21st Century Literature discussion

This thread is for discussion of the entire book.

I had not wanted to sully the new thread yet but feel this thought needs to be addressed along with other questions that have been raised because all of our questions ultimately seem to be asking, "What is Ishiguro purpose in writing such and such in a certain way? What is his motivation? How are we meant to interpret?

One thing I noticed, that I felt Ishiguro was consciously doing, was that he tested our suspension of belief further and further as this novel progressed. Plot elements became more unbelievable; the behavior of characters seemed less likely; situations became more improbable. But all of it seemed designed! It does not feel like Ishiguro has lost control. It feels more like he is testing the reader's loyalty to continue reading. Did any of you notice this happening? BTW, at the same time he is testing disbelief, he is pushing into more generic fiction tropes.
I do not have an answer fo my, Why? But I feel that Ishiguro has structured the novel this way intentionally.

Sam wrote: "One thing I noticed, that I felt Ishiguro was consciously doing, was that he tested our suspension of belief further and further as this novel progressed. Plot elements became more unbelievable; the behavior of characters seemed less likely; situations became more improbable. But all of it seemed designed! "

I piped in on the first thread that I read this, but so long ago that I really don't recall many details. I do remember that I had a completely different read than the other members of the IRL bookclub I read it with. Maybe because I was the only one who had read Ishiguro before.

I always saw Christopher as delusional, and never believed he was really a detective. From the beginning, he's like a parody of a detective, examining things with a magnifying glass and only "discovering" things through coincidence. That things get more and more improbable makes his delusion even more apparent. Throughout, he describes his actions like someone play acting based on exposure to pulp fiction and films. He's stuck on the past, and hence "solving the mystery" of it subsumes him to the point of mentally reinventing himself as a Great Detective.

I also recall thinking it was Jenny's attempted suicide that was the final straw in snapping his tenuous hold on reality, but I'm more hazy on that. It's my least favorite Ishiguro, so I was never really tempted to reread it.

Whitney wrote: "It's my least favorite Ishiguro, so I was never really tempted to reread it."

Wow, Whitney, your least favorite Ishiguro, and you still gave it 5 stars? And I thought I was a big fan of his.

It was pretty much my least favorite of his also, based on my prior reading (I gave it 3 stars), but that's actually a big part of why I'm rereading it, to either see what I missed or to convince myself that I wasn't missing it after all.

This book fell apart for me in the last few chapters. The sequence in the “warrens” is batty wonkers, showing how far the narrator is out of his own mind. (Akira? I don’t think so….). And then the neat wrapping up with Uncle Philip? The pieces just don’t fit together into a coherent whole. The fate of his mother is unbelievable. And then there is the little coda at the end where he finally seems to have a stronger connection to reality, where Jennifer has attempted suicide, and then he finds his mother after all. Why? What was Ishiguro doing here? Merging the unreliable narrator of his earlier books with a regular detective novel? What was he trying to achieve?

I’m glad I read it, but I don’t think it lives up to the other Ishiguro works (except maybe the Buried Giant).

Catherine wrote: "This book fell apart for me in the last few chapters. The sequence in the “warrens” is batty wonkers, showing how far the narrator is out of his own mind. (Akira? I don’t think so….). And then the ..."

Catherine: This was also my experience the first time I read the book. I was hoping it didn't happen again this time around.

Jerry wrote: "Wow, Whitney, your least favorite Ishiguro, and you still gave it 5 stars? And I thought I was a big fan of his."

Ha, I didn't realize I'd given it 5 stars. I read it in 2003, so I probably just automatically tagged it with 5 stars when I was entering a bunch of previously read books into goodreads because it was Ishiguro.

Catherine wrote: "This book fell apart for me in the last few chapters. The sequence in the “warrens” is batty wonkers, showing how far the narrator is out of his own mind. (Akira? I don’t think so….). And then the ..."

