Second reading. Ishiguro's novels are nothing if not enigmatic. There's disorientation; the reader is never quite sure where he stands. When We Were Orphans is a quasi-Bildungsroman or coming of age story. It is set over a period of fifty years or so in London, Shanghai and then back in London again.Narrator Christopher Banks is born of English parents with whom he lives in the International Concession in Shanghai. Around 1915 or so they disappear, when he is about nine, and are believed victims of the kidnapping gangs operating in the city at the time. His guardians send him to London where he attends Oxford. At one gathering with college friends he is given a large magnifying glass as a prank, but Christopher, whose sense of irony is nonexistent at this point, takes the gift very seriously. Very soon he is pursuing a successful career as a detective in London. His successes however are mysteries, enigmas, as is his process of achieving them. The reader is intentionally excluded from the procedural detail of Christopher’s cases. Ishiguro busies himself with overturning the conventions of the detective novel. There’s a lot of highly idealistic talk at this stage by Christopher and those he meets about answering the call and subverting evil. The argument we soon realize is far too broad and encompassing. After a while it takes on a cartoonish or comicbook impracticality. This is also intentional. In the early part of the novel, Christopher often equivocates. He’s fond of phrases like “it is entirely possible,” or “I do not remember quite how this came about.” The watchword for Christopher in the first third of the novel is denial. He is living an extended adolescence. He hasn’t grown up. We see this childishness in his belief, carried to the nth degree once he returns to Shanghai, that he can “rescue” his parents; that, in fact, his parents are still alive and living with their kidnappers somewhere in the city. This is pure fantasy, which is how Christopher rolls.A virgin with heterosexual leanings, early on he is attracted to the social gadfly and fellow orphan Sarah Hemmings. There's clearly a connection on the level of desire but Christopher has little notion of what he might do with Sarah were she in his possession. Sex is a mystery. Note to lovers of literary sex, this novel is without it. There are, thankfully, no erection-inducing passages. Sarah represents an overturning of the love-of-his-life convention, rife in thrillers mostly of the lower grade.Unlike Christopher’s mother, who undertakes what turns out to be a very dangerous campaign against British opium trafficking in China — a very thrusting woman who completely belittles and alienates her spouse — Sarah believes she can only be effective in life if she is married to the right man. When Christopher doesn’t do anything despite her repeated public praising of him, she marries an old dodderer, Sir Cecil Medhurst, with the object of goading him into one last bout of productivity, presumably diplomatic -- we’re never quite sure what Sir Cecil does -- before he croaks. This lights a fire under Christopher who realizes the time has come to rescue his parents. He seems completely unaware of the fact that he’s really going to Shanghai to find Sarah. The first fifth of the book is about Christopher pursuing his detective career as a young man in London, 1932. The second fifth is all flashback to Christopher’s childhood in Shanghai with his parents, his Japanese friend and neighbor, Akira, with whom he plays, and someone known as Uncle Philip, who is not a real uncle at all. This section outlines Christopher’s naïve mindset which persists for the first two-thirds of the book. Christopher returns to Shanghai just after the Japanese invasion of 1937. Now the story distorts into almost camp surrealism. Things get very bizarre. Ishiguro intentionally conflates Christopher's purpose in the city. Is he there to “solve” the war situation? Is he there to rescue his parents? Or is he there for another unnamed purpose? The reader is never sure. Then there’s his cryptic raging against the city fathers for having “let the situation” deteriorate so much. The reader is never quite sure what he’s talking about. This “disorientation” is an analog to Christopher’s mental state. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about and so can be called highly unreliable.The detective work he does is like a child’s game carried out in a friend’s backyard. The cartoonishly large magnifying glass implies a focus that Christopher is entirely lacking. Everyone in Shanghai knows he’s there, but why he’s there is constantly shifting. A fellow at the British Consulate, Grayson, seems on one level to actively mock Christopher by going on at length about a reception to be held in a public park once Christopher rescues his parents, which seems far from certain. This is so deftly handled though that we aren’t sure if it’s cruelty on Grayson’s part or if he possesses the same depths of credulity as Christopher. It is not until an excruciating scene in Shanghai amid fighting between the Japanese and the Chinese Nationalists that Christopher comes upon the brutal truth. (I am reminded of J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun here, also set in Shanghai.) I don’t want to reveal how the revelation is brought about. Let’s just say, that the last fifth of the book represents an astonishing pulling together and elegant recapitualtion of what had up to this point seemed to be aimless and disconnected bits of information. Suddenly--bang!--the novel jigsaws itself together. The achievement here is outstanding. I think it represents, as the early part of the novel was an usurpation of detective novel conventions, a bit of an homage to them. There’s this turnabout aspect to the narrative that is entirely unexpected and thrilling. The reader must really trust the novelist here. The first two thirds of the book seem almost desultory, but in fact this is meant to reflect the fact that Christopher Banks is not quite an adult. He equivocates, he hedges, he sidesteps, etc., as opposed to the last fifth of the book where he becomes more certain, more sure of things, more determined in matters of the heart. In short, Christopher Banks has grown up. And it is one of the most ruthless and pitiless maturations I have ever come across in fiction. When Christopher becomes aware not only of how he has lived his life, but of the delusions he has had to willfully maintain in order to live it — the reader feels sledgehammered. There’s that wonderful interval when we read on breathless, stunned, appalled, as if our lives depended on it. Christopher’s earlier misdirection and hesitation and willed ignorance are swept away. He comes of age and as with all of us this means facing down some pretty cruel truths. This to my mind is Ishiguro’s best novel, though the others are worthwhile and I recommend them without reservation, especially The Remains of the Day. In this one there is a powerful distillation and crystallization of Ishiguro's methods and voice. If you only read one novel by Ishiguro make it this one.
