reviews here have commented on Ishiguro's unreliable narrators let's let that classification stand, whether or not it is entirely valid or really applies to all of his work, as if this aspect of his fiction is so obvious, or that it has been so exhaustively mined, that there is little to nothing left to say about such a narrative strategy.
Christopher Banks, When We Were Orphans' narrator, is certainly unreliable, yes, But our relationship to him as an unreliable narrator is a strange one, an inverted one, I think that it's fairly clear to the reader early on that Banks's memories and perceptions do not align with those of the people with whom he surrounds himself and/or encounters.
His school chums and his onetime guardian recount for him their memories of his child self as a lonely, melancholy boy, which contravene his insistent accounting of himself as a sociable, friendly, putonabraveface type of lad.
His insistence, which seems to verge on a quiet, private hysteria, his disproportionate insult, and the confluence of multiple others' POV point us to the fact that the schism between how he sees himself and how the world sees/saw him is not just a matter of opinion.
The novel shows us, time and again, that Christopher is unwilling, unable, to reconcile not only his memory but his ongoing lived experience see the scene at the wedding where he is apparently subjugated to teasing and humiliation, but insists that said teasers are his friends, etc.
, and note that we never get to see the actual scene to the lived experience and memory of others, We also never get to see him work, to uncover anything, to solve anything,
Here's where I'm sort of getting to my excruciatingly longwinded point, . .
When We Were Orphans tells us, its readers, that it is a mystery novel, The book offers us one story, the disappearance of Christopher's parents, claiming that this story is its central mystery and suggesting, by form and structure, that this will be the riddle we puzzle out as we read, alongside Christopher.
Thus, we enter into a sort of contract with the book in which we agree to be careful, astute readers, who by dint of our diligence and hard work will be treated to the satisfaction of resolution.
All along, however, there is a secondary mystery that is actually the primary mystery, and that mystery is twofold: one, when will Christopher realize how deeply, irreparably damaged his perception of the world is, and two, WE THINK when we will learn the truth that his distorted vision has necessarily been hiding from us, despite our best efforts to see through it Usually, in a novel that relies on an unreliable narrator ignore the inherent contradiction, part of the reader's pleasure is untangling the skeins of the narrator's logic in order to arrive at some approximation of truth.
But Orphans rejects that
second possibility completely, I am in no way suggesting that this novel's project is one of relativism, in which we're meant to see that there is no objective truth, or if there is, we cannot access it.
All along the mystery/mysteries is/are just a diversion, a smokescreen, a trick that I admire deeply and totally respect that leads us in a circle back to what we see, finally, is an absent center.
There is no mystery in the book, The truth isn't the point, There is only the fact of Christopher's mutilating orphaning, his abandonment, His grievous misapprehension of his parents' abduction/leavetaking, the emotional/psychological violence of it,and his child's need to make sense and order of the insensible strand him in mental time he is marooned in a makebelieve world in which detectives are great heroes and even celebrities, a la Sherlock Holmesa world that history tells us did not exist as such, especially in twentieth century Britain.
When Sarah offers Christopher the chance to reject his false understanding of the world, to "see clearly," and to reject a vision of himself one that is manufactured by an innocent egotism/narcissism that has sustained him all along in which he is the savior not only of his parents, but also of an entire city and perhaps nation, he is, finally, unable to do so.
To give that up would be to negate himself, to reject his very identity, He would be twiceorphaned.
There's a lot going on here vis a vis the orphaning, of coursecolonialism and imperialism, the patronizing"helping" of the east by the west, sexual politics and power, issues of class, et al.
But as I read I felt more compelled by what's "missing" in this novel than what's there,
I'll confess to being somewhat befuddled by and disappointed in the final revelation concerning Christopher's mother, and unsure about the necessity of Jennifer.
My only thought about Jennifer's utility and despite its coldness, that word seems apt is that perhaps she's meant to enact the cycle of violence that "orphaning" perpetuates.
. . she is orphaned twice over, and the novel's end suggests how devastating this has been for her,
When I finished the book I found myself returning to its title, over and then over again, First person narratives usually require, despite old Bobby D, 's admonition, a looking back, They are necessarily retrospective. My mind lingers on the titular "When, " Despite how sad the book is, despite its ambiguous ending, the title left me feeling hopeful for Christopher in that it seems to suggest that the time of his orphaning, of Jennifer's, and even of Sarah's sigh, is past, is gone and that, no longer orphans, having chosen to look forward, to abandon their isolation and to rely on each other, on other people they might, oh they just might.
. . be happy.
When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro
When We Were Orphans is the fifth novel by Nobel Prizewinning British author Kazuo Ishiguro, published in.
Ishiguro himself saying "It's not my best book",
The novel is about an Englishman named Christopher Banks, His early childhood was lived in the Shanghai International Settlement in China in the early's, until his father, an opium businessman, and his mother disappear within a few weeks of each other when the boy is about ten years old.
