When We Were Orphans
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4.0 • 131 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
FINALIST FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Never Let Me Go, Klara and the Sun and The Remains of the Day.
England, 1930s. Christopher Banks is the country’s most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one mystery haunts him: the disappearance of his parents in old Shanghai when he was a boy. Returning to the labyrinthine city of his memory, Banks seeks answers to his painful past, only to find Shanghai ravaged by war—and his own recollections as unreliable as the people around him. Masterful, suspenseful and psychologically acute, When We Were Orphans is a haunting meditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibility of reclaiming one’s past.
Customer Reviews
Don't Bother
Beautiful prose. Any narrator is "unreliable", memory is faulty and fiction is not real. However, a significant narrator noted memory revision occurs in the second part that, for me, turns in to a "why bother reading" conundrum since every detail carries no weight and is irrelevant rendering the entire "story" irrelevant as there is no "world-creation". I am sure the hyper-self-intelligent will find the novel daring and brilliant. Not the case for me.
When We Were Orphans
The first half of this book is amazing; deftly crafted. With this reader continually wondering whether the protagonist's view of himself coincides with other's view of him and looking forward to unraveling the truth of who he is. Unfortunately, wondering about this young man's psyche is nothing but a dead end. The author stops delving into psychological realms, and begins some sort of unnecessary action scene after the protagonist abandons an individual with no explanation to her, and seemingly no regard for her feelings. The book careens downhill from there; it makes no sense. He takes off looking for a house in the midst of war between the Japanese invaders and Chinese inhabitants. He fantastically believes his parents have lived there in captivity for upwards of 20 years after being kidnapped. I was disappointed after reading half of a book with so much promise, that then fell off a cliff.