Rating: 
Summary: A Total Disappointment
Review: After reading Remains of the Day, I couldn't wait to begin another novel by Ishiguro. What a waste of time. The plot leads nowhere and the author tidies things up in the last two chapters with an explanation given by a third party. One has the feeling the author himself didn't know how the story would turn out, just kept writing until he got tired of it all.
Rating: 
Summary: Intensely well written, but the ending didn't measure up.
Review: The beautifully woven words and the images it invoked was the reason I couldn't put the book down. I was enthralled, but there was something incredibly random and weak about the main character's development, and the ending just didn't measure up to the initial build-up. Of course, it's entirely possible that the author intended a somewhat bitter-sweet ending (or as I'd call it, the deflation of the plot balloon) that would leave the reader in postpartum depression, but I wish I hadn't followed the expectations built by the book itself.
Rating: 
Summary: A brilliant study of memory and belief
Review: Warning: this book is not what it seems. Ishiguro writes beautifully and his clean, sparse prose lulls one into the perception that he has written a conventional mystery novel with a conventional outcome following conventional plotting. And of course, it can be read on that level albeit with some considerable flaws as has been noted by some reviewers here. However, I suspect that many of the most severe reviews here come from those who never discovered the depth of the protagonist's fantasy world. In fairness, however, in what world, other than a child's mind and comic books, are "detectives" who fight "evil" famous members of society as they solve their "cases".Christopher Banks lives his childhood fantasies well into adulthood, and the story he tells is essentially that fantasy. As an orphan who has lost his parents in a way that remains truly unexplained, Christopher's fantasies are all he has (to the point where he cannot accept classmates memories that don't match with the world he has created in his own mind.) For that matter, it is all that Sarah and Jessica (two other orphans who populate Christopher's real world). He is simply lucky enough to have sufficient funds that he can live that fantasy. It is in the exploration of the interface between the real world and Christopher's fantasy world that the interest lies in Ishiguro's fable and a brilliant study it is.
Rating:
Summary: A detective's biggest case.
Review: In WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS Kazuo Ishiguro introduces the reader to 1930's England and the life of Christopher Banks, a celebrated British detective. While Christopher finds success rather easy there is one case that has remained baffling, the kidnapping of his parents in Shanghai, China. Alternating between his adult life in England and his childhood in Shanghai, Christopher travels back to China to settle the mystery that has been plaguing him for decades. What follows is a tale of false assumptions and important clues that leads him to the truth of his parent's disappearance. During the dawn of the Second World War Christopher is a witness of the fighting between the Japanese and Chinese while reuniting with his childhood friend, Akira. I found the sections regarding Christopher's childhood in Shanghai to be the most captivating. I wanted to learn more about the International Settlement and those individuals living inside. Unfortunately, I found the remainder of this book to be slow and lacking conviction. Towards the end I lost sympathy for the characters and was rightfully disturbed by several obvious plot holes (not to be discussed here in fear of giving away the plot). While the premise of WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS is good, Ishiguro demonstrated poor execution that ultimately distracted from the quality of this novel. I really wanted to like this book but I felt let down.
Rating:
Summary: hmph
Review: I wish I had read some of the negative reviews before I wasted time reading this book! This novel uses the "unreliable narrator," so presumably everything the protagonist describes is questionable--he apparently lives in a fantasy world, and the only explanation I can think of for why he hasn't been locked up yet is that perhaps he has so much money he's accepted as merely eccentric. But, really--why on earth are important people bothering to talk to someone who is obviously a childlike lunatic when there is a war going on? It's just too implausible, even if you accept that what he narrates is part fantasy, and that civilization itself is crazy in wartime. The initial setup of the story is good, and the idea of using an unreliable narrator for it is OK--but it's poorly, poorly handled.
Rating:
Summary: The first part's great, the second part isn't....
Review: I was thrilled by the first half of this book. The setting, the mysteries of the missing parents, the childhood friend, the strange femme fatale, the boyhood fascination with detective work...great subjects, great writing. Then he goes back to his childhood home of Shanghai and - spends most of it stumbling through a war-torn slum, with putrifying bodies, rats and his old friend who is probably (and very un-subtly) NOT his old friend. Interminable and improbable, and NOT great writing. The only thing intriguing in the last part (which, actually, I would call intensely confusing) was his meeting up with his evil uncle and the solving of the mystery of his parents. I did like that S&M fantasy-ending. But did it go with the rest of the book? No. Did anything in the last part make sense? No. As I keep asking, over and over in these reviews is: DOESN'T ANYBODY EDIT THESE BESTSELLING WRITERS?