In part 6 when he goes through the warrens, he is most definitely batty wonkers, and I don't think it was really Akira either. He's acting so clearly delusional; it's practically a psychotic break. Then, after the reveals of his "Uncle," it leads me to wonder how Christopher could possibly be so successful as a detective since he was so clueless and unobservant? He didn't seem capable of objectivity and rationality at all, though maybe that was because of his blind spots surrounding his childhood. Maybe he could be objective in other matters offscreen? It leaves me with many questions.

Or as his "Uncle" suggests, were his many successes as a detective really just dilettante successes and nothing substantial at all? But if so, why is he shown so much deference by the authorities?

I am interested in Whitney's take that Christopher has falsified everything and isn't really even a detective, but I'm not sure that satisfies me - that sort of nullifies the book then, doesn't it? I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far.

And I do think there are some very real political concerns and commentaries in the book, such as the horrors of the lives of those poor in the warrens . . . and also the massive political corruption of both the corporations and warlords, and the government of Chiang Kai-Shek alike. Within the context of the book, none of them seems to be out for anything other than their own gain and personal power.

But the "Uncle"'s cynicism where he says that everyone and everything is corrupt and sullied by the world seems too easy to me, almost lazy - it's as though there's no point of morality and no point to try. But if Ishiguro really believed there was no point of morality and no point to try, what's the point of exposing the wrongdoings that he exposed here. It doesn't feel like the sort of book a nihilist or someone without hope would actually write; it feels maybe instead like the work of a very frustrated idealist?

I am 50 pages from the end. I'm almost done, but I will wait until I finish to read everyone's comments more carefully (probably tomorrow). Like Sam, I do find myself wondering what the point is. And like Whitney and Jerry, I think this one of my least favorite of Ishiguro's books too. It's on track for 4 stars though; my least favorite of Ishiguro's is still pretty good. When I finished Never Let Me Go, The Buried Giant, The Remains of the Day, and Klara and the Sun, all four of those blew me away and I was full of so many thoughts about them that I could hardly contain all they meant to me. This one by contrast has me feeling a bit puzzled. It's still a beautiful book, but my reaction to it is very different than those others.

I decided to read this with the group only to discover that I had read it in 2018! So I re-read it. I remembered the beginning and probably the first third but then it felt all new. When I went to write my review, I had nothing new to say. I've skimmed the comments here and agree that this is a tough one to get a handle on. It did get pretty unbelievable during the search through the warrens of Shanghai.

Greg wrote: "I am interested in Whitney's take that Christopher has falsified everything and isn't really even a detective, but I'm not sure that satisfies me - that sort of nullifies the book then, doesn't it? I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far."

Don't worry, I'm pretty alone in my extreme interpretation. I went looking for some support and couldn't find much. I did read an interview with Ishiguro where he said his intention was to upend the popular post war detective novels, where everything is wonderful and ideal until there's a murder, then a two-dimensional detective solves the case and everything is wonderful and ideal again. He wanted to take a detective from that cardboard reality and put them in a realistic situation, where trauma is real and solving a violent crime isn't a magic solution to making everyone whole and happy.

He also confirmed that the soldier wasn't Akira.

Whitney wrote: "I did read an interview with Ishiguro where he said his intention was to upend the popular post war detective novels, where everything is wonderful and ideal until there's a murder, then a two-dimensional detective solves the case and everything is wonderful and ideal again. He wanted to take a detective from that cardboard reality and put them in a realistic situation, where trauma is real and solving a violent crime isn't a magic solution to making everyone whole and happy.."

That's fascinating Whitney!! I'm only a handful of pages away from the end. I definitely can see what you're describing, and it rings true. Marc mentioned as well on one of the threads that Christopher is like a child's idea of a detective, and it has that feel. He's not quite real, even to himself. He's living in his own "enchanted world", as Uncle Philip puts it. Even in Christopher's dalliance with Sarah, he's sort-of playacting, focused on where he's putting his feet rather than the kiss. He seems more interested in the idea of Sarah than in the woman herself.

