A search, in vain

ENGLAND - the 1930's. Shanghai - two decades earlier. Zoom back to England, Christopher Banks is the country's most celebrated detective. He manages to solve every puzzle with aplomb. Except the one that continues to haunt him all his life and which compels him to abandon everything - profession, friends, passions - to return to the city of his childhood, Shanghai. Banks goes back to the city at a time when the entire world is plunged in a crazy war. He goes back in time to solve the greatest mystery that has haunted him - to solve the mystery about his missing parents.

Kazuo Ishiguro wove his magic around the literary world with The Remains Of The Day. The haunting last notes carried a whiff of the great work that Isiguro had crafted. When We Were Orphans is his first novel in five years.

Christopher Banks has been brought up in Old Shanghai as a child. His mother is a beautiful, strong, character who has some very firm views on the going-ons of the company that her husband works for. Along with Philip, a close family friend, she exhorts other women of the company to join in the cause of creating an awareness of how certain British firms traded in opium which ruined the lives of many. Terming it "un-Christian", Banks' mother often asked the women to give this idea thought and goad their husbands into acting against it. Her complete conviction is a major cause in the strained relationship she shares with her husband, bound as he is by the company's policies. But succumbing to her repeated demands, his friend Philip, Banks' father takes the final step.

And one day his father disappears. The sequence of events that Banks recalls are dizzying in detail and this is where the story takes off. Uncle Philip is a central and key character who one morning, days after Christopher's father disappears, takes the young Banks out for a walk to buy an accordion. Life changes tracks when Uncle Philip abandons him in the middle of a busy bazaar telling him urgently, "I do not want you to be hurt." Banks runs back home knowing that he has been betrayed. He arrives too late. The house is empty, his mother is not there and the trusted housekeeper sits in a corner snivelling.

It is inevitable that the young Banks is sent back to London where he lives with an aunt and uncle. But he never forgets Old Shanghai or his dear friend, Akira. His desire to become a detective remains as strong and unshakable as it was from the moment he played a detective game with his friend Akira.

Soon he becomes the most celebrated detective, solving cases with ease. A strange meeting with an old school acquaintance and a chance remark sets the wheels in motion for Banks to return to Shanghai.

When We Were Orphans is a tense, taut thriller and even the sceptics will gasp in surprise as Ishiguro manipulates a seemingly simple plot. The smallest of human tragedies often turns out to be the biggest.

But somewhere in his long winded attempt to explain the madness of war, of human behaviour and of a story steeped in memory, intrigue and pain, Ishiguro overdoes it and leaves the reader feeling a bit silly and melodramatic as Banks journeys back and forth. Of course he finally finds Akira - in a wartorn combat zone.

Uncle Philip surfaces through all the searches, not unlike the great villian of the piece who has actually bartered Banks' mother off to a Chinese warlord. Philip harbours guilt and anger but he mocks at Banks saying that "your mother did it for you, Puffin."

Perplexed, Banks now sets out on yet another soul searching exercise looking for his mother. He learns that she has been taken in by a convent. He insists on meeting her but realises that she is far too gone in her own little world to even recognise him. Banks returns home to London leaving behind the pain of having lost both parents.

S.B.

When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro, Faber And Faber, price not mentioned.

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