‘When We Were Orphans’ by Kazuo Ishiguro

Like many others, I liked The Remains of the Day a lot. So, when I heard that there was a detective novel by the same author, I was interested, because I also like detective or crime novels (Hammett, Chandler, Dan Kavanagh [i.e., Julian Barnes], Kinky Friedman, James Ellroy, Martin Cruz Smith [Gorki Park], Andrew Vachss, David Peace, …). However, this particular ‘detective novel’ disappointed me, and will probably also disappoint those potential readers who enjoy authors like those mentioned above. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad book; quite probably it is not. It certainly has nice and interesting parts, and is well written. But there isn’t much in the way of action, thrill or adventure. Maybe it is an existentialist detective novel?? I wouldn’t know.

The protagonist is a famous young detective, whose parents vanished when he was a boy and they lived in Shanghai. Now he starts looking for them, to solve the crime he assumes behind their disappearance. It’s been a while since I read the book; I don’t remember the details. As I do remember it, he makes some progress, finds out much of what went on back then, but he doesn’t get his parents back. That’s not so bad in itself (for the reader), but one thing that is weird about this detective is that all the time he keeps on believing (if I remember correctly) that his parents are still alive and he can find and free them. Maybe there were other things, too, which he recalcitrantly clung to misapprehensions about. I guess that’s not the kind of detective that appeals to my reading tastes.

Maybe it’s more of a psychological novel, with crime as a mere backdrop? For example, one sentence (on p 36 of the faber & faber edition) reads: ‘It took no more than a few days to unravel the mystery of Charles Emery’s death.’ Now, if we were told how he unraveled it, it would have been interesting; but this one sentence is about all we are told regarding this particular mystery.

Perhaps I would have enjoyed this book more if I hadn’t clung to my own misapprehension that it was going to resolve into your ordinary kind of detective story. If that’s what you’re looking for, read something else (see the list above).