I'm not sure if I find that choice of a central protagonist from a cardboard reality completely satisfying from a story perspective? . . . but I do like Ishiguro's idea of trying to upend the overly-idealistic post war fantasies in the detective novels of the day. And I also like the idea of someone from a rarefied world getting completely over their head, as he clearly is outside of the international settlement.

Linda and Catherine, I'm not sure if I find it unrealistic that there could be hellish warrens like the narrator describes, especially in regions exploited by colonials and warlords, or places in the midst of a warzone. The war has compounded the misery to near Boschian levels. It's nearly as extreme as one of those paintings Bosch made of hell! But some truly horrific things happen at such times and in such places. And reality can be just that strange, like the loyal Japanese colonel who admires Dickens . . . that's just the bizarre sort of double-think that seems to happen in this crazy world. People can be such inconsistent animals.

Clearly, the character Christopher is delusional in the extreme by that point in the warrens, and his perspectives are unreal - he has no idea what he's doing or what he's getting into or what he's asking people to help him to do. But the horrors he encounters don't feel wholly unreal, to me anyway; it's only his understanding that I have no confidence in. That's my own reaction anyway.

Sam wrote: "Plot elements became more unbelievable; the behavior of characters seemed less likely; situations became more improbable. But all of it seemed designed! It does not feel like Ishiguro has lost control."

Sam, I do think there is truth to this. And you are putting your finger on some aspects of the book that trouble me.

One major thing that still bothers me is that I can't get my head around why other characters are buying into the importance of his delusion that solving his parents' kidnapping is key to getting stability in the region. I suppose Mr. Grayson could have just been humoring him with all the bizarre talk about planning the post-rescue celebrations. But several different characters talk as though the solution of the kidnappings is vitally important, and I can't understand why all of those characters would need to be humoring him. So much time has passed that it doesn't seem like it would be a public-relations thing either. He could just be completely lying, but if he's lying about the facts rather than just his impressions and if I don't have any clues as to which, I'm not sure how to take the book.

Since Christopher is clearly an unreliable narrator, it doesn't bother me that his impressions are often strange. But it doesn't always seem that other characters' objective behaviors are comprehensible or "normal." And often, Ishiguro specifically calls out the oddity so it doesn't seem like an accident at all. It does seem as you say, by design.

I think it's those aspects that are giving me trouble in coming to terms with the book as a whole. What does everyone think about the message? In the other books of Ishiguro's that I've read, I was completely clear about the message, or in most cases, many complex layers of different messages. But in this book, I'm really not sure.

There's a lot here about double-identities and the difficulty of existing between cultures. And there's a lot here also about the corruption of the neo-colonizers as well as the corruption of the local rulers and the hypocritical moralism of both as well as the lack of shame. And additionally, there's much about memory and the fallibility of memory, about the confusion of fantasy and reality and how easily that can happen. There's several different threads I can follow in this book and lots to talk about, but none of them pulls me strongly above the others.

I took the time to read the book closely, but I don't know if I feel sure what to most take from it. I'm interested enough to try, but I do feel a bit discombobulated.

Ok, the detective hot on the trail detours to Macao or nearly does. Then the deus ex machina kicks in an odd way (again)? Is this the author trying to get my attention that the whole thing is just more child's play? An orphan's game?

Gini wrote: "Ok, the detective hot on the trail detours to Macao or nearly does. Then the deus ex machina kicks in an odd way (again)? Is this the author trying to get my attention that the whole thing is just ..."

What a great insight! It does feel like the childrens' game.

Sam wrote: "...all of our questions ultimately seem to be asking, "What is Ishiguro purpose in writing such and such in a certain way? What is his motivation? How are we meant to interpret?"

You're not accounting for the Robbe-Grillet fans in the forum. We're just going "oh, ok". The whole phonograph shop sequence is certainly ridiculous enough.

Bill wrote: "You're not accounting for the Robbe-Grillet fans in the forum. We're just going "oh, ok". The whole phonograph shop sequence is certainly ridiculous enough"

That phonograph store is pretty outlandish - it's one of those moments where I can really see the spy/detective tropes you brought up earlier Bill.

