When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro
Posted on Sep 17, 2008 under contemporary literature |
Ishiguro is one of the few writers I would recommend entirely. Because every time I read one of his books I was completely fascinated: from the plot, to the language, to his capacity to create a hallucinatory and bizarre world and to his charming and complex characters.
When We Were Orphans is a strong, magnificent novel, a novel which goes beyond its appearance as realistic in order to become a postmodernist jewel.
A combination between the suspense of a detective story and the sensitivity of a confession, the action swings between England (the image of the old centre of Imperial power) and Shanghai, where the West meets the East, the product of the Western hegemonic ambitions.
Christopher Banks, the main character and the narrator, grows up in Shanghai and comes back to England, after his parents mysteriously disappear. Tormented for the whole of his life by this mystery, he becomes a famous detective and decides to go back and find out what happened to his parents. Upon his arrival in Shanghai, the novel radically changes its shape and we are introduced in an unreal, Kafka-like world.
Growing up under the protection of colonial power’s enclave, Christopher is even more surprised by the kidnapping of his parents by the Chinese anarchical troops. But Ishiguro suggests that beyond the protagonist’s failure to find his parents there lies the West’s and Japan’s failure to conquer China.
The novel is structured around seven dated chapters. But this dates have no relevance to the story line, as they only represent the date when they were written, when the narrator remembered the events he writes about. And although Christopher assures the readers that he is an objective observer and that the data he presents belongs to a professional detective, most of the times he has to admit to the feelings’ influence and his incapacity of keeping distance from the events he narrates.
When We Were Orphans owes much of its charm to this continuous uncertainty and to the fact that Ishiguro denies the traditional chronology. The construction similar to a puzzle patched up with uncertain memories, gives the unmistakable color of the world created by Ishiguro.
Written by Ana-Maria