When We Were Orphans
By Kazho Ishiguro
Published Year: 2000
Page count: 313 pages
Medium used : Paperback
Genre : China, Detective, Drama, Booker Prize, 2024-read, Suspense, Opium War, book review.
Rating : 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐🌟
Nobel prize award winner, Kazuo Ishiguro, has managed to wow me yet again. This is a story that taught me many things. Among the most important is how corrupt human nature can be and at the cost of other people, how some would choose to singularly benefit. This is not applicable to just one country like China, though that is the focus here, but a generic trait. Also how some people can take vengeance a bit too far. They take so much pleasure from seeing others, whom they once have loved deeply, suffer.
This is a story of loss and dealing with it in a humane way. A child separated from his parents very early on. A lover separated from his partner because their goals are not fully aligned. A world on the brink of a war and collapse, a detective determined to solve everything but failing to do much, realizing what's in his control is very little. I loved this book. The prose is flawless, descriptive and picturesque.
Christopher, nicknamed Puffin, becomes an orphan at the age of 8 when his parents go missing in Shanghai, China. Both of them are involved in anti government and anti opioid crisis movements. So everyone naturally think that something bad has come to them from the quarters of drug peddlers and underground agencies. He gets sent back to England to live with his rich aunt. He grows up, becomes a celebrated detective and returns to Shanghai to solve the case of his missing parents. He is startled to see the level of corruption and self sufficiency pervading the Chinese officials that they all seem compromised and don't invest themselves much in solving any of the cases. They put the whole burden on him to solve everything - and not just the case of his parents missing. He eventually - after a very long time - learns the truth and comes to terms with it.
My thoughts during reading:
I got afraid that,while sounding coherent, the hero really went mad. When he was thinking of searching for his parents during the ongoing fight between Japan and China. He seemed blind to the case of his own death or danger when he rallies his childhood friend to accompany him. Also their faith in finding these parents alive after such a long gap seemed too idealistic. Not just his, but it coming from other people as well. I guess every country has its own skeletons in the closet, but the involvement of Chinese government, including the president, in rendering the people of that country slaves to opioid crisis shocked me. I have always maintained that communism is bad but that was what has provided a decisive and swift solution to this problem in China is a pleasant surprise!
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