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THE REMAINS OF THE DAY

by Kazuo Ishiguro ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 1989

This novel has won high praise in England, and one can certainly respect the convincing voice and the carefully bleached...

An Artist of the Floating World featured Japanese characters; here, Ishiguro breaks new ground with a slow-moving rumination on the world of the English country-house butler.

For 35 years, Stevens was Lord Darlington's butler, giving faithful service. Now, in 1956, Darlington Hall has a new, American owner, and Stevens is taking a short break to drive to the West Country and visit Mrs. Benn, the housekeeper until she left the Hall to get married. The novel is predominantly flashbacks to the '20s and '30s, as Stevens evaluates his profession and concludes that "dignity" is the key to the best butlering; beyond that, a great butler devotes himself "to serving a great gentleman—and through the latter, to serving humanity." He considers he "came of age" as a butler in 1923, when he successfully oversaw an international conference while his father, also a butler, lay dying upstairs. A second key test came in 1936, when the housekeeper announced her engagement (and departure) during another major powwow. Each time, Stevens felt triumphant—his mask of professional composure never slipped. Yet two things become clear as Stevens drives West. Lord Darlington, as a leading appeaser of Hitler, is now an utterly discredited figure; far from "serving humanity," Stevens had misplaced his trust in an employer whose life was "a sad waste." As for the housekeeper, she had always loved Stevens, but failed to penetrate his formidable reserve; and at their eventual, climactic meeting, which confirms that it's too late for both of them, he acknowledges to himself that the feeling was mutual.

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 1989

ISBN: 0679731725

Page Count: 260

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1989

LITERARY FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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BOOK REVIEW

by Kazuo Ishiguro ; illustrated by Bianca Bagnarelli

by Kazuo Ishiguro

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SEEN & HEARD

THE SECRET HISTORY

by Donna Tartt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1992

The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992

ISBN: 1400031702

Page Count: 592

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

LITERARY FICTION

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by Donna Tartt

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

National Book Critics Circle Finalist

Pulitzer Prize Winner

by Cormac McCarthy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2, 2006

A novel of horrific beauty, where death is the only truth.

Even within the author’s extraordinary body of work, this stands as a radical achievement, a novel that demands to be read and reread.

McCarthy ( No Country for Old Men , 2005, etc.) pushes his thematic obsessions to their extremes in a parable that reads like Night of the Living Dead as rewritten by Samuel Beckett. Where much of McCarthy’s fiction has been set in the recent past of the South and West, here he conjures a nightmare of an indeterminate future. A great fire has left the country covered in layers of ash and littered with incinerated corpses. Foraging through the wasteland are a father and son, neither named (though the son calls the father “Papa”). The father dimly remembers the world as it was and occasionally dreams of it. The son was born on the cusp of whatever has happened—apocalypse? holocaust?—and has never known anything else. His mother committed suicide rather than face the unspeakable horror. As they scavenge for survival, they consider themselves the “good guys,” carriers of the fire, while most of the few remaining survivors are “bad guys,” cannibals who eat babies. In order to live, they must keep moving amid this shadowy landscape, in which ashes have all but obliterated the sun. In their encounters along their pilgrimage to the coast, where things might not be better but where they can go no further, the boy emerges as the novel’s moral conscience. The relationship between father and son has a sweetness that represents all that’s good in a universe where conventional notions of good and evil have been extinguished. Amid the bleakness of survival—through which those who wish they’d never been born struggle to persevere—there are glimmers of comedy in an encounter with an old man who plays the philosophical role of the Shakespearean fool. Though the sentences of McCarthy’s recent work are shorter and simpler than they once were, his prose combines the cadence of prophecy with the indelible images of poetry.

Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2006

ISBN: 0-307-26543-9

Page Count: 288

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2006

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by Cormac McCarthy ; illustrated by Manu Larcenet

by Cormac McCarthy

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Swearing, rants, reviews, on every level, book review – the remains of the day by kazuo ishiguro.

As much as I enjoyed Klara and the Sun last month, it did leave me with a great desire to reread this beauty. I read a fair few reviews that described the ending of Ishiguro’s latest novel was the most heartbreaking of his career. Yes, it was sad but the most devastating ending? He’s an author who doesn’t think twice about leaving you on the edge of an emotional precipice but I found Klara quite tame in comparison to his earlier work. Particularly this one. I honestly believe that The Remains of the Day has one of the saddest endings I’ve ever read. Yet, it’s a sad ending with hopefulness. This really is quite a book and it was definitely about time that I reread it.

“Indeed — why should I not admit it? — in that moment, my heart was breaking.”

A quote that pretty much sums up my personal feelings every time I read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Man Booker Prize winning novel. It has one of the most devastating and wonderful ending in literature. After spending pages with the stoic and pompous Mr Stevens, you turn the final page and feel as though you’re saying goodbye to a friend. Admittedly, a friend who wouldn’t feel comfortable describing himself as such but a friend nonetheless. Within this book, Ishiguro has managed to capture a human life. You learn so much about this man whilst learning so little. This is a reading experience that you don’t come across very often. You’re wading through layers of class, professionalism and good old British stiff upper lip. Meaning you really have to work to see the emotions hidden within the story. Emotions that slowly filter through and really do break your heart.

