Rating: 
Summary: Haunting, but frustrating.
Review: Although I usually like Ishiguro, I found this book disappointing, lacking coherence, its purpose muddy. The first half of the book is suspenseful, tautly constructed, and realistically presented, as we learn of Christopher Banks's history and of the ironies of his parents' disappearance. Once he arrives in Shanghai, however, the book splits into two seemingly disconnected halves-the first half realistic, the second half absurd. In the first half, Banks has been revealed as intelligent and sensitive, but in the second half he suddenly and cruelly abandons his own adopted, orphaned daughter, leaving her in England while he searches for his missing parents. He believes (strangely) that somehow if he can find his parents, he'll be able to avert World War II. His search for them is expedited more by an inordinate number of extraordinary coincidences than by the detective work for which he is supposedly world-renowned. The plot stumbles, and the suspense is compromised. Since Ishiguro has dealt in past novels with the idea of imperfect memory and/or with characters whose deluded visions of themselves are presented ironically to the reader as facts, one cannot help wondering, while reading the second half, whether Banks really is a great detective, whether he really is doing all the absurd things he presents to us as real events in Shanghai, and whether the author is deliberately showing him in a surreal, rather than real, world. If this is the author's intention, it is by no means clear--there are too few clues in the first half to cause the reader to actively question the view of reality presented there. In addition, it is not accompanied in the second half by any heightened sense of introspection or by any change from the realistic tone and style of the first half. Neither Banks nor the reader learns anything significant on any level other than that of plot. Ultimately, I found myself haunted by the drama of Banks's search and by his need to resolve the mysteries in his life but frustrated-and annoyed--by his ultimate lack of change and by the unresolved mysteries with which the author leaves us. The author made me feel like a pawn, the victim of literary trickery.
Rating: 
Summary: A Highly Original Character Study
Review: I have read and loved everything Kazuo Ishiguro has published, but my favorite works still remain THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (which I think is perfect in every way) and THE UNCONSOLED. Even though I didn't like WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS quite as much as the above mentioned two, I still thought it was a masterpiece and a book every lover of great literature should definitely read. WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS explores much of the same territory as do Ishiguro's other works, i.e., memory and the reliability of memory, though in a completely different and totally original way. The narrator of WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS is Christopher Banks, a man who was born in Shanghai and lived there until one day his father, and then his mother simply vanished from his life and he was sent back to England to be raised by his maiden aunt. Set in 1923, Christopher is now a graduate of Cambridge with one abiding obsession: to become the world's greatest detective and solve the riddle of his parents' disappearance. If we believe everything Banks tells us, he has already had a very illustrious career by the time he sets out to find what happened to his parents long ago in Shanghai. But, can Banks be trusted? Are his memories, both recent and those of the more distant past, to be relied upon? Or is he living in a world of his own making, deluding himself and attempting to delude us as well? It's hard to say, for, after all, this isn't Kafka who's writing...it's Kazuo Ishiguro and, to his great credit, Ishiguro is far more nuanced and subtle than Kafka ever was. Christopher Banks is not so much enigmatic as he is infuriating. Just when we think we're able to figure him out, just when we think we know who he is, Ishiguro spins the novel in another direction and we're not sure anymore. The only person who seems sure of just who...and what...Christopher is...is Christopher, and since we can't rely on a thing he says, we're more than a little "at sea." But that is all a part of this book's charm. And then there is Sarah Hemmings. Now there is a character who is truly enigmatic. Christopher does finally travel from England to Shanghai in an attempt to solve the disappearance of his parents. And, in some ways, he does solve it...but in other ways he does not. Or, has he simply been leading us on a merry chase instead? Has he known the answers all along? The answers to these questions are in the book, but it wouldn't be fair to give even a hint of them here. WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS might seem to be something of a mystery or detective novel but it isn't at all. Not in the least. Christopher Banks is more of a mystery than is the kidnapping of his parents. And, as I said above, the theme of this book, like all of Ishiguro's books, is memory and its reliability. It is Christopher's memories that we need to be concerned with, not any clues as to the resolution of the kidnapping that might or might not be strewn throughout this book (and it gives nothing at all away to tell you that they aren't strewn throughout the book...there is no figuring out this one ahead of time). Plot, however, takes a backseat in WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS. The plot is simply a vehicle to showcase the character of Christopher Banks and help us get to know him. I know many people who, even though they liked Ishiguro's other books, do not like WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS. They seem to feel it's too nebulous, too open-ended, too needing of individual interpretation. Those are precisely the reasons why I loved it. It is very, very different from anything else Ishiguro has ever written, with one important distinction. It is filled with Ishiguro's trademark, highly controlled, perfectly nuanced prose. Even if you don't like the story, I think the book is worth reading simply for the prose alone. There are few authors who can write as well as Ishiguro, and I'm not talking about plot right now, I'm speaking of prose. Ishiguro writes prose the way Debussy wrote music and everything is as pitch perfect in WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS as it is in THE REMAINS OF THE DAY. People who need a neat and tidy ending will probably be disappointed with WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS, but those who love a beautifully written character study that is a little offbeat, will find just what they're looking for in this book. Ishiguro doesn't write "beach reads." He writes literature that will endure. To think that his books are going to be "easy" is simply being naive. WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS is a beautiful study of a man affected by a childhood trauma and the lifelong effects of that trauma. Although I preferred other Ishiguro works a little more, I still loved this book and would recommend it highly.