Rating: 
Summary: Insightful Naivete
Review: This is a beautifully written novel about an insighful, yet idealistically naive male character, Christopher Banks, who lost his parents at a young age and spent his whole life trying to find them. I was struck by how much awareness Mr. Banks seems to have, how pschologically astute he appears, while also operating on "pie in the sky" assumptions. The plot is intricate and complex, keeping the reader interested, if not always believing. At the final page, I was left with a feeling of sadness and almost an aching loneliness for Christopher, who lived much of his life with illusions of a fairytale day when he would make everything all right again. His mixture of self-aggrandizing pomposity and seemingly young boy innocence is almost endearing and certainlly softening. In sum, this is an excellent story. The author has a sensitive acumen about human nature and an almost poetic style of writing.
Rating:
Summary: Admittedly flawed, but brilliant nonetheless
Review: In When We Were Orphans, as in Remains of the Day, Ishiguro handles the psychology of memory with genius. He also is able to convey atmosphere as few writers can; one can almost smell where his characters are.
Towards the last third of the book, there are some strange and unexplained thoughts on the part of the main character - such as why exactly he is convinced that his parents would still be alive when they've been kidnapped for about 20 years...But if the last third of the novel is a bit weak, the two-thirds that come before are fantastic. Spoiler:
The comment about another reviewer about the "mistake" Ishiguro made in having the main character find his childhood friend was incorrect. Christopher Banks merely *wanted* to find his friend, and *believed* that he had found him - but that it probably was not him is made clear eventually.
Rating:
Summary: shame
Review: This book was never good but at least at the beginning one might have the impression that the story could evolve... well I was waiting and waiting but things went straight downhill. What is this book about? The protagonist is not interesting in any sense. At the part where he goes back to Shanghai and looks for his parents (disappeared 18 years ago and he thinks they are kept in a house still held captive) while there is actual fighting around him and thinks he found a childhood friend I thought this guy is simply insane, really a mental case and since this is a memoir of his none of which I have been reading is true. I was disappointed to find out that the writer did indeed believe that the events depicted could have taken place. The whole book is such a disappointment!
Rating:
Summary: We are NOT obliged to believe everything the narrator says
Review: Readers who made a merit of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day would well up such high anticipation of When We Were Orphans and only to find the book did not achieve the same caliber of the precedent. While I have no doubt that When We Were Orphans is a fine piece of literature, I feel an onus to do its justice in spite of all the (negative) bashing on the book. However jumbled or confusing the book might have appeared (to many people), the plot is very simple. Christopher Banks, the protagonist and narrator, was born and raised in Shanghai, China, in the 1920s when Europeans swarmed into the city for trades and business. Banks' mother was at the time involved in an underground organization that thwarted the imports of opium in the country, a practice that was rife and lucrative. As his parents mysteriously disappeared, one by one, Banks was taken back to England to be under the care of his aunt. Banks eventually became a renowned London detective and returned to Shanghai in hope of resolving the mystery of his parents' disappearance. Far as the unreliable narrator tactics goes, as readers, we are not obliged to believe everything that Banks says (so why the pet peeves?). Ishiguro does not seem to make clear which of the leads readers should hold on to and deem as the truth. The truth is, our ability of recollections is not always as accurate as we think (or we want). The inevitable consequence of such shortcoming only produces in mind mishmash or a collage of memory fragments. Imagine all these combined with the naivete of a 9-year-old, how reliable can the narration be? Even though detective Banks had become increasingly preoccupied with his memories (more or less a preoccupation encouraged by the discovery of his childhood memories), what really happened to his parents remained a blur. From time to time Banks "was struck anew by how hazy so much of the memories have grown" (70) as he had trouble recalling something that happened 2 or 3 years ago. So while we might have to guess what the truth is, Ishiguro does subtly hint not to trust everything we read. Ishiguro's prose is seamless, elegant and dazzling. He book manifests authenticity of the setting, especially Shanghai, in that given time period, where the so-called elite of Shanghai (made up of Chinese businessmen and politicians in the high echelon of society and foreign entrepreneurs) treated with such contempt the suffering of the average Chinese civilians. The characters are etched, especially the reminiscences of the friendship between Akira and Banks, and the anecdotes when little Banks jocosely ordered his mother to get off the swing at once in fear of breaking it. A fine piece of literature is never without flaw. The book take quite a sharp turns and rushes to an end that shocks not only the readers but the protagonist as well. I will not give that away to spoil the reading experience but to me honestly it is somewhat annoying (and lame). All I can say is the resolution of the case brings about irreparable damage in Banks' life and affirms his traumatic childhood. The fun part is being tricked at the end. An intriguing story. Page-turner. 4.2 stars.
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