The book is narrated by Stevens who has spent the best years of his life as the butler at Darlington Hall, a stately home near Oxford. He has dedicated his life to serving Lord Darlington and aspiring to be the best butler he can be. His actions are dictated by his severe understanding of dignity and class. As he makes a journey to revisit a person from his past, Stevens looks back on the time he spent at Darlington Hall and starts to see his life in a new light. Has he made a mistake by staying in service for quite so long? Did he put his trust and faith into the wrong man? Could he have enjoyed a more fulfilling life elsewhere? Sat in a car driving through the English countryside, he can’t help but reflect on how he has ended up where he is.

Though still at Darlington Hall, Stevens is now in the employ of an American millionaire who bought the estate after Lord Darlington’s death. The house is no longer the grand residence it once was and there is a much smaller staff to manage. Stevens decides to take a short holiday after he receives a letter from Miss Kenton, Darlington’s former housekeeper. Borrowing his employer’s car, he drives across the country to visit her. Partly with the intention of adding her to his staff. As the novel goes on, it becomes clear that she was more than just a good colleague and that Mr Stevens has been denying his feelings for a very long time. During his drive, the butler meets a host of people and is forced to reflect on his previous boss. Lord Darlington became embroiled with Germany after the First World War and became a pawn for the Nazis. Despite this, Stevens remained loyal and trusted him implicitly. Slowly, Stevens must come to terms with the fact that he potentially gave up on his one chance of happiness for the wrong man.

This is a frustrating novel to read as it becomes clearer what is really going on. Stevens is a character who has been ruined by class conditioning. He is so dedicated to his profession that he pushes all emotions aside. He doesn’t allow himself to have an identity outside of his work. He believes what his employer believes and will not share his own opinions. This steadfast desire to retain his dignity has caused undoing. Stevens has played the biggest role in his subservience and it has cost him the potential for love. The Remains of the Day captures of a very specific type of Englishness and shows how dangerous it can be. It is something that keeps Stevens from making connections in his own life and with the reader. You can see the gaps and revisions in his narrative that are purposefully included to prevent the reader from getting too close. As unreliable narrators go, Stevens is a tough nut to crack.

Most importantly, this is a book about love. As he drives through the English countryside, Stevens is forced to realise that everything he thought he had was something of a mirage. Everything he believed in was meaningless: the grand house, the position, the huge staff to manage, and the highly regarded employer. Now that all of that is gone, he realises that he let the only real thing he had go. Yet, despite this terrible realisation, there is happiness and hope to this ending. When Stevens realises that he has reached a positive road in his life. The evening is the most enjoyable part of the day, why not enjoy it? Yes, you may have given up the best years of your life but they’re not over yet. You may have missed your big chance for happiness but what is to stop you from finding some now? Ishiguro sure knows how to take with one hand but give with the other.

The Remains of the Day is an incredibly human novel. It serves as both a cautionary tale and a call to action. The fact that the story is told in such a stoic and emotionless way only makes it more heartbreaking. It’s not what is said that really destroys you but what if left unsaid. This a book that seems quiet and sedate on the surface. It makes it seem as though nothing is happening. However, the harder and deeper you look, the louder everything gets. This is my favourite Ishiguro novel for this reason. It does so much by doing so little. It destroys you as it gives you hope. There is such beauty within these pages but reading them will make you feel uncomfortable. I adore everything about this book.

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Book review: “The Remains of the Day” by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro is a sad, bleak book about a man who finds near the end of his life that he has wasted it.

On the second to the last page of this 1989 novel, Stevens, an English butler who, during an auto trip through the countryside, is musing about events in his life, decides that he needs to stop thinking so much about his past.

“I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day.”

His solution is that he will work even harder at learning the skill of bantering.

Stevens, the son of a butler, is a man who has taken on the role of the butler to such an extent that, as he relates, he is never off-duty unless he is alone. And, as his ruminations in the pages of this novel show, he is not really ever himself even when he is alone.

Certainly, he is unwilling to let himself experience his feelings or, for the most part, even recognize their existence.

His life is focused on being a “great butler” which, for him, means embodying the character trait that he calls “dignity.”

Throughout his life and throughout this car trip, Stevens parses the meaning of “dignity.” But, when he is asked point-blank by a passing acquaintance, Dr. Carlisle, “What do you think dignity’s all about?” he is caught flat-footed.

“It’s rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,” I said. “But I suspect it comes down to not removing one’s clothing in public.”

To take off the role of butler would be, for Stevens, to show himself naked to the world.

“A kind of affectionate sport”

A novelist could easily turn Stevens into a comic figure. Ishiguro doesn’t.

He gives Stevens an Everyman quality, and the reader is likely to resonate with the butler as he tries to figure out the meaning of things he doesn’t understand and develop strategies to deal with them.

