The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
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Book Reviews of The Remains of the Day
Book Review: Comedy and Tragedy: The Story of an English Butler.
Summary: 5 Stars
To be a positive contributor to society and the important issues that flow within it, is something, for the most part, that people yearn to be. They want to offer the best of themselves-their talents, their expertise, their prowess (in whatever field)-and in a small or big way, be acknowledged for it. It is a stark truth in all professions, to the highly important to the extremely entry-level. Besides monetary necessity for the reasons why we work, acknowledgement ranks right up there, if not number one on the list. And it is true for the protagonist, Stevens, in Kazuo Ishiguro's elegantly yet restrained or repressed English novel, The Remains of the Day.
Set in England in the 1950s while on a contemplative road trip, the story revolves around Stevens, the ultimate prim and proper, sometimes unyielding "perfect" English butler who prides himself on his sterling service on behalf of his English lord, Lord Darlington of Darlington Hall. While on his jaunt throughout the rolling green English countryside, Stevens ruminates through a series of chapter-by-chapter flashbacks, the genuine "greatness" of the man whom he served, a refined English lord of olden times but also a bumbling political neophyte of the worst sort who goes way over his head regarding Hitler and the Nazi way of "doing things". Constantly ingnoring the nagging truth that is in his heart and mind, he delves deeper within himself and presents a formal if not icy, robotic mask of civility, propriety and polite reservedness. While the outer image that he presents is one of a fine old fellow, the inner turmoil and realization of the dark dynamic of Lord Darlington-via the various dialogues with Miss Kenton (the head house mistress)-gradually fleshes itself out to where it is no longer a rumor or speculation but a horrifying truth. And how does Stevens fit into that wider picture of Lord Darlington's inhuman actions--guilt by association or something darker and worse? Did he himself evolve into a temporary drone or puppet and turn a blind eye upon fanatical anti-semitism?
The Remains of the Day is a very quite book with beautiful, elegant prose; it is very much an English novel that eloquently addresses many contemporay issues besides religious discrimination. However, it is percisely its quietude that makes the blarring horror of Lord Darlington's anti-semitism so disturbing and in-your-face. And Stevens, whose blind allegiance is firmly fixed, no matter what, one-ups Lord Darlington-if that is possible-and boldly poses the question to the reader: Were I to witness a manifestitation of evil, and I knew it to be so, would I turn a blind eye or would I try to do something about it? The Remains of the Day is a compelling and beautifully crafted novel and appropriately imbued with dry English humor, lifting it in places so the book does not drip down like a wet, oppressive cloth of banal English preachments of right and wrong.
Book Review: Review: Remains of the Day
Summary: 5 Stars
Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day describes the road trip of an English butler, Stevens, who seems to be approaching the end of a very long career. The entire novel is written as several letters to an anonymous recipient. The span of the narration is only a week in 1956, though much of Stevens' prior life is revealed through flashbacks to the late 30s when he served as butler to Lord Darlington. As the flashbacks continue it becomes clear to the reader that Stevens' devotion to Lord Darlington caused him to make choices that he now regrets, and the title phrase "the remains of the day" seems to refer to this moment of reflection in the autumn of his life and career. Before the war Lord Darlington showed much sympathy toward Germany and was involved in right-wing extremist groups, but because of his unswerving loyalty and sense of dignity in his work, Stevens is unable to express any condemnation of these actions and even in 1956 cannot fully express his own views on the matter.
Much of the focus of the plot rests on Miss Kenton, the housekeeper at Darlington Hall during the late 30s who has recently written to Stevens, expressing a hint of unhappiness in her married life. As a result, Stevens travels to visit her, ostensibly under the premise of asking her to return to Darlington Hall as housekeeper, but as the novel continues it becomes clear that either character had strong feelings toward the other, but because of their commitment to Lord Darlington and their careers in service, they were unable to express it. Their relationship in the flashbacks always remains cordial and professional, but there are many moments of subtle and distinct attraction.
