Reading the 20th Century discussion

Welcome to our Mod's Choice title for October, When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro.

In 2008, The Times ranked Ishiguro 32nd on their list of "The 50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945". In 2017, the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, describing him in its citation as a writer "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world".

When We Were Orphans has long been on my TBR: An English boy born in early-twentieth-century Shanghai, is orphaned at age nine when his mother and father both vanish under suspicious circumstances. Sent to live in England, he grows up to become a renowned detective and, 20 years later, returns to Shanghai, where the Sino-Japanese War is raging.

The maze of human memory--the ways in which we accommodate and alter it, deceive and deliver ourselves with it--is territory that Kazuo Ishiguro has made his own. In his previous novels, he has explored this inner world and its manifestations in the lives of his characters with rare inventiveness and subtlety, shrewd humor and insight. In When We Were Orphans, he returns to this terrain in a brilliantly realized story that illuminates the power of one's past to determine the present.

See you here in October!

With a few hours to go until 1st October 2020 rolls around, it's time to open up our Mods Choice

Here's to another memorable RTTC discussion

I'm about 60% of the way through and enjoying this very strange book - I believe I read it 20 years ago on publication, and have always remembered it as one of Ishiguro's best, but I had forgotten quite how weird it is! I'm also quite surprised by how much black humour there is woven in.

I listened to it as an audiobook - I would have said 'quite recently', but Goodreads tells me it was more than four years ago. I gave it four stars, but it's one of those books that I'm not sure I want to re-read. But I will sit in on the discussion, and it may re-inspire me before the end of October.

Rosina, I'm partly listening on audiobook and partly reading it - Michael Maloney is a great reader.

Whether it's his reading, or the book itself, but I remember feeling anxious while listening to it - I'm not sure if I want more angst in my life at the moment!

Intriguing comments: I think I'm going to have to start this despite having too many other books on the go.

I also listened to this on Audible. I agree that it is a slightly odd novel. I gave it 3 stars, as I couldn't quite make up my mind about whether I liked it or not... It is beautifully written, but I wasn't sure that was enough.

I read this year's ago, probably when it came out. It was a little odd but it grew on me.

I'm finding myself reminded of The Remains of the Day by the narrator's terse, buttoned-up tone. It's odd that he is a Holmes-style detective and yet often seems to find it hard to work out what people are thinking and what is going on around him.

I had remembered being fascinated by the descriptions of old Shanghai when I read this first time round, but there seems to be less of this element than I had thought.

I've finished this now and I think it gets more compelling later on - the section where Christopher gets caught up in the Second Sino-Japanese War is very powerful and for me has a cinematic quality to it.

I wondered if there was any chance of When We Were Orphans being filmed - just searched for info and I see the producers of TV series Peaky Blinders bought the rights in 2018 and announced plans for a TV adaptation. Last year it was reported they were working on it with the BBC, with Ishiguro executive producing. I do hope this happens.

Although When We Were Orphans hasn't been filmed as yet, Ishiguro wrote an original script for the Merchant-Ivory film
The White Countess, set in 1930s Shanghai, which was released in 2005.

I have this on DVD so will watch it again soon - Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave star and I remember critics saying it has a feel of Casablanca.

My appetite is suitably whetted, Judy! I'd planned to make a start on this but am finding Blindness utterly compulsive now so will have to finish that first. If anyone is dithering over our Saramago group read, I'd say do it!

Thanks RC, I hope you enjoy it! I haven't decided whether to join in on the Saramago but will take a look at it.

Judy wrote: "I'm finding myself reminded of The Remains of the Day by the narrator's terse, buttoned-up tone."

I've only just made a start but can see exactly what you mean, Judy. It seems one of Ishiguro's 'things' is to give us 1st person narrators whose narratives are strictly limited, so that as readers we're invited to see beyond what is often self-deception as a form of misunderstanding.

