When We Were Orphans

Rating:
Summary: Ishiguro's Latest
Review: Ishiguro's latest book expounds on themes with which he dealt in his earlier works. Consequently, When We Were Orphans is a complex and highly textured work of maturity. As such, it focuses on both Japanese and English cultural contexts, realism and surrealism, war and peace, action and passivity. The central character is confronted with his own inability to act effectively and deliberately as he struggles to learn what happened to his parents when he was a boy in Shanghai. In this way, Ishiguro emphasizes his own preoccupation with the dilemma Man faces as he attempts to to reconcile himself with his fate. The novel is full of suspense and engages the reader in feeling the frustration of the protagonist as he grapples with the dilemma of missing parents and a lost boyhood friend. The prose is deceptively simple, making this book an "easy" read, although one layed with meaning. At one point, the author lapses into a surrealistic account, which may perplex some readers, but this section is appropriate to the subject matter treated at the time and helps the reader understand the nature of the narrator's perceptions.

Rating:
Summary: Carefully-crafted but ultimately unsatisfying prose
Review: Ishiguro is a master craftsman, as anyone who has read The Remains of the Day can attest. In this, his latest novel, we are presented with the baffling disappearance of narrator Christopher Banks' parents, first his father and then months later his mother, from Shangai in the 1930's. The story is told first person by Banks, who reminisces about his childhood in the International Settlement in Shanghai and who then relates a portion of his young adulthood in London, where Banks tells of his development as a great detective whose mission in life is to solve the disappearance of his parents.

The prose is carefully constructed and the novel has a gloomy, authentic feel about it. However I became a little bored by the time the conclusion ultimately came around, and we are treated to an explanation of the fate of Banks' mother and father. Perhaps I was lacking in some historical perspective, but it appeared to me the novel assumes a great deal of knowledge about the Chinese v. Japanese conflict, the status of Shanghai itself, and the conflict among the Nationalistic v. Communist Chinese. Being generally unfamiliar with Chinese history in the 1930's, I frequently felt lost.

Also, the characters at times seemed a little wooden to me. Banks seemed destined to run away with an aspiring, troubled young woman who he knew from London, but we never get a real glimpse of true feeling between the characters. Banks is robotic for most of the novel, much like the orphan (Jennifer) who is taken in by the narrator. I was also somewhat baffled by the character who kept following Banks around, during his return to Shanghai, to plan the details of the welcoming party after the mystery is solved. Even after the identity of this character is revealed in more detail, his actions to me still were absurd.

Ishiguro is a talented writer, and his first person narrative reminds me a bit of Patrick McGrath in that you are not entirely certain you are getting the straight story from the narrator. When We Were Orphans is a moving book but with some gaps that left me wanting a little more

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Summary: Where Does Reality Begin?
Review: Christopher Banks, the progagonist of Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans, is a man with only one mission in life: he wants to become the world's greatest detective so he can find his kidnapped parents. But were they really kidnapped? And did other, relevant events really unfold as Banks relates them?

The central question in this highly entertaining and very different sort of story is: Can Christopher Banks, as a narrator, be trusted? He can be, insofar as he is truthful when reporting events as he sees them. Those words are the key to understanding this book, "as he sees them." For Banks knows no other way to tell us his story than as he sees it, even though as he sees it may not be quite the way others would see the very same thing.

When We Were Orphans, like all of Ishiguro's novels, is complex and multi-layered. Many of the book's ideas are symbolic and much lies below the surface. Although extremely entertaining this book is definitely not "beach" reading. It is as cerebral as anything Ishiguro has previously written and it takes an intelligent and austute reader to catch all of the author's meanings, especially in only one reading.

I've read all of Ishiguro's books and all are completely different. What they do have in common is absolute excellence in every respect. They are all the master work of a master writer. None should be missed.

Rating:
Summary: A Major Disapointment
Review: Reading the reviews in Amazon is usually much more informative than reading the marketing blurbs that appear on a book or frankly many of the reviews that appear in the press. The fact that this book was considered for the Booker award, the most important British literary award, is simply shocking. It points out that selling books is like any other business and therefore let the buyer beware. There are few books that I have reacted to so negatively in the last twenty years. The fact that many readers still appear to love the book and consider it a "masterpiece" is the only true mystery of this book for me. I suppose many people expect a great book from a popular and successful novelist, but this book in my opinion is a waste of time. It is a silly, illogical book that is also weirdly racist in its belief that the Chinese soldiers involved could have cared at all about this preposterous Englishmen and his missing family. It is not worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: The Nightmare of the Real Life
Review: The new novel of Kazuo Ishiguro is a story of a famous English detective Christopher Banks who tries to solve the mysterious disappearance of his parents which took place when he was only ten years old. But anyone who recognizes this book as a whodunit will be inevitably disappointed: for a real crime story the book is "full of implausible developments, improbable coincidences and loose ends" (as it was written by one of the previous reviewers).