To reveal the plot any further would be to ruin for a potential reader a deeply satisfying novel. The Remains of the Day is Ishiguro's third novel, and in addition to being awarded the 1989 Booker Prize, it has been named on several lists of "100 Greatest Novels," and was adapted into a Merchant Ivory film in 1993. Beyond all accolades, the historical context of the novel adds a pervading sense of foreboding that provides for a thrilling story without resorting to typical features of "thriller" genre novels. In many ways the entire plot is constructed of one moment of tension and constraint after another, and there are so many situations in which the reader wants to simply shake Stevens for his lack of emotional depth and expression. The prose is elegant and equally restrained, and in many ways reflects the quiet dignity of the man it is describing.
While it is certainly a novel that could be enjoyed by many different types of readers, it serves as an excellent counterpoint to works like Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited or Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, both of which describe life in a traditional English manor from the perspective of an outsider, much like The Remains of the Day.
Book Review: Necessity of Moral Choice
Summary: 5 Stars
This novel is a real miracle of literature. I am impressed by marvelous beauty and purity of its language (such uncommon example in modern literature inundated with slang and obscenities)which allow to compare it with the high literary classic. Nurtured in Russian literature I wish to liken Kazuo Ishiguro to Russian writer Anton Chekhov: concise style, exact descriptions, unsurpassed mastery of explicit psychological characteristics of characters (especially if a protagonist makes every attempt to suppress any manifestation of his inner emotions), - all this is similar for both authors. Surface simplicity of the story disguises intricateness of its internal composition and concealed psychological motives making books of both writers difficult for screen adaptation.Professionalism and fate of an individual in swiftly changing world are the main themes of the novel, extremely important for modern society where business becomes new god. Professionalism gives possibility to live repletely but only innermost moral fortitude gives possibility to survive psychically and even spiritually intact. Mr Stevens, the novel's narrator, is a perfect professional, a 'great butler'. His personal ethic shrunk to a size of official duties so that love and death are powerless before them. But world has crucially changed and Mr Stevens is trying to adjust himself to a new world, to a new employer, to change not only his behavior but style of thinking in order to please his new master, for this is the demand of his profession. It is important for every human being not to repudiate the old world as the worst one (trying to neglect its positive features), not to accept 'the new brave world' as the best one (for he/she will discern its negative sides later) but to preserve his/her soul for sound estimation of what is going on.
The last meeting of the heroes - Mr Stevens and former Miss Keaton - sheds new light on the story making Miss Keaton not a victim of Mr Stevens' blind, unperceptive heart but a genuine heroine of the novel, a person who does not permit her high-leveled professionalism to prevail over main human feelings, who has moral mettle to follow accepted decision. The final deed of Miss Keaton is not a vergeance of previously rejected love but a correct ethical choice of strong disposition. Conniving at uncontrolled feelings (especially sexual desire) puts individuals on the verge of life and death, creates pain and destruction around and within them (Anna Karenina in famous Tolstoy's novel, characters of Ondaatje's 'The English Patient'); sound moral choice in hard circumstances and endurance of its results afterwads is the only fit possibility (Tatyana in Pushkin's 'Onegin') - this is the conclusion of great literature, wherein the novel of Kazuo Ishiguro can be rightly included.