When We Were Orphans was, for me, a pretty fascinating exploration of the difficulties typical to the lens of overgrown sentimentailty through which one approaches the vaguely remembered past. As the narration continues, one wonders just how ephemerally Christopher Banks, the narrator, holds his grasp on reality. Quite clearly his recollections of the distant past are modified to fit his circumstances and the man he's become—and paradoxically, the man he's become is a debt owed to these remembered (sometimes falsely so) experiences—but it may be more than that. It may be that the strength of his memories are so robust that they exert force upon even his more immediate experiences, colouring them to match the pallette of the world he's inherited from memoir.Christopher Banks is (or becomes over the span of years from which he narrates) one of Britain's brightest and most celebrated detectives, solving murder after murder with apparently little trouble. The man is quite plainly a rational genius. He does, however, have a great single ambition that propels him through his life—one that even drove him to his successful occupation. Banks hopes to one day tackle the most daunting crime of his life. The kidnapping of his parents.When Banks was a youth, living in the British Settlement in Shanghai just post the turn of the twentieth century, his parents were taken from him. As an adult, Banks intends to return to Shanghai, solves the disappearance, and even perhaps have his parents restored to him.As an abstract exploration of the nature of both history and memory, When We Were Orphans is an entirely worthwhile investigation, but my favourite conceit of Ishiguro's here was something far less integral (perhaps) to the story's primary goal. Banks throughout the telling speaks of this case and that, a series of murders and mysteries in which he is engaged to solve. Each one is solved to the adulation of British society and to the forwarding of Banks' reputation as one who understand intrinsically the criminal mind. And yet. Not once are we treated to any explanation of the details of such crimes or their solutions. While Ishiguro keeps us at arm's length from such unseemly designs (for they are not among his purposes in this tale), he takes special care to continuously draw our attention to the fact of such crimes and cases, perhaps foreshadowing the fact that it is the effect of the circumstance rather than the solution that truly matters in the end. Perhaps finding solutions to tragedies do nothing in the end to soften the brute fact of the tragedy?
What do You think about When We Were Orphans (2007)?
I almost threw this book across the room several times, so annoyed was I by Christopher Banks. Yes, I know his refusal to honestly examine his own life is the point, and though this can make for very intelligent reading, the narrator's reliance on the recycled pruderies of 19th century detective novels bored me to fucking tears. Yes, it was all very tricky and good for us for winking back, but to me it was all above the neck reading. But wait, if I nearly threw the book across the room and am cu
—Hallie
I'm happy to say that I've only been disappointed once by a Kazuo Ishiguro book. "Never Let Me Go" is one of the best things I've ever read, and "When We Were Orphans" isn't far behind. Christopher Banks overcomes a tragic childhood, it seems, to become the preeiminent detective in Great Britain. This allows him access to the country's elite social circles, but it's clear there are precious few people around whom Christopher is really comfortable. As a child, these people were his parents, family friend Uncle Phillip, and childhood chum Akira. Living in Shanghai, Christopher (dubbed Puffin by the adults in his life) and Akira played at all kinds of fantasies. But matters turned serious when Christopher's father disappears on his way to work one morning. At Akira's prompting, the two begin to play at solving the mystery of Mr. Banks' disappearance. Christopher becomes obsessed with detectives and detective work. The book is typical of the Ishiguro style, with its frequent flashbacks, simple language, and fascinating first person narrator. As a character, Christopher is fascinating, complex, and confusing. Despite his obvious heroic reputation, he seems to be the subject of periodic ridicule. People begin to blame him for not fixing "the situation" in Shanghai. When he proposes to become the ward of an orphaned girl, he is initially met with cold skepticism. Yet all of these incidents eventually resolve amicably. Suffice it to say, there is more going on with Christopher Banks than he might have you believe.This is, after all, a world where detectives are famous.The continued search to find his parents in Shanghai is harrowing and heartbreaking, but Ishiguro never takes us outside Christopher's head to bring everything neatly together. It reminded me of "A Pale View of the Hills", where he also leaves the reader a little in the dark, capable of figuring out the mystery, perhaps, but not instructed clearly how to do it. These are great books to have discussions about, and I look forward to the chance to discuss "When We Were Orphans" with someone. It is a superb, mysterious book that I recommend very highly.
