The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
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Book Reviews of The Remains of the Day
Book Review: Would it be too much to say: A 'Perfect' Book?
Summary: 5 Stars
I first read 'The Remains of the Day' shortly after it came out. Since then, I have re-read it four times and recommended it to a dozen people (buying copies for half of them, so intent was I to share this joy). Each time, whether from re-reading it or discussing it with a friend, I learn something new about the book. For those who have read it, 'Stevens' (the narrator) is as much a real person as Holden Caufield in 'Cather and the Rye' - a friend.First of all, it is a book that almost anyone can enjoy. You don't have to be an intellectual who loves to read 'deep' books (although if you are, you too will love it). The prose is simple enough, and yet also beautiful, and there is plenty of humour. And the plot idea is simple enough - a butler (Stevens) making a road trip across England in the 1950's to his former co-worker, the housekeeper Miss Kenton - whom he once shared some feelings with, albeit on a suppressed level, and whom he would now, at the remains of his day, see once again to see what happens.
Yet this book is also profoundly moving. As the story unfolds and we learn from Stevens more and more about his life and history, we become more and more deeply involved with him: his sense of duty, his attention to detail, his ideas about propriety and responsibility. He becomes for us a strange yet wonderful creature, and icon of an earlier age and yet still a mirror of ourselves.
From the first few lines to the silently crushing emotional finish, this is a book that casts a spell over the reader time and time again. Read it on the surface and it is beautiful; delve deeper and you can mine levels of meaning on war, human expression and repression, guilt, hope and love. The craftsmanship with which Ishiguro fashioned this masterpiece still amazes me; it is that work of art that goes beyond its craftsman. In my last reading I came across several more symbolic images I had missed earlier - the metaphors that Ishiguro is so fond of, existing on so many levels. The book itself is a metaphor for life.
Book Review: A Sadly Stirring Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Anyone who's seen the movie will know the basic story offered in Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Remains of the Day"; a portrait of the steadfastly old fashioned butler Stevens, and his tragically unrealized love for the housekeeper he brings to work with him. However, we all knew there was more to it than that; that under the professional facade Stevens proffered lurked an undermining confusion about the depths of his own humanity and ability to love someone else. We always sensed the inner turmoil lingering beneath the surface of this character, but couldn't understand; we couldn't get into Stevens' mind, weren't allowed to see his real thoughts and feelings. Kazuo Ishiguro's novel solves these problems for us. Told from Stevens' point of view, it affords us the chance to delve deep into his character and finally understand his motivations and the reasons for what he does and the way he acts. The result is a sadly ruminative picture of a man who cannot come to grips with the changing world around him; a person so dominated by his work he is unable to accept within him any amount of affection for another person. We watch through his eyes as he struggles to maintain a crumbling disguise of formality; a mask which begins to crack as his own feelings of love and desire threaten to break through. In the end, the novel becomes a matter of change; does Stevens have it within him to realize his own capacity for love, or will he be mired in the same doubt and lonliness for the rest of his life? This is the question which captivates us all the way to the conclusion of this compelling work.
Ultimately, this book drives us to examine our own lives, to deal with the Stevens in each of us; and it is exactly that which makes this such a moving and poignant experience. Underneath a deceptively simple and stark narrative, Kazuo Ishiguro has woven an intricate tale; a touching story which leaves us with both pity for the trials of its characters, and hope for what we learn about ourselves.
Book Review: A Warped But Mesmerizing Meditation on Duty
Summary: 5 Stars
Stevens, the narrator of this mesmerizing book, is an elderly (60+) English butler who has managed the same great English house for more than 20 years. In expression and action, Stevens is restrained, precise, articulate, and dignified, as well as masterful in crisis. These are all attributes that, in his own mind, make a butler "great."
Throughout his narrative, Stevens explores this question of greatness in his profession. This exploration can be summarized as the questions: To achieve greatness, does the family a butler serves have to be noble? Does that family have to take a public stand on the great moral issue of the day? What happens if that family takes a misguided stand for moral reasons and ends on the wrong side?
