WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS
by Kazuo Ishiguro | Publication: March 5th, 2001Faber & Faber | Genre: Contemporary/Literary Fiction
Rating: ★★★★
"This isn’t a book about human honesty."
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England, 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. This book tells a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return.
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Christopher Banks recounts his life from his childhood in Shanghai, through the mysterious abduction of his parents, to his celebrated rise as a detective in England, and finally to his return to Shanghai with the determination — and the means — to solve the case that shaped his entire existence.
The story rests heavily on how much Christopher remembers, and how much he trusts those memories. If perfect recall exists, Christopher fails spectacularly. But that doesn’t make him insincere. His sincerity — his deep desire to fulfill the task he set for himself as a child — is his most endearing quality. This isn’t a book about human honesty. It’s an intuitive examination of the fraudulent nature of memory, the prejudice of perception, and the reader’s own tendency to become lost inside the narrator’s inaccuracies.
There is something important — very important — about nostalgia here. When we are nostalgic, we remember a world better than the one we discover as adults. We remember and wish that good world would come back again. Ishiguro understands that longing intimately.
Slowly, WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS transforms into a pounding thriller. The revelations are gripping and profound. It becomes difficult to hold back emotion once the full horror of what happened to Christopher’s mother is revealed — the unfairness of one woman’s struggle to protect her son in a world ruled by deceit and ruthlessness.
And that unfairness is not the burden of one empire alone. Two systems built the machinery of her suffering. The British trading companies, eager to subdue a nation through opium, operated with ruthless calculation. But the Chinese warlords were equally complicit — exploiting vulnerable women, using them as leverage, and hiding behind the chaos they helped create. It is easy to point a finger at the British, but the warlords’ role is often tiptoed around, softened, or left in the margins. Christopher’s mother was crushed between two empires built on lies, and neither side ever offered her rescue.
“After all, when we were children, when things went wrong,
there wasn’t much we could do to help put it right.
But now we’re adults, now we can.
That’s the thing, you see? Look at us, Akira.
After all this time, we can finally put things right.”
I wanted to revisit my own thoughts from our buddy‑reading thread, but like Christopher, I’m relying mostly on memory. What I do remember clearly is how much I liked this book — how much I enjoyed the narrative voice, and how Ishiguro’s distinct, delicate prose shaped that experience.
The story rests heavily on how much Christopher remembers, and how much he trusts those memories. If perfect recall exists, Christopher fails spectacularly. But that doesn’t make him insincere. His sincerity — his deep desire to fulfill the task he set for himself as a child — is his most endearing quality. This isn’t a book about human honesty. It’s an intuitive examination of the fraudulent nature of memory, the prejudice of perception, and the reader’s own tendency to become lost inside the narrator’s inaccuracies.
There is something important — very important — about nostalgia here. When we are nostalgic, we remember a world better than the one we discover as adults. We remember and wish that good world would come back again. Ishiguro understands that longing intimately.
Slowly, WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS transforms into a pounding thriller. The revelations are gripping and profound. It becomes difficult to hold back emotion once the full horror of what happened to Christopher’s mother is revealed — the unfairness of one woman’s struggle to protect her son in a world ruled by deceit and ruthlessness.
And that unfairness is not the burden of one empire alone. Two systems built the machinery of her suffering. The British trading companies, eager to subdue a nation through opium, operated with ruthless calculation. But the Chinese warlords were equally complicit — exploiting vulnerable women, using them as leverage, and hiding behind the chaos they helped create. It is easy to point a finger at the British, but the warlords’ role is often tiptoed around, softened, or left in the margins. Christopher’s mother was crushed between two empires built on lies, and neither side ever offered her rescue.
there wasn’t much we could do to help put it right.
But now we’re adults, now we can.
That’s the thing, you see? Look at us, Akira.
After all this time, we can finally put things right.”
I wanted to revisit my own thoughts from our buddy‑reading thread, but like Christopher, I’m relying mostly on memory. What I do remember clearly is how much I liked this book — how much I enjoyed the narrative voice, and how Ishiguro’s distinct, delicate prose shaped that experience.
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About the Author:
Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His works of fiction have earned him many honours around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. His books have been translated into over fifty languages and The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go were both made into acclaimed films. He received a knighthood in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan. Klara and the Sun was a number one Sunday Times bestseller in both hardback and paperback.
Ishiguro also works occasionally as a screenwriter. His screenplay for Living (2022) received Academy Award (Oscar) and BAFTA nominations. Film adaptations of Klara and the Sun and A Pale View of Hills are due for release in 2026., (Shorter/Catalogue version)
Ishiguro also works occasionally as a screenwriter. His screenplay for Living (2022) received Academy Award (Oscar) and BAFTA nominations. Film adaptations of Klara and the Sun and A Pale View of Hills are due for release in 2026., (Shorter/Catalogue version)
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I've read just one Ishiguro so far, and that's The Unconsoled, which I absolutely loved! This year, the book club discussed Never Let Me Go, which I couldn't fit into my calendar, so I didn't even bother to read it. But this novel that you read is part-thriller, which piqued my interest. I will be on the hunt for it.
ReplyDelete(Come to think of it, I wonder why I haven't read any more Ishiguro, considering that I really, really enjoyed the only Ishiguro that I've read. Hmmm . . . . )
Hi, Peter. The only other Ishiguro I read was Remains of the Day. He is very good at finding the right narrative voice for his stories, which is why I know I'll be reading another Ishiguro soon. I hope you'll like WWWO, too! :)
DeleteLovely review, Louize! Till our next buddy read. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lynai. Let's keep our hopes that Winds of Winter will come out soon, hehehe. If not yet, let's read another Bas-Lag book for the time being? :)
DeleteOh, Winds of Winter. Reminds me to resume reading A Dance With Dragons (I read halfway through and then lost interest, ooops.) But yay, to another Bas-Lag read. Although I have a copy of Kraken, I am up to a buddy read of that anytime. :)
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