The novel is not an objective account of events but rather a subjective perception of them by the protagonist haunted by the tragical experience of his childhood. The author attains genuine perfection in depiction of the inner life of his hero, starting with excellent flashbacks in the first half of the novel (the scenes of Christopher's childhood in colonial Shanghai, his relations with parents and his best friend Akiro), crossing the boundaries of reality somewhere in the middle of the novel, and submerging us in Kafkaesque universe of disturbed mind with psychoanalytical allusions in the last half of the novel (the house that is near but couldn't be reached, everlasting way in ruins, a Japanese soldier who is and simultaneously is not Christopher's former friend Akiro, etc.).

Little by little we commence to discern distinctly the main incentive of Christopher's deeds: the one who once was an orphan is desperately trying to save the whole world from impending catastrophe of the new war with the help of his magnifying glass, sacrificing everything even his only love to Sarah. Banks speaks about the fear that torments him only cursorily, but it was verbally expressed by the Japanese soldier/Akiro in distorted English that makes it more universally perceptible: 'When my boy. He discover world is not good. I wish... I wish I with him. To help him. When he discover' (chapter 20).

The events of the penultimate chapter, the awful confession give the clue to the mystery reestablishing necessary degree of narrator's impartiality. The last chapter crosses the gap of 20+ years giving the final touches to the story. The protagonist surmount his fears, his life is well-ordered. Sarah is dead. He is lonesome as are both women he takes care of. Now his thoughts are coherent... but trite.

The excellent novel, justly shortlisted for the Bookers Prize 2000! (though it doesn't surpass Ishiguro's masterpiece 'The Remains of the Day').

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: Amazing work!
Review: Ishiguro has done a magnificent job once again! This is a great novel which rivals "The Remains of The Day"!! Christopher's recollection of his childhood days with Akira and their later encounter are particularly moving.

One clarification: Ishiguro is a British novelist - not a "Japanese national" as was described in some earlier reviews. He spent only his first five years in Nagasaki, Japan, so there should be no error of this sort ...

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Summary: Nostalgic for the Good Old Days of the British Empire
Review: If "The Remains of the Day" and "When We Were Orphans" are enough to establish a trend, Ishiguro likes to tell his stories through narrators preoccupied with their own delusions of grandeur. When "Orphans" opens, Christopher Banks is on his way to minor celebrity among London's country-club set for his miraculous and unfailing detective work. He'd dreamt of becoming a great detective since childhood, when his father disappeared without explanation from Shanghai's International Settlement. To deal with the pain and uncertainty of the situation, he and his friend Akira (also an expat, from Japan) would spend hours playing great sleuths who would track down the villians and find Christopher's father. When Christopher's mother also vanishes from their house, he returns to England and the guardianship of his aunt, boarding school, and London's upper crust. And like the rest of his circle, Christopher Banks makes a fast and easy transition from school into an immediately successful career.

Ishiguro omits the details of the crimes and their resolutions (this isn't a detective novel), but with each solved case Banks, the narrator, gains more self-confidence until he achieves an outright smugness. By the time he returns to Shanghai to investigate the mystery of his parents' apparent kidnapping 20 years earlier, he is baffled to encounter characters that prioritize the Sino-Japanese war (and the early rumblings of a world war) above his familial mission. While it's understandable that a detective who lost both parents to mysterious circumstances in his childhood would stop at nothing to put his oldest, most personal case to bed, his inability to differentiate a private - or at most, local - affair from a global crisis illustrates his profound self-absorption. Of course, it's not entirely his fault. His high-society friends watch the war's devastating pyrotechnics like they would a fireworks show: entertaining eye-candy to pass the time of cigarette breaks before returning inside to the various ballrooms of Shanghai's International Settlement. Meanwhile a bureaucrat from the British embassy - confident Banks will get his man - sees the occasion as an excuse to plan yet another expat gala event.

Like the butler in "The Remains of the Day," Christopher Banks is ruled by a misguided ambition that distracts him from a clear view of the human relationships around him. In the case of the earlier novel, Ishiguro makes the butler so sympathetic and his voice so believable that you are drawn into his delusional world. As ridiculous as it sounds, you put down "The Remains of the Day" nearly convinced that the polish on the boss's silverware influenced the outcome of the Second World War. The dilemma that book poses is a personal one: even if the butler played as big a role as he imagined, was the job worth the price of growing old alone?

In "Orphans," however, Ishiguro explores a broader cultural question: What will it take to get Westerners to outgrow their condescending colonial worldview? Here Ishiguro doesn't want you to see the world through Banks's eyes. The point, in fact, is that you recognize Banks's blind and uncaring arrogance, and through your dislike of the character experience Ishiguro's critique of the British colonial attitudes that survived the fall of British colonial politics. "Orphans" doesn't offer the kind of reading pleasure served up in "The Remains of the Day," and Banks isn't exactly an inviting companion with whom to spend 335 pages. But through the novel and its hero, Ishiguro gave me much more to think about after I turned the final page.

Rating:
Summary: An alright book...
Review: the title is misleading. seeing that the title sounded like something similar to Copperfield, i decided to borrow it. to my dismay it did not turn out to be anything like it. the story itself is a little too far-fetched. however, some parts are written wonderfully and also reveals some insights of Kazuo. worth a read only if u are bored or have a lot of time to spare.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing ...
Review: Ishiguro just keeps getting better and better!

This is a beautifully written story of fragile childhood memories destined to be shattered in a rapidly changing world. Christopher's eventual reunion with Akira was particularly moving ...