Christopher Banks spent a happy in childhood in Shanghai at the beginning of the 20th century as the son of privileged British ex patriates living in a large house supplied by the opium importer for which his father worked. He spent his days playing make-believe games with his best friend, the Japanese boy who lived next door. But then first his father, then his mother disappeared—kidnapped by ruthless Chinese criminals. An orphan, Christopher is sent to England where he grows up determined to become a famous detective like Sherlock Holmes and solve the mystery of his parents’ disappearance.

Gradually, as Christopher narrates his story – alternating between 1930s London where he lives as an adult, having fulfilled his ambition of becoming a famous detective, and his recollections of his childhood in Shanghai – the reader becomes aware that the narrator’s view of reality is skewed. Indeed, it seems that Christopher is living in a fantasy world where he believes his parents are still alive, even decades later, and that his return to Shanghai to find them will somehow avert the disastrous war brewing between the Chinese and Japanese. By the time he gets back to China, we feel like we can trust nothing that Christopher says, and that is the genius of this novel.

Christopher comes to an abrupt reckoning with the truth following a harrowing sequence in which he wends his way through a bombed-out Chinese slum, avoiding the battles going on in the streets around him while trying to locate the very house where he believes his parents are still being held. When he finally learns the truth, he returns to England defeated but still quite self-deluded.

While on the surface, When We Were Orphans is a crime novel written in the style of Arthur Conan Doyle, in actuality it is a complex psychological study of a character stranded at a traumatic point in his childhood, unable to move beyond his fantasies.

At last! A Kazuo Ishiguro book where all the loose ends are actually tied up!

I finally finished reading “When We Were Orphans” which was published in 2000. Overall, I enjoyed this novel. Ishiguro takes us on a journey with the protagonist, Christopher Banks, as he searches for the truth behind what happened to his parents in Shanghai. We travel with him through his memories of his childhood to the present, which gives the reader insight into how the search for the truth encompasses and eventually overwhelms his own life and happiness. It is somewhat of a thriller in that the search for Banks parents runs into obstacles and returns to Shanghai where Banks is met with more twists and hinderances but the novel is also inspirational in how it is resolved.

I loved this book! The author did such a great job about making his understated case about self-deception and self-knowledge. Related by a narrator I found myself increasingly distrusting of was new and I quite enjoyed having to second guess his reported thoughts and have to do my own detective work, figuring out what was really happening! A powerful, engrossing page turner.

(Weirdly enough, I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time right before this and both protagonists are Christopher B’s—Christopher Banks here and Christopher Boone!)