I also think Ishiguro is more quietly humorous than he's sometimes given credit for: 14b is a suble nod to 221b.

Judy wrote: "It's odd that he is a Holmes-style detective and yet often seems to find it hard to work out what people are thinking and what is going on around him."

It's interesting, though, that Watson talks about vast realms of knowledge that Holmes is ignorant of, and isn't one of them literature? He's analytical and scientific but doesn't shares Watson's romantic imagination. Even his violin-playing relates music to maths.
I guess I'm saying that Ishiguro is quite astute about Holmes' strengths and weaknesses and how they might shade his own character.

I'm loving this. I wish I knew more about the opium trade and China's history.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Judy wrote: " It seems one of Ishiguro's 'things' is to give us 1st person narrators whose narratives are strictly limited, so that as readers we're invited to see beyond what is often self-deception as a form of misunderstanding. ..."

Definitely - and in this book we keep having a gap between how Christopher sees himself and how he tells us that others see him.

So glad you are liking it, RC. I hadn't spotted 14b, but there are many nods to Holmes, for instance all the airy mentions of cases which we never find out anything more about! I also remember Holmes claiming to be blithely ignorant of things he claims won't help his detection, including the fact that the Earth goes round the sun!

I definitely noticed a lot of somewhat idiosyncratic humour in this at times too.

It's fascinating, too, how Ishiguro places his focus against Japan: Akira who doesn't want to go back there, watching the Japanese naval bombardment of Shanghai (thank goodness for wiki!)

I'm not sure why I haven't read more Ishiguro and more about C20th China, but feel I need to do both.

On China, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China is currently 99p if anyone else is interested.

Finished - and wow, I loved this book! I see from the reviews that it's had only a so-so reception generally from fellow readers. I far preferred it to The Remains of the Day as I felt it is less obvious and more oblique, and the subtext of national memory and denial makes it very timely.

Judy, I'm sure you spotted the Great Expectations allusion towards the end: 'My allowance,' I said quietly. 'My inheritance...' - very hard-hitting and emotive, I felt.

I did indeed spot the Great Expectations reference, RC - and it's just as devastating here, I thought. So glad to hear that you loved it too.

I have finished this now, and like Susan, I'm not sure if I liked it. I think it is probably quite true to life, insofar, as our own memories tend to be rather disjointed and elaborated, but I found it hard to believe that after the passing of so many years, someone still expected his parents to be alive and held by kidnappers in a country that were at war.
I did like some of the humour , and was willing to get to the end to find out more.

I can see why this was a disappointing read for you, Jill, even though I loved it. I thought that Christopher's vain belief was a marker of the extent to which his was a case of a kind of arrested development caused by trauma - he'd never really grown past that boy who believed in great detectives who could restore all order to the world.

I wasn't sure to what extent we could rely on his stories of his own detective cases - were they fantasy or reality?

And, of course, however unlikely, his mother was still alive, even if the story wasn't quite the one he'd been telling himself.

I was wryly amused by the guy who keeps trying to organise the details of the celebration for Christopher solving the case before he has actually done anything to solve it - and the way Christopher then enters into that mindset himself.

I did feel sorry for him when he believed that the soldier he found was his friend, but so obviously wasn't. As it was his mother had in fact been held a prisoner, so he was right about that. But that felt it had been added later.

I thought that was all wonderfully done, the whole part with his friend who wasn't, but who does sort of become a friend along the way, and all the wandering through the war-torn landscapes.

Judy wrote: "I was wryly amused by the guy who keeps trying to organise the details of the celebration for Christopher solving the case before he has actually done anything to solve it - and the way Christopher..."

Yes! I wasn't sure what to make of this at first but came to the conclusion that he was being spiteful and that Christopher just never realised.

Those scenes crossing the ruined buildings with the Japanese soldier were brilliant - and that moment when the soldier looks back at Christopher as he's being led away under arrest...

