Mysteries of Shanghai

Japanese-born but very much English-bred Kazuo Ishiguro has just
brought forth his much-awaited first novel in five years: “When We Were
Orphans.” Highly praised by British critics when it was released in
Great Britain earlier this year, the book has already received
considerable advance publicity.

Although the setting and profession of the protagonist are markedly
different from those of the author’s prize-winning (England’s
prestigious Booker Prize) best-selling “Remains of the Day” (1989),
there is a large degree of compatibility in mood in the two novels.

If you remember “Remains of the Day” perhaps more for the remarkable
performance of Anthony Hopkins as the lonely, repressed butler who has
let life pass him by, you may well find parallels with Ishiguro’s latest
protagonist Christopher Banks, a brilliant English private detective.
Set in the ’30s, like the earlier work, the novel is permeated with a
kind of nostalgia for a period that is no more.

Banks, born in early 20th century Shanghai, is orphaned at the age of
nine when both his parents vanish under mysterious circumstances. Sent
to England, he is raised there, becoming a “renowned” detective,
fulfilling a boyhood ambition. Some 20 years later, Banks returns to
the city of his youth, thinking he may be able to trace whatever
happened to his parents — even with the lapse of two decades. His time
is ill chosen as the Sino-Japanese War is at its height, with fighting
in the streets of Shanghai. But the war does give Ishiguro an
opportunity for some fine highly dramatic passages.

The tone of the novel is cool, indeed restrained, in the extreme
though the action in Shanghai in 1937 becomes very violent indeed.
There Banks almost literally stumbles upon his onetime Japanese
playmate, Akira, a prisoner of three Chinese soldiers. In a scene part
comic, part terrifying, Banks virtually bullies his friend from the
hands of the Chinese.

Ishiguro weaves his story skillfully from childhood recollections,
bringing up bits and pieces of conversation with his beloved Uncle
Philip and his mother — taglines involving his father and uncle with
the British trade in opium — taglines that surface in different
contexts on his return to Shanghai. Of course, Ishiguro is playing on
the role of how we remember or interpret the past. He subtly lets us
see how Banks’ memories deceive him.

Against the quest for his parents’ fate, Banks has an ongoing quasi
relationship with Sarah Hemmings, a young woman admirably depicted as
typical of the ’30s of a certain society. Of course, Banks, like the
butler of “Remains of the Day,” never does grasp what the woman may feel
for him or he for her.

Ishiguro has said he read many of Dorothy Sayers’ (a highly popular
mystery novelist of the ’20s and ’30s) mysteries to get something of the
period feel, of how she handled puzzle type detective novels. And
indeed, some of that rather dignified, almost stately tone comes through
quite successfully. The ultimate violence Banks uncovers, however,
reflects a much more contemporary sensibility than that of Ms. Sayers.

If Anthony Hopkins seemed born to play his Oscar-winning role in
“Remains of the Day,” Ralph Fiennes is the actor who almost immediately
comes to mind as the rather remote Banks. You would not have thought,
perhaps, that “Remains” would be ideal film material, given its
decidedly low-key tone, but the brilliance of the acting — Emma
Thompson as well as Hopkins — made it one of the finest films of the
decade.

The complexity of “When We Were Orphans” demands a script of
considerable dexterity. And, contained within the story, the ultimate
fate of Banks’ mother almost cries out for another novel — or certainly
a film devoted to her experiences.

“When We Were Orphans” goes on sale in bookstores Sept. 12, making
this the second of new novels by top line authors of the day — the
other being Margaret Atwood’s “The Blind Assassin,” which landed in
stores just this past week. Good post-Labor Day reading indeed.