Such as bantering.

Stevens has worked for decades for Lord Darlington at Darlington Hall, but his employer has died recently, and, now in 1956, he is working for the new owner, Mr. Farraday, “an American gentleman.”

Farraday, who is leaving on a trip, suggests that Stevens take the Darlington Hall auto and go on a little vacation. Stevens comes to think this is a good idea, in part because he can look up Miss Kenton, now Mrs. Benn, a former housekeeper at Darlington Hall. He has received recently a letter from her and has the sense that she would like to return to work at the house. This would help him deal with a rash of “small errors” that he has made. These have been caused, he decides, by overwork.

He mentions his plan to stop to see Miss Kenton, and Farraday, grinning broadly, responds, “My, my, Stevens. A lady friend. And at your age.”

Stevens is embarrassed to the core, but he is quick to add, in his recounting of the conversation, that his new employer was

merely enjoying the sort of bantering which in the United States, no doubt, is a sign of a good, friendly understanding between employer and employee, indulged in as a kind of affectionate sport.

“My professional armoury”

It is clear that, in a mechanistic way, Stevens understand what bantering is.

However, on an emotional level, he is clueless.

As he explains midway through the novel, he sees bantering as an element of his role as butler, one that he should be able to learn as he once learned how to stand up straight and silent in the background during a meal.

I have been endeavoring to add this skill to my professional armoury so as to fulfill with confidence all of Mr. Farraday’s expectations with respect to bantering. For instance, I have of late taken to listening to the wireless in my room whenever I find myself with a few spare moments — on those occasions, say, when Mr. Farraday is out for the evening…. Taking my cue from [his study of one particular program], I have devised a simple exercise which I try to perform at least once a day; whenever an odd moment presents itself, I attempt to formulate three witticisms based on my immediate surroundings at that moment. Or, as a variation on this same exercise, I may attempt to think of three witticisms based on events of the past hour.

This is not a man who is comfortable in his own skin.

Nor one who trusts himself. Or even knows himself.

“The illusion”

Stevens is a man who believes that the English are the only men who can become “great butlers” because they are able to exercise “emotional restraint.”

Continentals — and by and large the Celts, as you will no doubt agree — are as a rule unable to control themselves in moments of strong emotion, and are thus unable to maintain a professional demeanour other than in the least challenging of situations.

Stevens describes the role, identity and presence of a butler later in the novel when he is discussing how it is more difficult to wait at table when there are two people for the meal than when there is one person or several.

It is when there are two diners present, even when one of them is one’s own employer, that one finds it most difficult to achieve that balance between attentiveness and the illusion of absence that is essential to good waiting….

Put in other words, this “illusion of absence” isn’t just the acme of being a butler waiting on diners at a table. It is also, for Stevens, the trick that he has played — wittingly and unwittingly — on himself.

He is absent from his own life — unable and unwilling to see and feel who he is.

“Why, why, why”

During a short period in between the world wars, Lord Darlington was under the spell of some British Fascist leaders, and, at their urging, he ordered Stevens to fire two Jewish maids so that the staff would be Jew-free. Stevens dutifully did so despite the strong opposition of Miss Kenton, for whom the maids worked.

A year or so later, out of the blue, his lordship tells Stevens that he was wrong to order the dismissal of the two maids.

Again, Stevens goes to Miss Kenton, and, in what he thinks is a jocular manner, relays the news that “it was all a terrible misunderstanding.”

Miss Kenton, who nearly quit over the issue, responds, “As I recall, you thought it was only right and proper that Ruth and Sarah be sent packing. You were positively cheerful about it.”

Stevens denies that, asserting, “The whole matter caused me great concern.”

Miss Kenton is astonished and tells him:

“Do you realize, Mr. Stevens, how much it would have meant to me if you had thought to share your feelings last year? You knew how upset I was when my girls were dismissed. Do you realize how much it would have helped me? “Why, Mr. Stevens, why, why, why do you always have to pretend?”

Sad and bleak

In fact, Stevens doesn’t realize what it would have meant to her. He doesn’t realize how it would have helped.

And he doesn’t realize how much he “pretends” in his life. He is so defended from life that he doesn’t realize much about his existence. He doesn’t realize that he is living a non-life.

This, for me, is the key scene in The Remains of the Day . It summarizes everything that has so far occurred in the novel and contains the kernel of all that will follow.

It is possible to read this novel and feel anger toward Stevens for dismissing the Jewish maids and blindly helping his employer as he is used as a pawn of Adolf Hitler and being cruelly tone-deaf in his relations with Miss Kenton and putting his job above caring for his father as the man is dying upstairs.

At one point in his car trip, Stevens pretends that he did not work for Lord Darlington whose reputation was shattered by news coverage of his coziness with the Nazis. And he pretends at another point to some simple townspeople that he himself is a gentleman who has rubbed shoulders with the likes of Winston Churchill.

A reader of The Remains of the Day could find Stevens despicably servile and, in the privacy of his thought, vainglorious.

