Memories of childhood

THE one place each one of us returns to, time and time again, depending on our need is the memory of our earliest years. It is immaterial whether our childhood was pleasant or miserable, the impulse of return is something common to each of us.

Whether we decide to act on it, physically (I am sure we can all remember those often boring journeys initiated by one or other of our parents to the places that glowed brightly in their memory - school, home-town, favourite holiday destinations) or mentally, is another matter altogether.

Some of us who have painful or distasteful memories of our growing years may choose to erase them from our lives forever. Some others like Christopher Banks, London's most celebrated detective of the 1930s, have an obsession about their childhood. Banks decides to revisit his old stamping grounds in an effort to untangle a mystery that has obsessed him all his life.

We meet Banks in Kazuo Ishiguro's latest novel, When We Were Orphans (Faber) which has recently been issued in paperback (it came out in hardcover last year). Now, a new Ishiguro is usually cause for much celebration for he is a hugely talented writer and has produced two absolute masterpieces, but I found his previous book, The Unconsoled, tough going, which is probably the main reason why I had not read this novel earlier.

The good news is that When We Were Orphans sees Ishiguro return to the sort of form that have led his publishers to call him "one of the world's greatest writers". I did not think it was nearly as good as The Remains of the Day, his masterpiece, but it is nevertheless an astonishingly good novel with all the Ishiguro trademarks - a calm, measured prose, deft humour, a remarkable sense of place and time and a captivating principal protagonist.

Christopher Banks has grown up in Shanghai but, when his parents mysteriously disappear one day, he is sent to England. Having had an excellent education, he casts about for a profession and finally settles on being a detective (a profession much in vogue those days). Possessed of an extraordinary "nose" for crime, Banks is soon making a name for himself as a detective.

As he is establishing himself, he also develops a (understated) romantic interest in an ambitious young woman called Sarah Hemmings who provides the necessary counterpoint to Banks' own character. The two of them have lost their parents early (hence the title) but this common ground does not provide a sufficient ground for their initial attraction for each other to develop into a romantic relationship.

At a certain point in his life, Banks decides he must discover, once and for all, the truth behind his parents' disappearance. Accordingly, he sets sail for Shanghai, the ostensible reason for the voyage being a rash of murders that have come to be dubbed the yellow serpent killings. What he finds out is not pretty, but it finally allows him to put some free floating neuroses to rest.

When We Were Orphans could probably be described as a literary mystery novel, but if it is read the way you would expect to read a P.D James novel then you would probably be disappointed. However, as a literary novel without any qualifications it is a wonderful book. Ishiguro's genius lies in building his characters, narrative set pieces or descriptive scenes with unhurried elegance and here he has deployed his skills to brilliant effect.

Take for example this description of a peculiarity of Shanghai : "Travellers in the Arab countries have often remarked on the way a native will position his face disconcertingly close during conversation. This, of course, is simply a local custom that happens to differ from our own, and any open-minded visitor will before long come to think nothing of it. It has occurred to me that I should try and view in a similar spirit something which, over these three weeks I have been here in Shanghai, has come to be a perennial source of irritation : namely, the way people here seem determined at every opportunity to block one's view. No sooner has one entered a room or stepped out from a car than someone or other will have smilingly placed himself right within one's line of vision, preventing the most basic perusal of one's surroundings. Often as not, the offending person is one's very host or guide of that moment; but should there be any lapse in this quarter, there is never any shortage of bystanders eager to make good the shortcoming. As far as I can make out, all the national groups that make up the community here - English, Chinese, French, American, Japanese, Russian - subscribe to this practice with equal zeal, and the inescapable conclusion is that this custom is one that has grown up uniquely here within Shanghai's International Settlement, cutting across all barriers of race and class"

I thoroughly enjoyed When We Were Orphans and suspect I will re- read it one day just as I find myself going back to The Remains of the Day and An Artist of the Floating World. If you are an Ishiguro fan you have probably already read the book. If you are not, here is your chance to enter the beguiling world of a masterly writer.

DAVID DAVIDAR

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