Roman Clodia wrote: "Yes! I wasn't sure what to make of this at first but came to the conclusion that he was being spiteful and that Christopher just never realised...."

Oh, do you think so? I thought maybe the guy was just incredibly naive, even more so than Christopher - but that makes a lot of sense.

I keep feeling as if I watched the ruined buildings part on film, which makes me realise how vivid it all is.

It does become intensely visual at that point, I agree - and the change of pace is welcome, too. I suppose it's a place in the story when Christopher is almost taken out of his own head due to the need for action and urgency. I found it so tense as I had no idea where the story was going to go.

What did either of you think of the relationship with Sarah? Sir Cecil was a nightmare, taking her to all those gambling and drinking dens - another vivid section.

I was quite surprised by the way that Christopher just leaves Sarah behind after all the build-up, but this is when events spiral out of control. I did wonder whether we are supposed to think that Sarah really loves him, or just wants to use him as an escape route, in the way she tried to use him to get into the party at the beginning?

The story Christopher tells us about Sarah is another slippery narrative that at some point surely becomes his... fantasy?... misunderstanding? I found it hard, in retrospect, to see her travelling on the top decker of a London bus chatting secrets but I really wasn't sure at what point Christopher's memories had parted with reality, or reworked his own reality.

I don't know, is the honest answer! As you say, Judy, there's a neat pattern in Sarah using him, but the book is such a fever dream that it's hard to untangle reality from construct on a first reading.

I also thought that the themes of shame, acknowledgment, self-delusion, and the deliberate repression of memory is a comment on what happens on a national basis as 'history' gets worked over. Japan's continued refusal to acknowledge her role in WW2, for example, seems to haunt the book, just off-page.

I thought the same about The Remains of the Day where there's a bigger theme about the responsibilities of democracy and the narrator's abdication of that responsibility by never questioning his employer even when he dismisses the housemaid simply because she's Jewish.

In both books Ishiguro uses the personal to explore wider national/international issues - another well-deserved Nobel laureate in my view.

Roman Clodia wrote: "The story Christopher tells us about Sarah is another slippery narrative that at some point surely becomes his... fantasy?... misunderstanding?..."

That's interesting - I can see there is an elusive quality to the whole story as it is quite hard to work out what really happens and what is Christopher's imagination or misinterpretation. I'm also very interested in your comments about how history gets worked over - and yes, I remember the similar theme in The Remains of the Day.

I thought Sarah was a user. She had used other men before Christopher to get a position of notice, then used Christopher to get to the man she married (I don't remember his name) and then she was using Christopher to get away from him. I assumed she used the man she found in Macao.
Christopher may have been besotted with her, but that seemed mostly to do with her looks, but not enough to give up his dream of finding his parents.

Jill wrote: "I thought Sarah was a user. She had used other men before Christopher to get a position of notice, then used Christopher to get to the man she married (I don't remember his name) and then she was u..."

Sir Cecil was her husband's name - I also thought she was using men at the start, but then she lets Cecil treat her very badly, taking her to those seedy clubs and calling her a harlot, etc. I feel really sorry for her in those sections.

She's a difficult character to understand, perhaps because we see her through Christopher's eyes and he doesn't understand her? I do find her very interesting though.

I tend to find Ishiguro's female characters not quite as convincing as his male ones - that said, it's hard to pin people down in this book because of Christopher's own skewed, partial vision and memory.

Sarah is particularly difficult to reconcile, I thought. Are there shades of his mother's story in her relationship with Sir Cecil? Should that make us believe it more... or less?

I need to reread this one!

I thought Sir Cecil had probably turned to gambling and drink because he had realised what a sham his marriage was.

Stephen wrote:


"Thought it was time for some Kazuo Ishiguro and so started the Booker 2000 shortlisted 'When We Were Orphans'. 50 pages in and loving it so far."

Here you go Stephen (and thanks RC). Should you wish to comment as you work through the book, or when you finish