When we were orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I am really pleased to have just read this for a 2nd time, as I had not remembered it at all from the 1st reading. I found the story quite bitter sweet, especially as Christopher is driven throughout his life by what he believes happened when he was a child - these events having been very strongly remembered by him. Throughout the book Christopher comments on many key events through his memory of them rather than as they happen. The book examines the fact that we should always be careful when basing actions on memories if we don't temper it with a through about what will affect how those memories came to us and our understanding and age/ experiences at the time the memory was created
Christopher Banks, the protagonist of Kazuo Ishiguro's fifth novel, When We Were Orphans, has dedicated his life to detective work but behind his successes lies one unsolved mystery: the disappearance of his parents when he was a small boy living in the International Settlement in Shanghai. Moving between England and China in the inter-war period, the book, encompassing the turbulence and political anxieties of the time and the crumbling certainties of a Britain deeply involved in the opium trade in the East, centres on Banks's idealistic need to make sense of the world through the small victories of detection and his need to understand finally what happened to his mother and father.
Had it on Mount To Be Read and cannot remember, so am reading for a 2nd time
An interesting detective story with a flawed main character who has a very personalised view of the past. It demonstrates the variations in interpretation that can be given to historical events. Finished the 1st time on 1st May 2005.
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