Christopher is sent to live with his aunt in England, He becomes a successful detective now he will turn his skills to solve the case of his parents' disappearance, Though he knows a young woman named Sarah also orphaned at age ten, Christopher never marries he adopts an orphaned girl in England named Jennifer.
His fame as a private investigator soon spreads, and inhe returns to China to solve the most important case of his life.
The impression is given that if he solves this case, a world catastrophe will be averted, but it is not apparent how, As Christopher pursues his investigation, the boundaries between life and imagination begin to evaporate,
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه آوریل سالمیلادی
عنوان: وقتی یتیم بودیم نویسنده: کازوئو ایشی گورو مترجم: مژده دقیقی تهران شهر کتاب هرمس سالدرص شابکچاپ دوم سالچاپ چهارم سالشابکموضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا سدهم
مترجم: مجید غلامی شاهدی تهران نوید ظهور سالدرص شابک
ایشی گورو در این رمان نیمه پلیسی به کندوکاو در زندگی یک کارآگاه خصوصی ژاپنی الاصل که در انگلستان زندگی میکند پرداخته است نام شخصیت اصلی در این رمان کریستوفر بنکس است کنشها و رخدادهای رمان در سالهای دهه یمیلادی میگذرند و کریستوفر بنکس مشهورترین کارآگاه انگلستان شده است همه ی مردمان لندن درباره ی پرونده های او گفتگو میکنند ولی معمای حل نشده ای هماره ذهنش را مشغول کرده است معمای ناپدید شدن اسرارآمیز پدر و مادرش در دوران کودکی او در شانگهای
نقل از متن: الآن یادم نمیآید که ماجرای اتاق ناهارخوری قبل از بازدید مأمور بهداشت اتفاق افتاد یا بعد از آن آنچه در خاطرم مانده این است که آن روز بعد از ظهر باران شدیدی میبارید و در نتیجه فضای خانه دلگیر بود و من نشسته بودم توی کتابخانه و زیر نظر مای لی مسئله های حسابم را حل میکردم
به آنجا میگفتیم کتابخانه ولی تصور میکنم در واقع امر صرفا اتاق انتظاری بود که دیوارهایش را برحسب تصادف قفسه های کتاب پوشانده بود وسط این اتاق فقط به اندازه ی یک میز چوب ماهون جا بود و پشت همین میز بود که من همیشه پشت به در دو لنگه ای اتاق ناهارخوری تکالیف مدرسه ام را انجام میدادم از نظر مای لی آموزش من بسیار حائز اهمیت بود و حتی زمانی که قریب به یک ساعت از شروع کارم میگذشت در همان حال که شقورق بالای سرم ایستاده بود هرگز به ذهنش خطور نمیکرد که به قفسه ی پشت سرش تکیه بدهد یا روی صندلی روبرویم بنشیند خدمتکارها مدتها پیش فهمیده بودند که نباید در زمان درس خواندن من وارد شوند و حتی پدر و مادرم هم پذیرفته بودند که نباید مزاحم ما شوند مگر آنکه کارشان خیلی ضروری باشد
به این ترتیب تا حدی غیرمترقبه بود که پدرم آن روز بعد از ظهر بدون توجه به حضور ما آمد تو و با قدمهای بلند از کتابخانه گذشت و رفت داخل اتاق ناهارخوری و درها را محکم پشت سرش بست چند دقیقه بعد از این ورود غیرمنتظره مادرم هم وارد شد و به سرعت از کتابخانه گذشت و در اتاق ناهارخوری ناپدید شد طی دقایق بعد حتی از پشت آن درهای قطور گهگاه کلمه یا عبارتی به گوشم میخورد که حکایت از آن داشت که پدر و مادرم درگیر مشاجره ای هستند ولی هر وقت سعی میکردم قدری بیشتر بشنوم و مدادم بیش از حد روی جمع و تفریقهایم مکث میکرد تذكر مای لی بی برو و برگرد امیدم را نش بر آب میکرد
ولی بعد یادم نیست این امر دقیقا چطور اتفاق افتاد مایلی را صدا زدند و من ناگهان پشت میز کتابخانه تنها ماندم در آغاز فقط به کارم ادامه دادم سخت نگران بودم که اگر مای لی برگردد و مرا روی صندلی ام نبیند چه اتفاقی میافتد ولی هرچه غیبت او طولانیتر میشد اشتیاق من هم برای سر درآوردن از جروبحثهای مبهم اتاق مجاور فزونی میگرفت سرانجام از جا بلند شدم و به طرف درهای اتاق ناهارخوری رفتم ولی حتی آن موقع هم هر چند ثانیه یکبار سراسیمه به سوی میز برمیگشتم یقین داشتم صدای پای را میشنوم, پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی هجری خورشیدی هجری خورشیدی ا. شربیانی.
Download Now When We Were Orphans Outlined By Kazuo Ishiguro Accessible As EReader Version
Kazuo Ishiguro