Gini wrote: "Ok, the detective hot on the trail detours to Macao or nearly does. Then the deus ex machina kicks in an odd way (again)? Is this the author trying to get my attention that the whole thing is just ..."

Gini and Catherine, for sure there's some childishness here, especially in the way Christopher conceives things.

Bill wrote: "You're not accounting for the Robbe-Grillet fans in the forum. We're just going "oh, ok". The whole phonograph shop sequence is certainly ridiculous enough."

Woefully, I haven't read Robbe-Grillet so I am going to have to base my answer on the Resnais film, Last Year in Marienbad written by that author to gauge my answer. My guess is that we would accept the surreal aspects and give them personal interpretation. I would normally do that but I was going to make a weak argument for this being Ishiguro's conscious/unconscious statement on racism and anticolonialism but am waiting for everyone to catch up reading.

Sam wrote: "...I was going to make a weak argument for this being Ishiguro's conscious/unconscious statement on racism and anticolonialism..."

I don't think that's incompatible with a dream-like narrative from a child-like perspective.

I was just going to write "This is another of Christopher and Akira's games, right?" when (view spoiler)[Akira shows up in the warren. And they're going to solve the case together! (hide spoiler)]

I think the whole Victorian detective genre is just problematic, with its privileged gentleman detectives engaged in rarefied activities, combatting Evil and discovering the Truth in the messy early modern world.

Is this what it feels like to be an orphan? Does orphan ever become a thing of the past? For me it's not politics or social comment the author is after. There's my take on it anyway.

Bill wrote: "You're not accounting for the Robbe-Grillet fans in the forum. We're just going "oh, ok"

Now that you say that, I do get an Robbe-Grillet kind of feeling from some Ishiguro. You might appreciate his story "A Village After Dark"

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

So rereading the book and not having the unmet-expectations problem I had with it on first reading, I enjoyed When We Were Orphans a lot more this time around. The most glaring problem for me was something that first came to light in chapters 8 and 9. Because there we see Christopher, in 1931, articulate his awareness of Wang Ku's highly likely involvement in his mother's disappearance, and Uncle Philip's complicity with the plan to abduct her on the day it happened. Given this, I could not fathom why this particular lead was not followed up rather than all the dead ends Christopher actually ended up pursuing. It's brought up as a memory in Chs 8 and 9 and its revelatory nature is quite clear to narrator Christopher. Since Ishiguro is rather adamant in his interview with Charlie Rose about the book that he had no particular interest in Orphans with depicting another "unreliable, crazy narrator" (like Ryder in Unconsoled and to a lesser extent Stevens in Remains of the Day), I would love to ask Ishiguro why he put this revelation so prominently into the mind of his narrator in 1931 only to have him completely drop it in his continued "investigations".

Jerry wrote: "Since Ishiguro is rather adamant in his interview with Charlie Rose about the book that he had no particular interest in Orphans with depicting another "unreliable, crazy narrator" (like Ryder in Unconsoled and to a lesser extent Stevens in Remains of the Day), I would love to ask Ishiguro why he put this revelation so prominently into the mind of his narrator in 1931 only to have him completely drop it in his continued "investigations""

I agree it's odd that despite being so suspicious of Uncle Philip, Christopher didn't follow up on those suspicions more.

But what I'm even more interested now is the fact that Ishiguro said he didn't want to create an unreliable narrator?!?

The narrator is for sure unreliable, and in part 6 especially does behave in such a delusional manner that most people would think of him as at least a little bit crazy (a sort of temporary insanity induced by the stress of the situation at an absolute minimum). The way he behaves in part 6 is just not the way a sane or stable person behaves, insisting on being escorted into incredibly dangerous situations and behaving peevishly when any delays are brought up, then concocting wild conspiracies for their need to delay rather than the clear dangers that are in front of his face. Multiple people die right in front of him, for goodness sakes, and he hears their prolonged death screams. But he still behaves as though they're the ones being unreasonable rather than him. Christopher's behavior in some later sections is bizarre!