—Dave
This is my 7th Ishiguro and I am happy for two reasons: (1) I am now an Ishiguro completist and (2) unlike a couple of his earlier books, I actually liked this one. I almost rated this with 4 stars but I could not do that because I found the first half of the book unbelievably boring. However, Ishiguro managed to make the book’s last 50-70 pages truly engaging that I thought I was able to squirt some tears from my eyes when the boyhood friends were back together. It was one of the most poignant scenes that I read this year and it will stay with me for a long time.Like is other 5 novels, this one is also told by an unreliable first-person, Christopher “Puffin” Banks. Like his other narrators, Banks also chooses which memory he would like to recall. Like the other novels, the storytelling also is nostalgic and silent. The plot could be deceiving: the prose is easy to read and at times uneventful (translation: boring) but if you read between the lines or if you persist up to the end of the book, you would know that there are reasons for the boring first half.However, unlike my favorite books of Ishiguro, Remains and Never Let Me Go, this book has many loose ends that Ishiguro left hanging similar to what he did in Pale View. For example, how come the mother did not know that the father was trading opium when they were still dating so she could have avoided him? So what happened to Sarah Hemmings after Christopher left Shanghai? Why did she go to Shanghai in the first place (I thought that going there to be with Christopher was a flimsy reason). What is it that Christopher thinks that he will save by looking for his parents after 20 or so years? (I think Christopher is so stupid to think that his parents are there in the house when WWII is about to begin and the Chinese and Chinese soldier are already killing each other). The other small complaint that I have is that the voices are almost similar throughout except when Akira is talking. The Chinese and Japanese people in Shanghai talk like British and when the shooting began, they still (including Christopher) talked calmly as if they were in a palatial British estate and talking to the lord and the ladies. Needless to say, Christopher’s narration reminded me of Steven, the butler, in The Remains of the Day.This book, When We Were Orphans is refreshing because it has a mystery-suspense flavor. I read The Remains of the Day (GR Avg 4.05 with 36,526 ratings) in 2009 and I fell in love with Kazuo Ishiguro. This love was cemented the following year, 2010 when I read Never Let Me Go (GR Avg 3.74 with 98,101 ratings) followed by his collection of short stories Nocturnes (GR Avg 3.34 with 3,603 ratings). Never has a sci-fi flavor and his collection of stories has music as motif so I thought that Ishiguro indeed was a novelist who did not rewrite himself.This year, since our book club read Remains last month, I decided to read all his other books. I began with A Pale View of the Hills (GR Avg. 3.68 with 3,507 ratings) and I thought it was almost the same as Remains and Ishiguro did not know how to end his story. Then I followed it with An Artist of the Floating World (GR Avg 3.70 with 3,718 ratings) and aside from the same complaints, the books was not able to elicit any emotional reaction from me particularly because the characters were caricatures. However, the next book Unconsoled (GR Avg 3.46 with 2,663 ratings) was almost like a total departure from his other books. It is more dreamlike like Andre Breton’s Nadja and fearsome in its approach in storytelling and so I liked it. This being not a rehash of his other books was the primary reason why I liked this book, When We Were Orphans (GR Avg 3.40 with 6,417 ratings). Ishiguro admitted that this was his least favorite among his works but notice the number of ratings; this is his third most read book here in Goodreads. This was also shortlisted in Booker 2000 (it lost to Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin). I am still to read that Atwood book but I think this book deserves the Booker nomination especially because of the last 2-3 chapters.My ratings for Ishiguro’s books:4 STARS (I really liked these!): and 3 STARS (I liked these): , and 2 STARS (These were okay): and Not bad really. Since Ishiguro is still alive, I will still buy and read all his incoming books.
—K.D. Absolutely