Book Review: Necessity of Moral Choice
Summary: 5 Stars
This novel is a real miracle of literature. I am impressed by marvelous beauty and purity of its language (such uncommon example in modern literature inundated with slang and obscenities)which allow to compare it with the high literary classic. Nurtured in Russian literature I wish to liken Kazuo Ishiguro to Russian writer Anton Chekhov: concise style, exact descriptions, unsurpassed mastery of explicit psychological characteristics of characters (especially if a protagonist makes every attempt to suppress any manifestation of his inner emotions), - all this is similar for both authors. Surface simplicity of the story disguises intricateness of its internal composition and concealed psychological motives making books of both writers difficult for screen adaptation.Professionalism and fate of an individual in swiftly changing world are the main themes of the novel, extremely important for modern society where business becomes new god. Professionalism gives possibility to live repletely but only innermost moral fortitude gives possibility to survive psychically and even spiritually intact. Mr Stevens, the novel's narrator, is a perfect professional, a 'great butler'. His personal ethic shrunk to a size of official duties so that love and death are powerless before them. But world has crucially changed and Mr Stevens is trying to adjust himself to a new world, to a new employer, to change not only his behavior but style of thinking in order to please his new master, for this is the demand of his profession. It is important for every human being not to repudiate the old world as the worst one (trying to neglect its positive features), not to accept 'the new brave world' as the best one (for he/she will discern its negative sides later) but to preserve his/her soul for sound estimation of what is going on.
The last meeting of the heroes - Mr Stevens and former Miss Keaton - sheds new light on the story making Miss Keaton not a victim of Mr Stevens' blind, unperceptive heart but a genuine heroine of the novel, a person who does not permit her high-leveled professionalism to prevail over main human feelings, who has moral mettle to follow accepted decision. The final deed of Miss Keaton is not a vergeance of previously rejected love but a correct ethical choice of strong disposition. Conniving at uncontrolled feelings (especially sexual desire) puts individuals on the verge of life and death, creates pain and destruction around and within them (Anna Karenina in famous Tolstoy's novel, characters of Ondaatje's 'The English Patient'); sound moral choice in hard circumstances and endurance of its results afterwads is the only fit possibility (Tatyana in Pushkin's 'Onegin') - this is the conclusion of great literature, wherein the novel of Kazuo Ishiguro can be rightly included.
Book Review: Necessity of Moral Choice
Summary: 5 Stars
This novel is a real miracle of literature. I am impressed by marvelous beauty and purity of its language (such uncommon example in modern literature inundated with slang and obscenities)which allow to compare it with the high literary classic. Nurtured in Russian literature I wish to liken Kazuo Ishiguro to Russian writer Anton Chekhov: concise style, exact descriptions, unsurpassed mastery of explicit psychological characteristics of characters (especially if a protagonist makes every attempt to suppress any manifestation of his inner emotions), - all this is similar for both authors. Surface simplicity of the story disguises intricateness of its internal composition and concealed psychological motives making books of both writers difficult for screen adaptation.Professionalism and fate of an individual in swiftly changing world are the main themes of the novel, extremely important for modern society where business becomes new god. Professionalism gives possibility to live repletely but only innermost moral fortitude gives possibility to survive psychically and even spiritually intact. Mr Stevens, the novel's narrator, is a perfect professional, a 'great butler'. His personal ethic shrunk to a size of official duties so that love and death are powerless before them. But world has crucially changed and Mr Stevens is trying to adjust himself to a new world, to a new employer, to change not only his behavior but style of thinking in order to please his new master, for this is the demand of his profession. It is important for every human being not to repudiate the old world as the worst one (trying to neglect its positive features), not to accept 'the new brave world' as the best one (for he/she will discern its negative sides later) but to preserve his/her soul for sound estimation of what is going on.
The last meeting of the heroes - Mr Stevens and former Miss Keaton - sheds new light on the story making Miss Keaton not a victim of Mr Stevens' blind, unperceptive heart but a genuine heroine of the novel, a person who does not permit her high-leveled professionalism to prevail over main human feelings, who has moral mettle to follow accepted decision. The final deed of Miss Keaton is not a vergeance of previously rejected love but a correct ethical choice of strong disposition. Conniving at uncontrolled feelings (especially sexual desire) puts individuals on the verge of life and death, creats pain and destruction around and within them (Anna Karenina in famous Tolstoy's novel, characters of Ondaatje's 'The English Patient'); sound moral choice in hard circumstances and endurance of its results afterwads is the only fit possibility (Tatyana in Pushkin's 'Onegin') - this is the conclusion of great literature, wherein the novel of Kazuo Ishiguro can be rightly included.