Rating: 
Summary: The pain of loss
Review: On the first reading "When We Were Orphans" seems to drag on, meander, lose itself in long-winded, stilted language of a time long past when people were in a "splendid" mood or were "hailed from afar" by a friend. As with most newspaper photographs of the time, there is a stagy, posed-feeling to it (to take an out-of-context quote from the book). The story is told from the perspective of Christopher Banks, a detective and one of the orphans of the title. Banks became orphaned as a boy when his parents were kidnapped in Shanghai around 1910. He was shipped to England, grew up there and became a detective in the 1930s. In 1937 he travels to Shanghai and in the midst of the fighting between the Nationalists, the Communists and the Japanese army he tries to uncover the secret behind the disappearance of his parents.The key to the book is the narrator. He is not what he pretends to be, and what one assumes a detective to be: rational, controlled, and objective. Christopher Banks is the very opposite, yet he has found ways to conceal this - even from himself. His outside may be sturdy, but his inside is fragile. Like the doors in his childhood friend's house in Shanghai he has two sides: on the outer side oak-paneled with shining brass knobs; on the inner side, delicate paper with lacquer inlays. While reading the book for the first time, one is deceived by the dull shine of Banks' story and his labyrinthine world of memories strangely lacking in emotion and coherence. Towards the end, in the bizarre rendering of Banks' journey through war-torn Shanghai it becomes increasingly clear just how much the novel is filled with the "words of a confused child, trying hard not to display his upset". "When We Were Orphans" is a compelling read as a psychological study and as an experiment in unreliable narration. The novel is almost a case study about how the pain of loss is denied and covered up but persists beneath the rather formal, almost blandly pleasant lines of Banks' story. As such it is a masterpiece of craftsmanship.
Rating:
Summary: Difficult, but well worth the effort
Review: This book begins as a charming and compelling view of one's man's somewhat distorted views of his life. By the end, you are caught up in bizarre events that tie to reality only via the main characters strangled connection to the past. It is not an easy book, but it is well worth it. Once I realized fully what was going on, I couldn't help but wonder at the mastery required to pull this off the way the author did. Unique and special.
Rating:
Summary: Have Patience
Review: I find it difficult to believe that anyone could call this book an "interesting failure" or claim that reading When We Were Orphans amounts to torture- the reviewer who claims simply to give the book time is on the mark. Like all Ishiguro books, this one takes about 50 pages to get one's attention, and, after that point, becomes difficult to put down. Ishiguro is an immensely talented writer who has a knack for crafting complex characters and enjoyable plots, and in When We Were Orphans he outdoes himself: the settings of pre-WWII London and Shanghai are perfectly realized, and Christopher Banks is the most intriguing narrator created by Ishiguro since Stevens in Remains of the Day. Ishiguro manages to write both with the technique of a thouroughly modern writer, and the language of a pre-war British aristocrat; the novel is unmistakably British, but makes liberal use of flashbacks and openly questions Banks's reliability as a narrator. I expected this attempt at the detective story genre to be stale and unexciting, and while the plot as a whole is not without its flaws (Ishiguro creates 200 pages of brilliance only to bring the story to a slightly disappointing climax), the book is enjoyable and quite readable as a whole, and has an outstanding ending. While When We Were Orphans is not the best work Ishiguro has done, it stands out as one of the best novels of 2000, and will reward the reader who simply has the patience to let the plot develop.
Rating:
Summary: I only can say: READ IT!
Review: Reminiscent in many ways to "The Remains of the Day", "When We Were Orphans" is a fascinating novel. I am beginning to think that Ishiguro is one of the best English novelists around, and I can't wait to get hold of his other works. The story revolves around Christopher Banks, a brooding well-known detective who has garnered a reputation among the high society of London. Very soon we discover that Banks is obsessed with his childhood, which ended abruptly when his parents were kidnapped in the English colonialised Shangai. The book is divided in two sections. In the first, the story moves back and forth between Christopher's present life in London and his childhood recollections in Shangai. I love how Ishiguro uses scenes to illustrate a certain feeling or point that Christopher wants to make, this is something that he used already in "Remains of the Day". The family memories are particularly poignant and of course the language is crisp, beautiful and precise. In the second part of the story Banks sets off to Shangai to discover the fate of his parents. Ishiguro here takes more risks as we soon realise the implausibility of the plotline. Is everything in Banks' imagination, or is he just embelleshing his discoveries? It is painful to discover how deluded from reality Banks is (and always was), and the extent to which his childhood traumatised him. The atmosphere of the Shangai section is dreamy and oppressive, and the pace in this part of the novel is much quicker, turning it into a real page turner. I won't give away any more of the plot. The great thing about this novel is that it can be read on different levels, and interpreted in different ways. I give it a solid five stars rating and urge you to read it at all costs.