But I see him as a sad man living a bleak life through his own fault.

Because of his fears to show himself naked to the world.

Patrick T. Reardon 8.25.16

Written by : Patrick T. Reardon

For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.

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Books and other leisurely pursuits

Book Review :: The Remains of the Day

I know I’m late to the game with this one. Until this month, I had neither read The Remains of the Day nor watched the movie.

Kazuo Ishiguro won both the Booker Prize and The Nobel Prize in Literature for his 1988 novel, The Remains of the Day . The book gained even more notoriety in 1993 when James Ivory turned it into a movie where Anthony Hopkins immortalized the stoic Mr. Stevens, for which Hopkins received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The film was nominated for 8 Academy Awards in total, and the tableau of Hopkins and co-star Emma Thompson at the window used as the primary photo of the movie poster is one of the most iconic of its sort. (Even though I haven’t seen the movie, I couldn’t help but visualize Anthony Hopkins as I read it.)

While fairly simple in structure, The Remains of the Day has to be one of the most beautiful and poignant character sketches I’ve ever read. It uses the classic motif of journey as its frame and layers in, through flashbacks, the themes of love, duty, and of course – dignity – one of Stevens’ favorite topics.

Stevens is the head butler of Darlington Hall, a home of great prominence before the second Great War. Now his former employer is gone, replaced by an American, and Stevens has set off on a week’s journey to visit Miss Kenton, the prior head housekeeper who served alongside Stevens during the period of Darlington’s preeminence. While on the journey, Stevens reflects on his life and many years of service to the home and it’s masters.

When I closed the book – and of course well before I finished it – I was overwhelmed by just how sad this story is. To the modern and maybe the modern American reader, it is just so tragic for one to have given his entire life to the service of someone, something else while completely sacrificing personal pursuits. While he would not see this as heartbreaking as his readers, that, too is part of the pathos – that he’s unable to see what he’s missed.

But he isn’t completely blind emotions. Stevens demonstrates keen intuition regarding Miss Kenton’s feelings about her life post-Darlington in the few letters she sends over a span of years. But ironically, he was oblivious to them when they had daily personal interaction.

And so this novel is also very much a story about loss. The loss of a chance at love. The loss of relationships. And, the loss of a world where men like Stevens are valued or even needed.

The Remain of the Day is rich for discussion, and I was lucky to read this for Book Club where I had at the ready a group of smart women to dive into it with. And now, for the movie!

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Thoughts. Reviews. Analysis

Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day – A Review

My friend James almost always brings up The Remains of the Day when we talk about literature. He’s a huge fan of Kazuo Ishiguro and rather thought the book would be my cup of tea. Well, at long last I’ve read the book and I have to admit that he was right. The Remains of the Day is a fascinating and sad story about the passage of time, and what we can salvage from the end of our lives, when it might seem that so much has passed us by. At my advanced age of twenty-two, it seems perfectly suited for me.

It tells the story of the life of a butler, Mr Stevens, who works in a great English country house, Darlington Hall, and the challenges he faces when he comes to look back on his past in his twilight years. For me the book is particularly poignant because of my own experience of the topics dealt within it, as my grandmother lives in a castle that is still served by staff (though they don’t live on site). Although it was published in 1989 and the action takes place in 1956, the questions and concerns of The Remains of the Day all remain vital and interesting now, and stretch far beyond the secret world of British upper classes it takes as its setting.

Mr Stevens, the aging butler of Darlington Hall, is presented with his greatest challenge yet when his new American employer suggests he goes for a car ride to get himself out of the house. The American is returning for a few weeks to his homeland and thinks that Stevens could use the fresh air. Stevens himself is not altogether for the idea, but he manages to convince himself. He has begun to notice certain mistakes in the running of the household, which he attributes to a lack of staff employed since Lord Darlington, the original owner, left. The trip can therefore be justified as a business one, for Stevens has recently received a letter from a former housekeeper, Miss Kenton, and he decides to end his trip with a visit to her home, hoping she will rejoin the household.

Though Stevens travels around the countryside, most of The Remains of the Day comes as memories Stevens reconsiders with age. The central tension in Remains of the Day becomes the one between what Stevens is willing to admit to himself, and what out of fear, or cowardice, or pride, he does not accept. The decline and death of his own father, the rise of fascism, and Stevens’ relations with Miss Kenton and Lord Darlington are all replayed to the reader, but only by looking at what is not said can we appreciate their significance.

The Style and Form of The Remains of the Day

The first-person narration of The Remains of the Day is deceptively simple. It certainly is deceptive. Stevens has been plucked perfectly from his upper-class milieu, and like the English upper-class, he rarely says what he means. It is only thanks to the vividness of his memories, in particular through remembered dialogue, that we come to see what is really going on in the past and in the present. To take one example, when Stevens finds that his father has died, he decides to continue working at an important international conference instead of taking a break. In the narration there is no hint that Stevens is suffering. The recollection is explained by Stevens as the apotheosis of his career as a butler, his ultimate mastery of dignity. But then we reach the dialogue of his waiting, and his desired impression comes under attack.

