When We Were Orphans

Kazuo Ishiguro's greatest talent is imbuing the stories of his emotionally repressed, hopelessly English narrators with a feeling of deep and genuine sadness. While Stevens, the butler who narrates "The Remains of the Day" and Kathy H., the woman we meet in "Never Let Me Go," put on a brave face for their audiences, the feelings of loss and regret suffuse their stories. Ishiguro, in other words, is a skilled enough writer that he can show us his characters' emotional makeup without being so crass as to actually describe it to us. That, dear reader, is even harder than it sounds.

Christopher Banks, the narrator of "When We Were Orphans" is, even by Ishiguro's standards, stiff and British to a fault. In contrast with Ishiguro's most show more memorable narrators, however, his prim, formal tone never wavers. While he's eager enough to relate both the important and, frustratingly enough, the tediously insignificant incidents that make up his life story, his inner life remains something of a mystery to us. Banks seems like a young, self-regarding public school man from the novel's beginning almost right through to its very end. "When We Were Orphans" obviously draws much of its inspiration from the mystery genre, and, while it's cunningly constructed, the shallowness of Banks' character is a serious flaw. I'm sad to say that I found the first two-hundred or so pages of this book disappointingly dry and plotty.

It's a shame, really. The author places his characters at an interesting place and time, the foreign quarter of Shanghai at the very beginnings of the Second World War. The moral and cultural contradictions and conflicts that play out in this setting certainly seem like good material for a novelist of his interests. "When We Were Orphans," however, is consumed by its main character's determination to discover the fates of his parents, who disappeared almost thirty years previously. Banks's determination to solve his case is so extreme that the novel takes on a manic, feverish edge, and it's never quite revealed how closely his experience of war-torn Shanghai reflects the reality of his surroundings. Indeed, I struggled to suspend my disbelief at various points throughout the narrative and found Banks's obliviousness rather unlikable. It's also not quite clear what this superhuman focus is supposed to represent. Is it the myopia of the colonial experience? His character's yearning to resolve the pain of his childhood trauma? The callousness of the Western elite, which gets criticized at various points throughout the novel? It's hard to tell. I'll keep reading Ishiguro, of course, but "When We Were Orphans" just doesn't compare with his best work. show less

“I am beginning to see now many things aren’t as I supposed.”

As the story opens, protagonist Christopher Banks is a detective in London in the 1920s-1930s, at least that’s what he tells us. We never get any details of his cases, so we must take his word for it. It seems he wanted to be a detective to solve the disappearance of his parents when he was ten years old and living in the Shanghai. We gradually learn more about Christopher’s childhood in the International Settlement, and his Japanese friend, Akira. He believes his parents were kidnapped due to their opposition to the opium trade. He has always planned to return to Shanghai to rescue them. Along the way, Christopher goes through successes, failures, enlightenments, show more and disillusionments. Primary themes are the transience of memory and nostalgia.

Christopher is drawn to other orphans. He is effectively orphaned when his parents disappear and is reared by an aunt in London. He meets Sarah, a glamorous woman whose parents are deceased, and adopts Jennifer, a young orphan girl. As Sarah states late in the narrative, “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.”

It shifts between a version of reality (as seen through Banks’ eyes) and an almost surreal segment when he returns to Shanghai in the midst of the Sino-Japanese war (1937). He tries to locate the house where he believes his parents are still held captive. We follow him through a war-torn region near Shanghai. In this gripping, and also bizarre, segment, the reader wonders how much of this can possibly be real. Does Banks believe what he is saying? Is he mentally ill? Is he really a detective? Is this a parody of a detective story?

Even though Christopher is an adult, he comes across as extremely naïve and sheltered. He seems to be stuck in his childhood. He is chasing memories of the halcyon days of his youth before his world was shattered. My take on the surreal segment is that he finally faces the fact that the world is a pretty horrible place (and about to get worse – this was just prior to WWII).

The novel is written in elegant prose, with parts harking back to the time period in which it is set. It will likely not be very satisfying to anyone looking for a traditional detective story. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I tend to enjoy these types of quirky off-the-beaten path stories.

The audio book is brilliantly read by John Lee. His pacing, intonement, and voices are beautifully performed. I am going to find out what else he has narrated. show less

Christopher Banks’ parents disappeared in mysterious circumstances in Shanghai when he was just a boy, and he returned to England, where he completed his education. Now he is a celebrated detective. This story vividly depicts life in Shanghai between the two World Wars. It’s also a really interesting exploration of the dilemma between duty and pleasure, 'truth', and the reliability of memory ...

It’s interesting reading a story when from very early on you start asking yourself the extent to which the narrator’s perceptions are accurate. We all have possible blind spots in the telling of the events of our lives, and it seems to me that one of Ishiguro’s strengths is the way that he’s able to make these salient in his writing, show more so we’re conscious as we read along with the narrator that there are things that he isn’t telling us, or doesn’t know to tell us. It’s even more ironic when the story is narrated by a detective ...

