false 28923 36 When 9-year-old Christopher Banks's father--a British businessman involved in the opium trade--disappears from the family home in Shanghai, the boy and his friend Akira play at being detectives: "Until in the end, after the chases, fist-fights and gun-battles around the warren-like alleys of the Chinese districts, whatever our variations and elaborations, our narratives would always conclude with a magnificent ceremony held in Jessfield Park, a ceremony that would see us, one after another, step out onto a specially erected stage ... to greet the vast cheering crowds."<p> But Christopher's mother also disappears, and he is sent to live in England, where he grows up in the years between the world wars to become, he claims, a famous detective. His family's fate continues to haunt him, however, and he sifts through his memories to try to make sense of his loss. Finally, in the late 1930s, he returns to Shanghai to solve the most important case of his life. But as Christopher pursues his investigation, the boundaries between fact and fantasy begin to evaporate. Is the Japanese soldier he meets really Akira? Are his parents really being held in a house in the Chinese district? And who is Mr. Grayson, the British official who seems to be planning an important celebration? "My first question, sir, before anything else, is if you're happy with the choice of Jessfield Park for the ceremony? We will, you see, require substantial space."<p> In <I>When We Were Orphans</I> Kazuo Ishiguro uses the conventions of crime fiction to create a moving portrait of a troubled mind, and of a man who cannot escape the long shadows cast by childhood trauma. Sherlock Holmes needed only fragments--a muddy shoe, cigarette ash on a sleeve--to make his deductions, but all Christopher has are fading recollections of long-ago events, and for him the truth is much harder to grasp. Ishiguro writes in the first person, but from the beginning there are cracks in Christopher's carefully restrained prose, suggestions that his version of the world may not be the most reliable. Faced with such a narrator, the reader is forced to become a detective too, chasing crumbs of truth through the labyrinth of Christopher's memory. <p> Ishiguro has never been one for verbal pyrotechnics, but the unruffled surface of this haunting novel only adds to its emotional power. <I>When We Were Orphans</I> is an extraordinary feat of sustained, perfectly controlled imagination, and in Christopher Banks the author has created one of his most memorable characters. <I>--Simon Leake</I> 3333606 book 2000 When We Were Orphans total:2470|5:285|4:831|3:950|2:336|1:68| 2470 8339 3356 317 4 6 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 14 12:13:11 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 14 12:13:38 -0700 2008 When We Were Orphans was, for me, a pretty fascinating exploration of the difficulties typical to the lens of overgrown sentimentailty through which one approaches the vaguely remembered past. As the narration continues, one wonders just how ephemerally Christopher Banks, the narrator, holds his gra...more...]]> 2 4 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 14 13:55:42 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 14 14:03:45 -0700 2007
Nothing gelled.

I'll try not to write spoilers, although as I have no ide...more...]]> 1 5 true false Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Jul 12 12:09:27 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 12 12:21:51 -0700 2007 Never Let Me Go, by the same author. I was surprised that the narrators' tones sounded so similar. But now I guess that's just a how the author writes, in a formal and almost stilted voice.
The ending of this book irritated me to no end and I actually had to go ba...more...]]> 4 6 false false Tue Feb 03 15:26:29 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 09:26:53 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 15:26:29 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 4 false false Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Sun Sep 30 16:24:34 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 30 16:24:34 -0700 2007
Christopher Banks overcomes a tragic childhood, it seems, to become the preeiminen...more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 22 03:57:48 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 07 16:46:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 24 13:10:48 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 24 13:18:52 -0700 2008
I am certain that many folks would not like this book, but I very much did. I like Ishiguro's careful style, even if it is out of the mid 20th century! It f...more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 03 02:10:50 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 25 03:55:14 -0700 2008
El inicio esta narrado con un toque victoriano que parece estar pidiendo a gritos que James Ivory saque la chequera y lo adapte al cine. A lo largo de todo ese arranque, el ...more...]]> 4 3 false false Thu Mar 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Dec 20 02:30:49 -0800 2007 Fri Mar 28 01:25:32 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Dec 05 09:17:14 -0800 2007 Sun Nov 18 06:52:31 -0800 2007 Sun Nov 25 09:37:33 -0800 2007 I'm not sure what to say about this book. It read like a well-written parody of a children's detective story, but, for me, ultimately failed to climb high enough above that to let me take it seriously. Since we are never sure how much we can believe our narrator, it is difficu...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 21 03:37:30 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 25 07:45:06 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 14 07:16:01 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 14 07:16:06 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Mar 01 10:12:53 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 01 10:24:48 -0800 2009
At first I wasn't impressed, then I got more impressed because I figured the narrative was keeping a lot of things from us, so well done, narrative. But then the narrative didn't burst out with any stunning revelation. (I don't count what happened to his parents as a ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jan 03 10:31:39 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 03 10:31:39 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Dec 27 08:12:42 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 27 08:33:22 -0800 2008
That said, he is a great story...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Nov 13 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 13 01:44:40 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 13 02:10:46 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Sep 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 14 02:22:46 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 14 02:34:26 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Aug 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 26 09:53:20 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 26 09:53:29 -0700 2009 Ishiguro is an amazing writer but in this work his talent lets him down. He has the rare ability of capturing an entire character through ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Sep 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 05 11:37:21 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 10 19:01:56 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 3 1 false true Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 08:27:16 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 08:04:16 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=28923