the same discomfort about the narrator and main character, Christopher Banks. Could he really have been that naive, given that he was supposedly educated, clever, and a brilliant detective? I think the key is, as at least one reviewer stated, that everything about Shanghai is viewed through his childhood innocence. A grown man should recognize the unliklihood of his parents still living in the same house for 30 years, but the child "Puffin" does not. His failure to say anything to help his Japanese childhood friend (when he could so easily have done so) and the failure to even acknowledge that is puzzling. After all, he is supposed to be clever. Unless of course he is acting as a child where his search for his parents recognizes no other needs. I could accept that more easily if his behavour in London as an adult did not suffer from some of the same problems. This detachment characterizes all his relationships. There is loss but never grief. There is also a distinct lack of self awareness, not only in his relationships with others, but in his view of himself. His school mates thought of him as a troubled loner. He thought he was totally normal and happy. The author alerts us to that fairly early in the book. Christopher is not a reliable narrator of much of anything but we know that or should have known that. Is he still believable enough to present a genuine intellectual challenge? Maybe. ( )

An intriguing novel. The device of the unreliable narrator is played to great effect--not least because of the way it is employed to illumine the character of consciousness, memory, and desire in the frail and hurting human mind. The language is rich and haunting. What strikes me most just now, having just finished the book, is the delicately evoked sense of the child-mind that lies behind all that the seemingly worldly, sophisticated adult narrator speaks. The reader can at all times see the boy Puffin within the man Christopher--a remarkable achievement. It gives the book a not-altogether comfortable, thrilling quality that I dare say will provoke the sensitive reader into deep self-reflection. Christopher never gives up Puffin's fantasies; he lives a portion of them indeed right up until the end of the book, though some he has had to let go.

A remarkable text also for the way it combines elements of Dickens (Great Expectations), Nabokov (Lolita, I think), Fitzgerald (Gatsby), and Stoker (Dracula)* in a story we can never really trust, and yet want to believe. (One could nearly say its a Victorian novel that's not one.) I am left with the feeling that, having read Christopher's narration, I will never really know the truth of what happened--but that is perhaps the point: the book is Christopher's subjective truth, his experience, his pain and sorrow "chasing through long years the shadows" of his vanished parents. It remains narrowly focused throughout upon Christopher's goals, his mission, despite the immensely larger historical context within which his story unfolds. The war, the global struggle, remains always at the story's periphery, except when Christopher encounters it directly, and even then the focus remains on his personal mission, his personal movement, the effects upon him personally. This focus is tellingly revealed in his willingness to deal with both Japanese and Chinese soldiers and authorities in order to reach his goal of "solving the case"--for Christopher, their battles are irrelevant. It is not too much to say that finding his parents is a higher priority for him than solving the world's problems--though in his mind, he conflates the two.

In the end, I believe the book suggests that some of us, though perhaps not orphans in the technical sense, are not all that different from Christopher as we move through the long years, burdened with a sense of mission and certain powers of perception and yet curiously blind to central truths, often until it is too late to rescue ourselves. Can we rescue ourselves from chasing after the love and approval of our parents our whole lives?

At this moment, I have the feeling that this book will be well worth re-reading, and would reward deeper study.

*The similarity to Dracula I am thinking of has nothing to do with vampires or the supernatural. I am thinking instead of the narrative device of the journal or diary entry, and of the way that the narrative travels (somewhat confusingly at times) backwards and forwards within the diary entry itself, as the narrator recalls events that occurred days, weeks, or years ago while writing the entry, while simultaneously referring to later events nearer to the time of the writing. As if this weren't enough, each entry (the various "parts" into which the novel is divided) concludes in a "present" that the next entry will refer to as the past. All of this is reminiscent of the multiple-diary, multiple timeline structure of Stoker's Dracula. ( )

This is the fourth Ishiguro book I've read, and it's now apparent to me that he's a bit of a one trick pony - vaguely awkward, slightly unreliable narrator and slowly revealed truths being common themes.

Maybe if this had been the first Ishiguro book I'd had read I would have enjoyed it more, but it's boring reading the same book over and over again, so I won't read any more of his work.

In places 'Orphans' made no sense, characters acted completely illogically, almost as if Ishiguro had forgotten which book he was writing and slipped back into 'Unconsoled' mode (an intentionally surreal masterpiece).

Although I've given it three stars I really can't recommend it unless somebody gives it to and you can find anything else to read (it happens!) ( )

A strange novel. The main character grew up in Shanghai until both of his parents disappear. He returns to Shanghai as an adult after becoming a famous detective and proceeds to try and solve the case of his missing parents. I had a rather hard time getting through it as many of his dealings with the Chinese or Japanese were rather rude and ugly. I found myself really disliking him for his arrogance with others. There are much better books out there. ( )