I really enjoyed this book, and Ishiguro is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. show less

It is a bit ironic that Kazuo Ishiguro is probably the writer in the world that presents the richness of the English langusge in the most beautiful way. Nearly every sentence is colourful, rich and imaginative, while at the same time concise and easily accessible. Ishiguro came to Britain as a 5-year old, so English is his mother tongue, but I still suspect he brings some of his Japanese background into his use of the language. "When We Were Orphans" is the third book I have read from Ishiguro. "The Remains of the Day" is still my favorite, but this novel is nevertheless a considerable achievement and definitely worth reading, way above average. Christopher Banks is one of the world's most famous detectives, but the greatest detective show more story he encounters is from his own early life, a case he finds it hard to solve. The novel is written in first person singular, so we only get to understand Christopher's world through his own words, and Ishiguro demands a lot from his reader to fill in the blanks. In a way he is turning me as a reader into a detective as well. As opposed to the other novels I have read from Ishiguro, this novel touches upon his own background, as it is set in Shanghai's International Settlement in the early part of last century, with both Chinese, British and Japanese main characters. show less

“I am beginning to see now many things aren’t as I supposed.”

As the story opens, protagonist Christopher Banks is a detective in London in the 1920s-1930s, at least that’s what he tells us. We never get any details of his cases, so we must take his word for it. It seems he wanted to be a detective to solve the disappearance of his parents when he was ten years old and living in the Shanghai. We gradually learn more about Christopher’s childhood in the International Settlement, and his Japanese friend, Akira. He believes his parents were kidnapped due to their opposition to the opium trade. He has always planned to return to Shanghai to rescue them. Along the way, Christopher goes through successes, failures, enlightenments, show more and disillusionments. Primary themes are the transience of memory and nostalgia.

Christopher is drawn to other orphans. He is effectively orphaned when his parents disappear and is reared by an aunt in London. He meets Sarah, a glamorous woman whose parents are deceased, and adopts Jennifer, a young orphan girl. As Sarah states late in the narrative, “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.”

It shifts between a version of reality (as seen through Banks’ eyes) and an almost surreal segment when he returns to Shanghai in the midst of the Sino-Japanese war (1937). He tries to locate the house where he believes his parents are still held captive. We follow him through a war-torn region near Shanghai. In this gripping, and also bizarre, segment, the reader wonders how much of this can possibly be real. Does Banks believe what he is saying? Is he mentally ill? Is he really a detective? Is this a parody of a detective story?

Even though Christopher is an adult, he comes across as extremely naïve and sheltered. He seems to be stuck in his childhood. He is chasing memories of the halcyon days of his youth before his world was shattered. My take on the surreal segment is that he finally faces the fact that the world is a pretty horrible place (and about to get worse – this was just prior to WWII).

The novel is written in elegant prose, with parts harking back to the time period in which it is set. It will likely not be very satisfying to anyone looking for a traditional detective story. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I tend to enjoy these types of quirky off-the-beaten path stories.

The audio book is brilliantly read by John Lee. His pacing, intonement, and voices are beautifully performed. I am going to find out what else he has narrated. show less

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 show more 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. show less

Kazuo Ishiguro’s enigmatic novel, When We Were Orphans, is as complex and baffling a work of fiction as I have ever encountered. Christopher Banks, our narrator, is not so much an unreliable narrator as a naive narrator who believes in the internal world he has created and acts upon it as if it were truth. Through so much of the novel I kept asking myself why he could not see the illogical conclusions he was drawing, but of course that is what this novel is about, his inability to leave his childhood behind him and his biased view of the events that lead up to the loss of his parents.

Christopher Banks is a detective, but this is not a detective story. There is a mystery to be solved, but solving the mystery is not the focus of this show more tale. In fact, Banks is a detective primarily because he feels himself tied to the events of his childhood that he carries around with him like an albatross. The only way he will ever be free to live his adult life is to solve the puzzle that surrounds the disappearance of first his father and then his mother. It is the mental workings of this character that are paramount, and you must be careful here because Banks sees mainly what he wishes to see, sometimes in complete opposition to what the facts appear to reveal.

Ishiguro does not entice you to follow Banks on his journey through his life, he does not lure you into the underbelly of Shanghai, he drags you along, sometimes kicking and screaming that there is something just not right about this story. I enjoyed trying to pick the truth out from among the obvious miscues and while I never felt anything akin to affection for Banks, I did sympathize with his situation and understand his desire to reconcile his childhood memories with what had truly occurred.

I suppose what I really took away from this story was that memories are not truths. The past cannot be reconstructed and no matter how much we might like to alter it, we never can. What has happened, even to ourselves, might not be in reality what happened at all, and spending the present on chasing the past might cost you the future.

...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.

Perhaps we are all chasing the shadows of vanished parents. Perhaps we are all struggling to discover who we are, separate from them, standing alone. I had a discussion with my older sister once about an event in our childhood. There were only three years separating us and both of us were present for this event and witnessed it ourselves, but our memories of it were so dissimilar as to be diametrically opposed. We can never go back there and see who was right, and maybe we both were, because what is true for one is not always what is true for another. show less