Rating: 
Summary: promises much, but sadly fading towards the end
Review: The first few chapters promise much and the intriguing encounters between Christopher and Sarah were captivating. However, the plot gradually degenerates into an incredible story of a senseless Englishman braving through Japanese shells and bullets to search for his parents, whom he believed were held hostage in a shanty town in the middle of a battlefield in wartime Shanghai for 30 years. But perhaps the most "intriguing" part is how the western community in Shanghai seemed to expect Christopher to bring world peace with the solving of the case of his parents' disappearance.
Rating:
Summary: Stinging 'Catch 22' black farce highlights Western blindness
Review: The book sets itself up as a mannered English detective novel, with the protagonist (Christopher Banks) as an older, educated voice reviewing his childhood in Shanghai. He takes himself very seriously, and the prose is always measured and careful, controlled.
Ishiguro also wrote The Remains of the Day, and likewise many will find it stifling. L. read it and got annoyed at the way this older voice was always apologising or justifying or condescending to the actions and thoughts of the child.
Still, definitely not a totally self-aware character, and some of the effect is to deliberately tell us something about the older character by the way he narrates the younger.
If you're looking for places to exclaim, "Holmes, that's brilliant," at the deductive prowess of someone described in the book as a celebrated detective, it doesn't really happen. But somehow you don't seem to notice because of all the tangents describing people and places.
There's also the (seemingly) central mystery to carry you along. Gradually you realise that the persona's parents both disappeared, and this is the big case he's setting himself up to solve.
Ishiguro doesn't let him (or us) just get on with solving it though - there are other people and issues distracting him. Still, it does appear that finally he's about to crack it.
Up til now you may have just thought this was an OK novel in terms of presenting characters and something of the nature of how life unfolds, often without our control. More than a mere detective novel, but we'll take that too.
Then the whole thing just departs - and makes it, in my opinion, a stand out book. If you haven't read it yet and you want to get the effect, don't read on.
He goes back to Shanghai, but there is invasion/civil war in China. The Europeans are still there in their safe section, while the Kuo-min-tang are putting up the only resistance to Japanese invasion. Banks is suitably disgusted by the way the Europeans callously enjoy their dance parties while bombs are landing on the populace around them. They ignore any responsibility or compassion.
Meanwhile, he's getting closer to solving the case! He thinks he may have found where his parents are hidden, and sets out to find them. This is complicated by a romantic sub-plot, but more so by the fact that this house is behind the battle line. The narration, along with the narrator, becomes more and more fevered and dreamlike/nightmarish. We are wanting him to solve this case 'against a backdrop of the Japanese invasion of China', but (unlike the context of a thousand other novels set in violent times) the invasion refuses to remain a backdrop. Rather inconveniently for our hero and us, minor characters keep getting in the way, can't they just go off and be dealt with and let us/him get on with it. Don't they realise how important this is - this is his big case! The central plotline of the book. But while we agree with him, we get increasingly uncomfortable with the way he forces Chinese characters - still subservient to Europeans - to risk (and lose) their lives to enable him to fulfil his (our) quest.
By the time he finally gets to the house, THE house, where he can be reunited with his long lost parents, the house has been recently shelled. Instead of finding his parents, he finds a very recently injured and orphaned girl with the corpses of her parents. The irony is thick, as we can't feel sorry for him in the light of what's just happened in this house, and doubtless in a thousand others. He loses it, and starts trying to comfort the girl, "Don't worry, I'm a celebrated detective, I can solve this crime." He insanely pulls out his magnifying glass and starts looking for clues. This is brutally effective farce.
But this is what we do. Real people and suffering in real life serve as a mere 'background' for the dramas of our own lives. I remember a med student coming back from working overseas with some desperately poor, but the way she narrated it, they were merely interesting experiences. It was a novel holiday.
Likewise, for us it was a novel thing to hear her relate her experiences.
Ishiguro, for my money, really captures something of our British Raj approach to the darkies (or whoever), and the drippingly unconscious condescension even when we're speaking well of them.
A very clever way to use a convention to make such a powerful statement.
He does solve the mystery later, but by this time we're all a bit numb, and it's all much more in perspective.
And very strong that what we're getting into perspective is something that in the west would be something any individual could use to claim utter precedence on sympathy - the disappearance of their parents when they were only a child.
We were interested in what happened to them, and we wanted Banks to find them, but, like him, by the time we do we don't really care nearly as much. We know it's not that important. Or if it is, we're just ignoring a whole heap of much more important things constantly, merely because they happen to poor people.