Rating: 
Summary: A meditative, moving story
Review: This is a book about nostalgia, the need to return to one's past and the intrigue of memory. The theme of the malleability, vagueness and unreliability of memory runs through all of Ishiguro's novels, and `When we were Orphans' is no exception. Set in London and Shanghai of the 1930s, the novel is about a renowned detective Christopher Banks returning to his childhood origin of Shanghai in search of his missing parents. He later discovers the true story that proved to be starkly, and shockingly, different from his preconceived notions and expectations. Kazuo Ishiguro is an excellent writer who works his craft in a subtle, moving way. The story tugs at your heartstrings with its portrayal of the genuine friendship between Banks and his Japanese friend Akira, of the everlasting love between Banks and his mother and a short yet sweet love relationship between Banks and Sarah Hemmings.
I always had a liking for stories which weave into them critiques of social phenomenon or insinuations at major affairs happening then. Hence `When we were Orphans' fit the bill perfectly with its mention of the opium war, buildup of war in Europe, life and condition in Shanghai with its corruption and foreign influences. The buildup of the story towards its climax took Ishiguro around two-thirds of the book. However, far from being monotonous and boring, the storytelling is skilful and captivating. If there were to be one complaint about this novel, it would be that certain parts of the story appeared to be rather contrived. But then again, that did not spoil the reading pleasure, for it was compensated for by Ishiguro's unique style and his use of the motif of the `texture of memory'.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointing ouevre from a skillful writer
Review: I've found the "Orphans..." to be exceedingly boring. The interesting plot and a few preciously painted details are buried under a rubble of monotonous, dialogue lines replete with seemingly endless repetitions and regurgitations of what has just been said. Victorian pleasantries and polite addresses abound while none of the characters, with the exception of Sarah Hemmings, gets any sort of portrait description. The depiction of romantic feelings and situations in the novel, though told from the 1st person, male perspective, is completely asexual and feels like written by an old, Victorian maid who has never had sex. Another flaw is the accents - for some mysterious reason, most Chinese characters speak fluent, more-or-less grammatical English, while the main character's childhood friend who grew up speaking English in the international settlement, caricature-like lacks most copula verbs and other basic English grammatical forms. Mr. Ishiguro seems to be here in need of a strict editor who'd cut the flabber of his novel and demand a better re-write.
Rating:
Summary: A disappointing work from a gifted writer
Review: I was very impressed by Kazuo Ishiguro's beautifully crafted "Remains Of the Day" and had high expectations for "When We Were Orphans". Unfortunately, Mr. Ishiguro's attempt at writing a mystery is only a pale shadow of his previous work. The unreliable narrator voice that was so effective in "Remains of the Day" left me confused and frustrated in "Orphans", possibly because the narrator's perceptions are naive, inconsistent, and illogical. How can this possibly be a peek into the mind of a great detective?
At some points, the events of the story became so surreal that I suspected Mr. Ishiguro would eventually explain it all with the revelation that the narrator was actually (a) insane, or (b) a young child, or (c) dreaming. But the story continues to plod along with no major surprises until its preposterous conclusion.
The writing itself is competent and professional: every paragraph, taken individually, is very polished, and the author does an admirable job of presenting the stark contrasts of pre-WWII Shanghai. But the story as a whole is ultimately disappointing. If you're in the mood for suspense, pick up a Ken Follet. If you want a subtle character study, re-read "Remains of the Day". But don't waste your precious reading hours on this.
Rating:
Summary: When We Were Orphans
Review: A Finalist for the 2000 Booker Prize. Like Ford Madox Ford and Ferdinand Mount, the author utilizes the unreliable or semi-unreliable narrator to give a first person account of his early life. From pre-World War II Shanghai to England and back again, Kazuo Ishiguro weaves an intriguing plot.
Rating: 
Summary: I do get it but...
Review: I do get what is happening in this novel, but as things are so far from reality it doesn't do for me what I want great literature to do, which is to feel an empathy and bond with the characters in the novel and a reflection on my own and others' lives. This is achieved in "The Remains of the Day" which I just read and which also relies on the unreliable narrator method. But Stevens only suffers from what I think are the normal errors of the mind in reconstructing history, while Banks is crazy.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful writing on a clumsy plot
Review: Ishiguro shows his usual peculiar and highly refined style, almost unachievable, and the elegant and skilled language screens any other feature of the novel.
You cannot help noticing how unlike and arbitrary is the sequence of leading events, and how, despite the involvement of the main character as a detective, no investigative work or logical inferring are wrought out in the pages, and all information, supposed to come out from thorough searches, are simply dropped in from out of the context.
So, the unlikelihood of the events fades into apparently delusional states, by which Ishiguro seems to stretch a weak fabric, far more than its breaking limit, in order to connect powerful and meaningful chapters by a pacing thread and to frame them in a historical dimension.
Self-introspection lives out of unaccomplished goals, and when an accomplishment is however forced, the result is a weak structure, which is by no means a fundamental flaw or shortcoming, because, after all, the whole novel, and what it leaves you, is just a memory.
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