Gini wrote: "Is this what it feels like to be an orphan? Does orphan ever become a thing of the past? For me it's not politics or social comment the author is after. There's my take on it anyway."

I'm not sure Gini; it seems to me that if Ishiguro held no interest in social or political commentary within the book, would he have set the story in the place and time that he did? It's hard not to notice that several political and business interests are behaving in an appalling manner, and the extended and graphic view of the warrens is downright horrific!

I still don't feel able myself to pinpoint what is most important to Ishiguro in the writing of this book because there are so many different things going on. It seems likely to be more than just one thing. The fact that he has several orphans in the novel is not a coincidence; the disjointedness and pain of that orphaned experience are important. There are multiple literal orphans as well as several sorts of metaphoric orphans too . . . but for me, there are other aspects to the book that also pull my attention just as strongly in other directions.

It's a complex book. Although in the end, not everything about the book fully satisfied me, that complexity kept me intrigued throughout.

The thought I had was that being an orphan might be behind the need to make things right or good or prove their worth, which could look like our odd detective.

Three orphans, three ways to be.

Gini wrote: "The thought I had was that being an orphan might be behind the need to make things right or good or prove their worth, which could look like our odd detective."

I see. Yes, being an orphan might be part of what drives him. That makes sense.

Greg wrote: "But what I'm even more interested now is the fact that Ishiguro said he didn't want to create an unreliable narrator?!?"
Me too.

So we're supposed to take most of Christopher's narrative at face value, and read this as an old-fashioned historical melodrama? I can't say I'm much in the mood for that these days.

Thanks for the New Yorker link, Whitney. The plowing through the warren certainly had its Robbe-Grillet moments (see for example In the Labyrinth). I'm not a fan of the protracted resolution-spinning afterwards.

Greg wrote: "Gini wrote: "Is this what it feels like to be an orphan? Does orphan ever become a thing of the past? For me it's not politics or social comment the author is after. There's my take on it anyway."
..."

I am agreeing with most of what Greg says. I am including a link to an abstarct that brings deconstruction into the discussion:

https://docslib.org/doc/4318245/decon...

But from what I see there is a lot of conflicting criticism pursuing different directions and one can find support for almost any idea. I may just satisfy myself with not knowing more about Ishiguro's intent and enjoy the novel as a less than fully understood classic.

Sam, thanks for that article, if I can elbow my way into your conversation. Looks like we are on the right path, just a bit narrow. Seems like all of us are orphans in some sense or another. I agree with your closing comments

I've finished, and here are some of my reactions:

I did think that maybe Christopher was never a detective, that he was able to live comfortably off the money from Wang Ku, making up a profession if he wanted. But like Greg says--what about everyone else. Could all of their comments all part of his delusion?

So to take Greg’s point that it’s only his understanding of things that is unreliable, perhaps he was a detective, just a bad one. He must have been able to appear stable, to have been given custody of Jennifer.

I also wondered if these delusions grew as he got older, so at the time of writing, he's spinning one big fiction that doesn't match what really happened at all?

As Gini pointed out, the idea he’d just drop it all and go to Macao was ridiculous. And as Greg mentioned, that kiss scene with Sarah was childish. So many of these things made me think they were from a child’s point of view, that I wondered if that was it, that Christopher was stuck in the mind of a ten year old?

Here’s my guess at what Ishiguro may have been getting at (in addition to the different take on a detective novel, which is interesting, and the social issues that were part of his setting). At heart, it felt to me like a book about guilt and abandonment. What I got from this was even if we have lost our grip on reality, we are still dealing with our emotions, which in Christopher’s case were the pain of abandonment and the haunting of guilt. In his mind he was immature, and had ideas but not the strength of mind to follow up on them. His inability just added to the pain. He was probably as frustrated as we readers were. :-)

When Ishiguro says (in the Charlie Rose interview) that he did not wish to create another "unreliable, crazy" narrator, I don't think the only alternative is that we're to take Christopher's narrative "at face value". Clearly there are distortions there, and there's no question Ishiguro means for us to see these. But my feeling is that by and large the facts Christopher relates are pretty much the way he relates them to us, however his interpretations of these facts are often questionable. This is almost wholly tied up in the tangle of mature Christopher and immature "Puffin". But when he emerges from the warren he makes the revealing comment to the colonel who rescues him that his childhood is "hardly a foreign land to me. In many ways, it’s where I’ve continued to live all my life. It’s only now I’ve started to make my journey from it."

