When We Were Orphans
by Kazuo Ishiguro · first published 2000
67% recommend33% critical
'You seldom read a novel that so convinces you it is extending the possibilities of fiction.' Sunday TimesEngland, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Moving between London and Shanghai of the inter-war years, When We Were Orphans is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return.
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…that they've all been excellent. Rosalyn Landor's Never Let Me Go was particularly moving. The first-person perspective used by Ishiguro in several of his novels lends itself very well to the format. When We Were Orphans isn't typically considered one of his stronger works, but as a "told tale" I found it fascinating.
on “The Nobel Prize in Literature 2017 – Kazuo Ishiguro [pdf]” ↗…me, but I simply love Kazuo Ishiguro. His surreal novels are always moving to me. I absolutely love how he plays with unreliable narrators, like in "The Remains of the Day", "A Pale View of Hills" and "When We Were Orphans". He shows how they are flawed, sometimes self-sabotaging, but we (or rather, I) still empathize with them. The ending of "The Remains of the Day" always moves me, almost to tears. How the butler, having…
on “The Nobel Prize in Literature 2017 – Kazuo Ishiguro [pdf]” ↗…anti-message guides me today. p.s. with regards to Ishiguro, despite liking RotD, I didn't care for any of his other works. I didn't like Never Let me Go (which was highly acclaimed), nor the Buried Giant, nor When we were Orphans. Admittedly I have not read "An Artist of the Floating World".
on “Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)” ↗