Kazuo Ishiguro's Time- and Space-Bending Novels

I just finished reading When We Were Orphans, a 2000 novel by British-Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro. Several years ago, when I was a grad student, I read and analyzed The Unconsoled for a literature class. It's not his most popular novel—The Remains of the Day, which was later adapted into an Anthony Hopkins movie, is by far his most famous—but it was one of my favorite reads ever. Ishiguro has a way of conveying human thought and emotion that is really relatable to me. I understand internal battles between duty and desire; I relate to how the zoom lens of urgency can distort time and space.

When We Were Orphans is a romantic crime novel about a British detective with a long-lost Japanese best friend and parents who went missing in Shanghai. Ishiguro takes us on a journey through Detective Christopher Banks' childhood in Shanghai, his high-society life in London, and war zones controlled by the Imperial Army. Pretty fun to watch him grow up, gain fame, lose his shit, and get closer to attaining his lifelong goal of finding his mother and father.

Anyway, I highly recommend checking out at least one of the above-mentioned three novels by Kazuo Ishiguro if you're looking for a good summer read, or want to expand your repertoire of books by amazing authors of Japanese descent. The only story of his that I wasn't crazy about was Never Let Me Go.

Comments

[Grim Richard]

Ishiguro also wrote "Never Let Me Go" - maybe the most heartbreakingly beautiful book I've ever read

[Grim Richard]

Sorry about the earlier post, I didn't realize the jump had information on "Never Let Me Go."

Sorry you didn't like it, but I am going to check out his earlier stuff on your recommendation.

Thanks