I've come to think the term "unreliable narrator" in and of itself is kind of a blunt tool; it doesn't allow for the fact that "unreliable narrators" come in a wide variety of flavors. When we lump Stevens from Remains, Ryder from Unconsoled, and Banks from Orphans all into the same broad category, we miss important nuances that distinguish them. I don't know if anyone has provided a more refined vocabulary for us to use here, but it certainly seems needed.

Yes, I did get the sense that his emotional and even his intellectual growth stopped when he was orphaned--and the way he "bounced back."
It struck me a couple of times, that he and Sarah both seemed to see their "involvement" in the situation in Shanghai as leading to the resolution of a global crisis. He justified his voyage to China as something that that would be a triumphant memory to Jenni--that he rose to the "challenge of his responsibilities." How could she really even know what they were.

As for the three orphans--none of them were able to see themselves clearly. Jenni had girls bullying her at school, Sarah begged to know if people thought her pathetic, and then Christopher.

I don't think his being a detective was made up, though as several of you point out the gentleman detective of the day seems worthy of parody. His Uncle Phillip says as much in Chapter 22--A detective! What good is that to anyone......Your mother she wanted you to live in your enchanted world forever...In the end it had to shatter."

The most difficult part for me to resolve is Jenni. How does it happen that a bachelor gets to adopt a pre-teen who happened to be the same age (or close to) he was when he was orphaned. There were definitely moments for me when I thought he made her up and that's how he was resolving the parts of himself that had become so fractured. That he was the one who attempted suicide and that Jenni's assurances that his profession was admirable and he did more than enough for her was actually him reassuring himself--that he not she "came through a dark tunnel of her life and emerged at the other end."

If Ishiguro's objective was to make detectives out of his readers, he succeeded I think.

Still a real admirer of this book and Ishiguro.

Jerry, I completely agree about the variety in these unreliable narrators, and the need for an expanded vocabulary. A friend's review called Christopher a "naïve" narrator rather than an unreliable narrator, which is perhaps closer to what you're saying.

Ellen, my biggest issue was also with Jenny. That was when I started wondering not just about his impressions, but about his facts. Such an interesting idea that maybe he was the one who attempted suicide!

I finally listened to the Charlie Rose interview. He says he was trying, not so much to show how his narrator is not reliable, but to show his narrator's emotional reality. That makes so much sense!

Finished the other day. I enjoyed it but still processing everything and trying to put all the pieces together. The novel almost feels like a series of stories, as there are so many different threads that revolve about in Christopher's narrative. I feel like there quite a few holes to fill in on the reader's part, and each reader can come up with their own slightly different interpretation, but I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. I think this happens quite a bit with Ishiguro reads. The comments have been eye opening and helped me shift a little about the way I feel about the novel, but, I like I said, still putting some of the pieces together. I would love to read up a little more about this novel, and watch some interviews from the author. Despite its flaws, I still did enjoy this novel, and was very engaged to see what happened. I felt like some of the last parts of the novel, and maybe the narrative style itself, was very haunting in tone. I will have to think more on this novel.

I just finished the book. I read this book probably shortly after it was published in 2000 so I had almost no memory of it. Just an image of the room in the warren where he so desperately searches for his parents who we know couldn’t possibly be there.

Now, upon rereading, I am most struck by the image of Christopher as a child, acting as a naive child throughout his life. Is this because his parents disappeared making him an orphan? I see his adoption of Jenni as a childish desire to save someone from the agony of being an orphan. Thanks, Jerry, for quoting Christopher about living his whole life in the foreign land of childhood. That’s exactly when my thoughts about the character sort of crystallized.