“Stevens, are you all right?” “Yes, sir. Perfectly.” “You look as though you’re crying.” I laughed and taking out a handkerchief, quickly wiped my face. “I’m very sorry, sir. The strains of a hard day.”

Without narration to interrupt and reinterpret this exchange, we are presented with a direct glimpse of Stevens’ pain. But when the chapter ends he tries once more to control our interpretation of the recollection. “For all its sad associations, whenever I recall that evening today, I find I do so with a large sense of triumph.” Language is a tool for the expression of our selves, for communication. But it can just as easily be used for creating a false picture of the world. Stevens, as if to save himself from the truth of that day, from the rejection of his father on his death bed, uses language to justify his cold-heartedness, to turn defeat into a kind of triumph. “You see, I know my father would have wishes me to carry on just now.” He says. But we aren’t so easily fooled.

Love and Deceit

The language of The Remains of the Day, instead of revealing, conceals the true nature of what has passed. Through verbiage and excessive reasoning Stevens tries to fool himself and the reader. Miss Kenton and her attempts to flirt with Stevens are concealed in the narration by Stevens’ refusal to ascribe any kind of romantic meaning to them. They appear only as words, and we need to divine their hidden depths for ourselves. Likewise, Stevens structures his trip to Miss Kenton – he initially “forgets” that she’s married and now Mrs Benn – as a business trip. But to the reader it’s clear enough that there is a romantic interest involved too.

We would be forgiven for thinking that Stevens does not realise what he is doing, that he is deceiving himself. The truth is much more sad. As the book draws to a close we find Stevens, at the end of the day, sitting by the beach. As he talks with a stranger it becomes clear that he knows that his life has been filled with mistakes, and that he’s trying desperately to find something good in all of them. The ending at least gives us a glimmer of hope, that though Stevens is old, still he might yet change, and find joy in what remains to him, and what has passed him by.

The Great Butler and the Stiff Upper Lip

We English tend not to talk about our feelings, not even among friends. Stevens, one can tell, has never confided a thing to anybody. But though he has survived, The Remains of the Day raises the question of how far our English taciturnity is cause for celebration. Stevens is preoccupied with the question of “what is a great butler”, a question he explores with almost academic rigour. A large part of it is the stiff upper lip, what Stevens terms dignity. It is the decision never to let one’s feelings either show or affect one’s work. Stevens, in his own description of himself, asks the reader to consider whether he himself might be such a butler. For anybody who has been reading, his loyalty to Lord Darlington and his dignity in the face of his father’s death, are all compelling evidence of his “greatness”.

But Stevens never asks us at what cost this greatness has been attained. The Remains of the Day doesn’t just undermine Stevens’ narrative, it also challenges the very values he holds dear. What we see, even if he doesn’t, is that being a great butler attacks Stevens’ own humanity. The coldness, the dedication to one’s craft that Stevens practices, dehumanises him. He is unable to “banter”, to engage in the world and form non-professional relationships with other people. He suffers especially harshly at the hands of his new American employer, Mr Farraday, for whom bantering is second nature.

But Stevens also doesn’t appreciate beauty either. Although he claims to live in one of the most magical places in England, he rarely shows it. Whether the portraits on the wall or silver on the table, the beauty in objects simply becomes part of Stevens’ job – he must keep things clean and shiny. It is only extremely infrequently, and often in the company of Miss Kenton, that Stevens’ narration is forced, for a moment, to acknowledge the beauty of the sun setting or the grounds of the manor house. Stevens is a great butler, but for all that he’s lost his friends, he’s failed to find love, and he cannot even appreciate the beauty that lies in front of him. Truth be told, the cost of his excellence seems far too high.

The Glory of the Past

The common note in The Remains of the Day, even before Stevens’ personal failures are explored, is melancholy and decline. It is the gentle melancholy of Chekhov, seeing the world fall apart but not wishing to intervene. In Ishiguro’s novel this decline is primarily a decline of the worldview and corresponding world of the British upper class. We see this immediately at the novel’s beginning. Stevens has remained in the employ of the owners of Darlington Hall, but the Darlingtons are nowhere to be seen. Instead, an outsider – and American – has arrived, and most of the original staff have left. Americans in The Remains of the Day represent the future. Lord Darlington, dismayed by the cruel treatment of Germany with the Treaty of Versailles, hopes to change the treaty’s contents.

To this end, Darlington eventually organises a conference with major figures from all across Europe. The goal is to pressure their respective governments to ease the reparations demanded of Germany. It is a noble goal, motivated by honour and respect for the First World War’s defeated countries. However, it is a goal from a bygone age. An American in attendance stands and gives a speech where he attacks all of the Europeans for their foolish idealism, for their useless values and amateurism. What they need to succeed is cunning and professionalism. He is booed out of the conference. But Hitler succeeds precisely because he knew how to manipulate this idealism, how to appeal to the values of the British classes when encouraging appeasement. In the end, of course, the American is proved right.