Rating: 
Summary: Elevates the detective story to literature
Review: It will be intriguing to see whether Ishiguro's new novel will translate to the screen as successfully as his best-known work, The Remains of the Day. One thing they unquestionably share, however, is a depiction of pure Englishness that no Englishman could do more than aspire to. The author, a Japanese national who has spent much of his life in the UK, captures those elusive quintessences of Englishness - snobbery, class, self-deprecation and imperial arrogance - far better than any living writer to the manor born. "Orphans" is the story, told in the first person, of a brilliant English detective (in the Sherlock Holmes mode), raised as a child in Shanghai between the wars who returns to England when his parents mysteriously vanish. Shanghai was an international settlement at the time, and the protagonist's childhood friend is Japanese. Ishiguro draws on his own experience of growing up in a foreign culture, and all the tensions that entails. The bulk of the book is set in adulthood, with flashbacks to childhood, as the narrator sets out to solve the ultimate crime - the abduction of his own parents. The story unfolds on multiple levels: we quickly realise that the self-proclaimed Great Detective is, to use a modern phrase, "in denial" of the realities of his own powers, his parents' all-important honour, and even his popularity as a schoolboy. The plot is intricate and beautifully put together. Building towards the climax, clambering through the ruins of Shanghai as it is torn apart by warring Chinese and Japanese, the reader is drawn further and further in. What had started out as seemingly innocuous and realistic ends up veering to surrealism. Surely the detective doesn't really believe what he's telling us he believes, as the bullets whistle through the debris? Read and find out.
Rating:
Summary: A 1930's detective novel
Review: I was certainly of two minds about what to write. For over 2/3s of the novel, we are plodding along in a rather mundane 1930's detective novel. We are not even treated to full fledged sub-plots. Ishiguro might have won kudos for his previous writing, but I found that this was a slog through rather uninspired drivel.
It is only when the narrator ends back in Shanghai, do we realize that the novel turns into something more than very ordinary. We are faced with the fact that the narrator is rather "mad". Perhaps, he never was balanced and the preceeding novel was fiction. I found this more and more reinforced by the fact that Banks (the narrator) knows no Chinese nor does he have an interpreter, but is hell bent on entering into the real Shanghai. Even 1930's novels offer some go-between.
In this, Ishiguro shows his stuff. All bets are off. Banks "the detective" flays away. His detection skills are non existant - other than using a magnifying glass at the strangest moments. Ishiguro presents an English gentleman of the period, coloured as an "upper class twit". I found that it took the novel a good deal of time to get to this point. In a post-colonial world, this is an interesting take on what the colonies had to endure in the nature of well-meaning ladies and gentelmen.
Rating:
Summary: Not very good
Review: The writer here writes well - albeit rather too formally in places (is English his second language, I wondered, reading the book?) - but the plot in this book was very poor and the book was fragmented, uninteresting and dissatisfying and, I felt, a waste of the reader's time.
Not a book worth reading, in my opinion.
Why did the protagonist believe his parents were held hostage at a certain house? That appeared to be irrational and based on insufficient information, but it takes up a large chunk of the book.
Why did the protagonist, looking for his parents, suddenly decide to rush off to Hong Kong with a woman instead, and then, equally suddenly, change his mind and go back to looking for his parents?
Why did the protagonist not choose to speak up for his old friend to his superior officers?
The book exemplified, for me, the importance of the writer having something worth writing about before he works on his idea and eventually turns the idea into a book. No matter how good the style of writing, if the book has an unintesting plot or subject matter, good writing alone probably won't save it. (The "you can't polish a turd" principle.)
This book seemed to be the sort of book where the writer put down a lot of thoughts and ideas on paper, eventually found he had 300 pages worth, so he bundled the lot up and sent them off to his publisher. It was a disappointing read.
Rating:
Summary: Don't knock things you don't understand
Review: This is not really a review of the book. This is more of a review of the reviewers of the book. Although I agree with many of the negative opinions about the book (the glaring plot holes, etc.) it amazes me how some people are so eager to display their own ignorance through these reviews. For example, it seems to me that about 25% of the reviewers never heard of the concept of the unreliable narrator, and think they have found a "problem" with the book when they realize the narrator is a little off. Another example is the extremely poorly written review which finds fault with the Ishigaro's writing abilities. Say what you will about the plot, the writing is amazing, and if nothing else, at least the man can spell which more than many of these reviewers can do. So, please, for those of you who weren't paying attention in English 101, perhaps these types of books are just a little beyond your intellectual capabilities. I recommend you stick John Grisham novels instead.
Rating:
Summary: Not Ishiguro's best novel but the book was relevant to me
Review: 'When We Were Orphans' is not Ishiguro's best book, but it speaks to people who grew up in a foreign culture and were forced to return home. Being multi-cultural in the true sense is not necessarily a blessing. It usually means you will be a cultural exile everywhere, and this comes across very strongly in the book. Certain paragraphs made me cry because it spoke for me and people like me who will always be a minority in the world.
Again, let me say that I don't think this is Ishiguro's best book but I thank heaven he wrote it, because it's probably the only book in the world that expresses my deepest sentiments.
'When We Were Orphans' is not a book about usual orphans a la Oliver Twist. It's about cultural exiles who don't have a place they can call home and go through life forever searching for something which may or may not really exist.
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.
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