In exploring these questions, Stevens tells us about the events, both great and small, at Darlington Hall that illuminate his battle for professional greatness. In doing so, he makes clear that the cost of this so-called greatness is impersonality, the suppression of emotion, and, ultimately, isolation and life as an artifact. Whatever the cause of this trade-off, the narrative shows Stevens choosing the security of relentless duty over family and love.
Ultimately, Stevens tells a sad, compelling, and surprisingly touching story. And, it's clear Stevens is unlucky, with moments of greatness in his profession coinciding with turning points in his personal life. Clearly, the momentum of great events kept him from making good choices.
"The Remains of the Day" is a tremendous literary achievement, without a word out of place until the very end. But then, Ishiguro has Stevens, in interaction with his old flame, acknowledge that his heart is breaking. And, the final paragraphs show Stevens accepting a role in life for rapport and emotion. Ishiguro, clearly, believes life without emotion is empty. But these positions represent a sentimental sea change for the troubled Stevens. Nonetheless, a great book!
Book Review: Missed chances always make me cry
Summary: 5 Stars
I've cried over, maybe, 4 books that I've read in my life and I've found that the recurring theme in these books is missed chances, risks not taken, regrets, and lost youth. Our main character, butler Stevens, has all of these and more to contend with as he takes a trip and looks back on his life.Stevens is traveling to another part of England to see if he can persuade a former housekeeper to return to Darlington Hall. He has spent his life denying his own needs with confidence that his service to his employer will have farther-reaching importance in the outcome of world events than one would assume butlering would have. Even in asking to take this trip he is denying his own needs by combining it with a task that will benefit his employer (or, so this is how he presents it). In reality, a part of what causes him to look back and evaluate his life is the fact that he may be, finally, moving forward toward one of the things that he denied himself in the past -- the housekeeper.
And you feel a simmering bitterness that, he, as an English butler, would never express, quietly bubbling below his reveries of the service he provided to Darlington Hall and the faith he placed in Lord Darlington that his sacrifices were well worth it. Stevens felt that to involve himself in the politics of his employer would detract from his butlering. He chose to believe that Sir Darlington's political activities within Darlington Hall were to have a positive outcome in the peace between nations and that his blind service to Lord Darlington and his many "activist" guests would help to bring this peace about.
As he drives toward one of his "sacrifices" he finally "sees" the things that he blinded himself to regarding his employer. He is no longer confident that he made his sacrifices to a "great cause". In fact, he is discovering that the blinders he placed to himself grew very strong and it may be too late to reverse the outcome they have had on HIS life.
Book Review: The High Price of Perfection
Summary: 5 Stars
Sometimes I think there can't be a more perfect novel than "The Remains of the Day." I am a great fan of Kazuo Ishiguro and have read all of his books, and while all of them are superb and all are literature of the highest order, "The Remains of the Day" is certainly his very best."The Remains of the Day" is the story of Stevens, the perfect English butler and of how his devotion to duty and his negation of emotion virtually annihilates his sense of self.
Stevens is "in service" at Darlington Hall, the home of Lord Darlington during the years between World War I and World War II. Complications arise for Stevens when he finds he must replace two members of the staff at Darlington...a housekeeper and an under-butler.
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"The Remains of theDay" is a masterpiece in many ways, not the least of which is subtlety. We know Stevens feels pain, we know he feels love, and we can read, in between Ishiguro's perfectly chosen, precise words, Stevens' struggle to express that which he feels so deeply.
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If you haven't read "The Remains of the Day" or seen the movie, you may get the idea that this is a very depressing book, indeed. It is not. It is quiet and understated and ultimately, profoundly sad, but it does its moments of humor, though they, too, are masterpieces of understatement. One of the most typical involves a Chinese figure that causes a minor battle of wills between Stevens and Miss Kenton.
All of Kazuo Ishiguro's books raise many more questions than they answer (a mark of a truly superlative book) and "The Remains of the Day" is no exception. Are Stevens and Miss Kenton merely victims of their occupations and the times in which they live or does Stevens possess some flaw of character, a flaw that permits him to be the perfect English butler but a less than perfect man? Each reader will have to draw his or her own conclusions, but I can guarantee one thing: no one who reads this book will come away from it unchanged. Indeed, most will come away heartbroken.