The glorious past that Stevens loves is revealed, over the course of The Remains of the Day , to be ultimately an illusion. Darlington, with his conference a failure, dabbles in fascism and dies a disgrace. Antisemitism leads to the unfair dismissal of two maids, and Stevens – ever the professional – refuses even to comfort them as he removes them from their positions. Stevens is also a terrible elitist and snob without ever, really, justifying these views. As easy as it is to begin The Remains of the Day with a sense of nostalgia, it’s equally hard not to end the book with a feeling of disappointment in the world that lies behind us. Of course, there was a lot to value in some of the old British values – but there was far more that really isn’t worth our time.

It was interesting as I read The Remains of the Day to see how my attitude to Stevens himself changed. At first I thought of him as something of a buffoon. But then as time went on that bemusement morphed into sadness, disappointment, and finally a kind of anger. I was angry that Stevens was so obsessed about being a great butler that he came to neglect everything else in the world. I was angry that he spends the entire book lying to himself. It’s only at the very end that there’s a brief hint that all that might change. But I was glad of it, just as I was glad for Stevens. In truth, I pitied him.

The Remains of the Day is a lovely book. Its story of decline hidden under the façade of class glory rings true with my own experience of the declining position of old elites. It is wonderfully written – it is not beautiful, but it is the perfect blend of form and content. Stevens feels incredibly real, and his self-delusion seems strikingly real too. There are many of us who go through life trying to tell ourselves that our own course is the right one. But sooner or later the time comes when we must face the truth of our error. Even if we are already in the remains of our own days upon this earth, there is still great value in taking the step towards self-knowledge. In that sense, for all its melancholy, the message of The Remains of the Day remains an uplifting one. Check it out.

For more delicate treatment of the past, consider Salvatore Satta’s tale of the coming of modernity in Sardinia, The Day of Judgement, reviewed here ; and also Svetlana Alexievich’s Second-hand Time, presenting in an interview format the collapse of the Soviet Union from those who experienced it, reviewed here.

One thought on “Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day – A Review”

I appreciated your thoughts. Such a poignant story…so painful to witness the impact that he has on Kenton; unable to express any feeling out of “dignity” and his own discomfort with being “human” is tantamount to gaslighting Kenton.

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A review of The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Remains of the Day By Kazuo Ishiguro Faber Modern Classics ISBN: 9780571322732, 272pages, April 2015, RRP $aud12.99

One of the few downsides to being a book reviewer is that you don’t get many opportunities to read or re-read older classic books. Most of what comes through the door is newly released. So when a publisher like Faber releases new editions of classics like The Remains of the Day , it’s a great opportunity for reviewers like me to do just that. The new Faber Classics have now launched 16 titles that have remained popular with classics readers for at least 25 years, with the intention of coming out with 6 additional titles each year. The books are inexpensive and well-designed paperbacks with simple appealing covers that fit neatly in a handbag or on a bookshelf. Some of the classics also include extra material like introductions and supporting material. N ightwood by Djuna Barnes, for example, contains an introduction, almost as beautiful as the book (maybe more so) by Jeanette Winterson and also the original introduction by TS Eliot. Other books in the first wave of releases includes such well known texts as Arial by Sylvia Plath, Look Back in Anger by John Osborne, Self-Help by Lorrie Moore, and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I chose Ishiguro’s Booker Prize winning title because I haven’t read The Remains of the Day (nor have I see the well-lauded film, though I intend to now), and I’ve got a copy of Ishiguro’s latest novel The Buried Giant patiently awaiting my attention and wanted to read this one first. I wasn’t disappointed.

If you’re one of the few people who don’t know the plot of The Remains of the Day , the story takes place in 1956, and is told in first person by the Jeeves-like Stevens, who recounts a rare trip from Darlington Hall where he works, to the West Country, where he goes on a mini-holiday, ostensibly to entice Miss Kenton, a former housekeeper, back into his employ. Though very little happens in the present day narrative: Stevens travels to the West Country, runs out of fuel, meets with Miss Kenton, and returns home, all without incident, during the trip, he reflects on his years of service, his former employer Lord Darlington and the politics in which Darlington was involved. He also relives key moments in his relationship with Miss Kenton, and above all, on the nature of honour and what it means to live a dignified and worthwhile life:

The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing.  They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstances tear it for him in the public gaze; he will discard it when, and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone.  (43-44)

Stevens himself seems to fully believes all he says as he progresses through his trip. Little by little he chips away at his own sense of self, journeying not just physically, but mentally as he progresses towards Devon. Always he speaks with a measured voice, and explores his past in a way that begins with a clinical self-justification:

I carried out my duties to the best of my abilities, indeed to a standard which many may consider ‘first-rate.’ It is hardly my fault is his lordship’s life and work have turned out today to look, at best, a sad waste-and it is quite illogical that I should feel any regret or shame on my own account. (201)

and ends with a clear self-indictment:

As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted . I trusted in his lordship’s wisdom. All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that? (256)

