In a crucial passage, the narrator
of When We Were Orphans, Christopher Banks, reflects on his life.  He says, "for those like us, our fate
is to face the world as orphans, chasing through long years the shadows of
vanished parents."  He tells his
story with this theme, from his childhood in Shanghai at the start of the
twentieth century, to his life in London society and his career as a renowned
detective, and his return to Shanghai as an adult to investigate the mystery of
the disappearance of his parents. 

There are striking similarities
between this novel and Ishiguro’s well-known The
Remains of the Day (which was turned into a film).  In both books, a man looks back on his life
before the Second World War and tries to derive satisfaction from it, but his
memory is fallible and his interpretation of his life seems flawed.  Ultimately, it seems that he cannot face the
truth about himself and his mistakes. 
Both stories require the reader to question the narrator’s version of
events and to read between the lines. 
They are studies in self-deception. 

In When We Were Orphans,
Banks tells the reader about his rise as a detective and the ways in which he
had to make his own way since he thought of himself as an outsider to the
rituals and manners of British society. 
He sees how he was naïve as a young man, and how he had to learn about
life through difficult experience.  He
is disarmingly unsure about his memories, and he is modest in his descriptions
of his accomplishments.  Yet, he seems
to lack insight into his own motivations, and there are turning points in his
life that he describes as events that occurred to him, rather than decisions
that he made.  He seems to disclaim his
own agency, and from the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre’s point of view, Banks
is a man who lives in bad faith. 

Ishiguro’s ability to convey the
emotional complexities of a flawed narrator is extremely impressive.  Furthermore, Ishiguro’s description of the
experience of the mixing of British and Chinese culture in Shanghai is compelling.  His highlighting of the role of the British
in exporting drugs to China is shocking. 
But there are some aspects of the novel that are less appealing.  The settings of the novel in London and
Shanghai occasionally feel as if they are a little too stock — the reader can
readily imagine the novel converted into a Merchant-Ivory motion picture or a
lush BBC TV mini-series.  More
fundamental to the central premise of the novel is Banks’ lack of emotional
range, and this means that his relationships with others seem hollow.  The reader may be frustrated with the
narrator, and this can make the reading of the book a challenge to read.  Fortunately, the plot keeps moving at a good
pace, and this provides enough motivation to continue to the end. 

When We Were Orphans is a
psychologically fascinating work focusing on the limits of self-knowledge and
the telling of one’s life story. 
Recommended.

© 2003 Christian Perring. All rights reserved.

Christian Perring, Ph.D., is
Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island, and editor
of Metapsychology Online Review. His main research is on philosophical
issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: Fiction