A review by sdwoodchuck
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro

3.75

 

Christopher Banks fled Singapore after the kidnapping of his parents, and now is living his boyhood dream, making a name for himself as a private detective in London. When the opportunity presents itself to go back to Singapore to solve the mystery of his parents' disappearance, as well as to possibly prevent the world from tipping into its second World War, he can't pass up the opportunity.

I enjoyed this well enough, and taken on the small scale it's on par with Ishiguro's other works, but the big picture doesn't add up to more than a sum of those parts, and much of the connective tissue feels flimsy. It's hard to find the through-line between the narrator's boyhood revelries with his neighbor Akira, and his London socialite existence; it's difficult to follow his drive from one setpiece to the next, and when it finally lands in its climactic warzone, it feels like it sort of backed into it, in more than just the intentional way the narrative is leaning into. Still, each of those pieces hums along with a wonderful gentle rhythm of its own, and I was never bored by it, despite sometimes being a little unimpressed with the transitions.