Bettie's Books

I have tried this three seperate times over the past year, determined to make headway because it seems loopy that I could possibly contemplate dissing an Ishiguro, however here it is, officially abandoned.Next! Home audioPublication: 2000Narrated by: John Lee (British)Length: 10h 50m, unabridgedTracks: 23 chaptersblurbies - The novel is about a British man named Christopher Banks who used to live in the Shanghai of colonial China in the early 1900s, but when his father, an opium businessman, and his mother disappear within an interval of a few weeks, Christopher is sent away to live with his aunt in Britain. Christopher vows to become a detective in order to solve the case of his parents' disappearance, and he achieves this goal through ruthless determination. His fame as a private investigator soon spreads, and in the late 1930s he 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 fact and fantasy begin to evaporate.In When We Were Orphans Kazuo Ishiguro uses the conventions of crime fiction to create a moving portrait of a troubled mind, and of a man who cannot escape the long shadows cast by childhood trauma. Sherlock Holmes needed only fragments - a muddy shoe, cigarette ash on a sleeve - to make his deductions, but all Christopher has are fading recollections of long-ago events, and for him the truth is much harder to grasp.