The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
After reading Klara and the Sun and really enjoying it, I finally to try this book, due to it being the same author. I had heard conflicting things about what the plot of this book entailed, and with it being a Booker book, had braced myself to face the worst, but to my (pleasant) surprise, The Remains of the Day is one of the few Booker books I've read to not leave me with an unpleasant taste in my mouth.
As with Klara and the Sun, this book is narrated by a character who doesn't always let us in on their thoughts - Klara was an android who thought in artificial ways, whereas our narrator here is a butler, Mr Stevens, who refuses to express his deepest thoughts and feelings even in his narration. Mr Stevens is obsessed with the idea of 'dignity' and 'professionalism,' and aspires to be a 'great butler' by keeping his emotional life separate from his work. His loyalty is to his master, above all, and any time there may be a conflict between the needs of his master and his own needs, Mr Stevens chooses duty.
The book is structured as diary entries, with Mr Stevens reflecting on a life of service as he enjoys a six day holiday, during which he intends to reconnect with a former housekeeper, Ms Kenton, and hopefully encourage her to return to service. The framing device of the entries is interesting, as Mr Stevens intends to give us his day-to-day updates on his journey, but instead keeps getting distracted by memories, and then finding himself defending those memories to his hypothetical readers.
It is as he continues to do this that we learn the things that are important to Mr Stevens, almost despite his protests. As much as he can state outright that he has been a success by - for example - continuing to serve his master even as his elderly father lies dying in another part of the house, his focus on that moment reveals the truth, as does the snippets of dialogue from other guests in the house that he allows to remain, suggesting that Mr Stevens is fighting back tears.
His relationship with Ms Kenton is also hugely important to the book, and yet it is almost entirely hidden in the subtext, rather than explicitly stated. Mr Stevens is determined to present their relationship as professional if slightly antagonistic, and yet, to paraphrase Shakespeare, "Methinks he doth protest too much." Only once does either Mr Stevens or Ms Kenton directly address the possibility of their being anything more than colleagues, and this moment comes at a point when it is inevitable that nothing will change.
Mr Stevens is a tragic figure, having given everything for his sense of duty. The fact that his main employer, Lord Darlington, was sympathetic to the Nazi Party during the lead-up to World War 2, makes this even more of a tragedy, as he finds himself forcing to defend Lord Darlington's actions in order to justify his own decisions to remain professional, even as Lord Darlington makes increasingly unethical decisions.
Overall, The Remains of the Day is an incredibly well-written book with a fascinating and tragic story to tell. It paints the picture of a someone who allows their sense of duty to undermine every chance for their own personal happiness, and yet it paints him in such a way that we can absolutely understand how he could truly believe he was doing the right thing.
Beautiful, restrained, moving, and easily one of my favourite Booker books so far - even if that is not necessarily saying much!
Completed 2 August 2026.
(Bookerworm)
Previous Book ~ Next Book
Comments
Post a Comment