The novel is set between the two wars, WWI and WWII, and even at his most naive, Stevens is aware that his boss, Lord Darlington, is involved in a questionable way, supporting Germany, entertaining Nazis, and even going so far as to get Stevens to dismiss two Jewish maids on the grounds of their Judaism. Stevens does this without question, even though he clearly knows it is wrong, and even though Miss Kenton argues vehemently against it. This unquestionable loyalty to his employer is a character flaw that Stevens tries to justify in the name of dignity, but the reader is well aware that it isn’t acceptable to hand over moral responsibility to someone else, however well-heeled or titled they might be. Stevens formal style of speaking attempts at a kind of meticulous honesty, believing the pretence that Miss Kenton calls him out on is justified on grounds of his role as butler, but he is forced to face what he has done, not only to himself, but to Miss Kenton, his father (though he never does revisit that relationship), and to others who had come to care for him, and whose care was sacrificed to the meaningless ‘cause’ of butlerism.

There is enough of dramatic irony in the book to create a strong forward thrust to the plot. Long before Stevens realises it, the reader knows that he has come to love Miss Kenton. We are also aware, as much through our historical perspective as through the narrative itself, that Stevens’ admiration of Lord Darlington’s anti-semitic politics is morally wrong. So there’s relief when Stevens arrives at his epiphany. We want to forgive him, so painful is the sense that his whole life has been a sham and that he’s wasted his opportunities for love, for meaning, and for self-actualisation. It’s at this point that the notion of the ‘banter’ or small light talk, becomes focal. It represents the breakdown of the order to which Stevens has clung to for so long, because it isn’t ‘banter’ at all, but honest conversation that Stevens is missing. In a show of resilience, Stevens finishes the novel with plans for increasing his skills in bantering in the hopes that he can engage his new American employer, Mr Farraday, whose lack of awareness of the stringent class distinctions that made up Stevens’ world provides a mild kind of hopefulness – perhaps a route towards warmth and responsibility. Though there aren’t many hours left in Stevens’ day — indeed the time of unquestioning ‘dignity’ in service above love, family and true emotive response is long gone– The Remains of the Day nevertheless ends on a hopeful note.  This is a lovely, easy to read, and powerful book. The simplicity of its narrative belies a far deeper and more complex underlying truth, and this new Faber & Faber edition draws attention to how fresh and relevant the book remains to a modern audience.

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“The Remains of the Day” By Kazuo Ishiguro Book Review

The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it. Kazuo Ishiguro in The Remains of the Day

There is a certain experience that comes with reading this book.

Intensely moving and perceptive, The Remains of the Day remains, arguably, Kazuo Ishiguro’s best work. There is beauty in the subtleness of this novel. How it manages to be so subtle yet so profound at the same time is beyond me. There is agony and contemplation mixed into every crevice of this tightly-packed novel.

Stevens is the quintessential English butler; his time served coincides, unsurprisingly, with the twilight of the British Empire just after WWI. Realizing the importance of the history unfolding around him, he begins to surround himself with the propriety of being the perfect butler to his lord–Lord Darlington.

The Remains of the Day is more so a tale of restraint and recollection than one of action. Stevens is an unreliable narrator–he skillfully avoids revealing his emotions readily, focusing himself onto what he dubs the “dignity” required of every great butler. He lets relationships–perhaps the love of his life–slip through his fingers. He realizes that his life will end where it begin–in the heart of the Darlington Estate. Throughout his journal entries, there are a lot of avoidance on these realizations. Kazuo Ishiguro manages to skillfully portray this avoidance while still maintaining the undertone of Stevens’ mentality and beliefs crumbling down.

The Remains of the Day is hardly unknown, and for good reason. Stevens is a masterful embodiment of subtle pain, regret, and agony. Imagine an overflowing kettle–Stevens is desperately trying to keep a lid on his emotions. This is the story of how your own beliefs and the quintessential “social cues” of society can work against you. Even more so, this is the story of love, and the fleeting nature of it all.

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Books And Reasons

The Remains of the Day Book Review-Kazuo Ishiguro Explores Dignity as a Principle

The Remains of the Day book review tries to understand the meaning of a life invested heavily in principles. Kazuo Ishiguro through this simple, eloquently told, well-crafted novel extends insights into the heart of the principle of dignity while ascertaining its worth. 

The Remains of the Day is a heart-wrenching story of a man’s past dominated by a staunch commitment to work and its bearing on a life not lived well enough. Stevens is a man with a strong work ethic who takes enormous pride in his job as a butler to Lord Darlington. Raised with a conscientious attitude towards his profession, he leads a life dictated by the instructions, wishes, and disposition of his employer. Upon receiving a letter from Miss Kempton, a former colleague, Stevens takes a short trip to pay her a visit. As rare time-off away from work, the journey triggers a curious response in him and Stevens begins to reflect on fragmented memories of his time spent serving Lord Darlington alongside Miss Kempton. Moving back and forth in time, The Remains of the Day is a narrative of an aging butler reminiscing about events occurring at Darlington Hall during the built-up years of world war 2. As he travels from one stop-over to another, Stevens confronts memories of his brief encounters with Lord Darlington’s guests during dinners, luncheons, and private meetings while assigning meaning to his decorum in the challenging situations. Quite soon, the book institutes Stevens’s reverence for his employer. In his memories, Stevens is often seen defending Lord Darlington’s seemingly dubious anti-Semitic actions during the fragile years of the late 1930s. Where some of the reminiscences categorically assert Stevens’s unconditional submission to duty as a reason of both pride and joy, in few others, Stevens contemplates the effect, his unwavering loyalty and devotion to Lord Darlington had on his relationship with Miss Kempton. Eventually, Stevens stumbles upon his weirdness around Miss Kempton and recognizes it as a romantic funk that he had been unconsciously neglecting. The novel finally concludes with their meeting showing Stevens & Miss Kempton cherishing old times. Ultimately, it is revealed that all this while they were attracted to each other but Stevens’s idiosyncrasies of upkeeping dignity at all times rendered him unable to reciprocate his affection for Miss Kempton. After struggling for years, Miss Kempton (now Mrs. Benn) has eased up in her marriage and advises Stevens to make the most out of his remaining life as they depart ways.

Book Review -Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day is simple in outline and tactful in its pace. The author employs banter as a writing technique to focus on just the right detail, entrusting readers to read between the lines. The deductive nature of the context keeps the reading fairly flat but essentialist enough to shake off significant themes lying beneath the plot. Some of the conversation threads around greatness and dignity are astoundingly elegant. The readers can see the glimpses of two different worlds visibly intersecting under the common roof of Darlington Hall. Where Lord Darlington and his guests are people with power and position to influence the fate of millions, Stevens comes across as a man with limited opportunity to ease their temperament with his genteel manners and refined service. In the book , Stevens’s work is presented as a leveler that enables him to transcend from the menial affairs of his life and contribute his bit in matters of global prominence.

Though put in a cautionary light, The Remains of the Day is by and large an expression of a man’s intense appraisal of self conscientiousness and its unforeseen consequences. The novel arrives as an interesting read exploring austerity as the guiding principle in the life of a man devoted to working. By portraying dignity as an overwhelmingly deterministic force, The Remains of the Day tells a story of missed opportunities in a life inflicted by personal repression.

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The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro - Book Reviews

Every month we ask our readers for their review of our book club title..

Overall Book club rating - 4.8/5

Col's review of The Remains of the Day

Col's Book Rating 5/5

This is the closest to perfection in a novel I have ever come across and a 500 word review cannot do justice to this flawless creation; I felt genuinely sorry on reaching the end. The writing is precise, nuanced, wonderfully evocative; characterisation is beautiful, exacting, studied. The narrative is cut to the bone; no padding, nothing is wasted. Dialogue, gestures, even the way people move, are all meticulously observed and this attention to detail sparks the characters to life.

The story is told through the eyes of Stevens, an ageing butler, as he looks back on his life during a six day period in July 1956 and Ishiguro admirably captures what I imagine was the essence, the atmosphere and the way of life in stately homes of that time in England.

Stevens’ lifelong ambition is to be a truly great butler, having ‘dignity in keeping with his position’. He asserts he must never abandon the professional persona he carries: ‘the great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role… to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing…’ This obsession with professionalism explains why he finds it impossible to express his love for the housekeeper Miss Kenton and why he feels unable to spend time with his dying father (guests might require him to be available to serve port at any moment). It also explains why his loyalty towards his master Lord Darlington is unquestioning and total, despite Darlington being a Nazi sympathiser and, briefly, an anti-semite.

 I laughed out loud at the superior air I suspect was prevalent at that time, when Stevens tells us authoritatively that ‘Continentals’ and ‘Celts’ are unable to be butlers because as a breed they are incapable of the emotional restraint required “which only the English race is capable of.” Lord Darlington says the notion of being “arm in arm with Frenchmen” for the sake of the war effort makes him “yearn for a good bath.”

Angie's Review of The Remains of the Day

Angie's Book Rating 4/5

Anthony Hopkins's portrayal of Mr Stevens the Butler was a very good enactment of Mr Stevens the Butler in this book. A man of exacting standards, professionalism, lack of emotion and commitment to his profession who thought his employer's conduct and position in society was second to none, right up to the end of his employer's life when he then realised that maybe his employer wasn't as perfect as he thought. It took a new owner/employer of the house to make Steven's come out of his comfort zone of many years to realise how much of his life he had wasted serving a flawed individual and he'd lost an opportunity of love and marriage to his housekeeper Miss Kenton. However, all is not lost as the book ends on an uplifting, enlightening moment for him after a polite conversation with a complete stranger on a bench on a pier by the sea at the end of his much needed and rare to have holiday. The book is a reminder to us all to value ourselves for who we are and set our own goals in life rather than accept someone else's and that it's never too late to change one's outlook on life.

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