The Remains Of The Day

The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

I feel that I don’t have the ability to do justice to this great book but I shall try my best. The Remains Of The Day is told in the first person narrative by an old style English butler called Stevens as he takes a car journey to the West Country to meet an old friend and former colleague, Miss Kenton. This journey takes him outside his comfort zone and he begins to reflect over his life, most of it spent as head butler to Lord Darlington, an aristocratic gentleman involved in foreign affairs. There are two main threads to the story: firstly, Steven’s relationship with Lord Darlington and his view that in serving Lord Darlington to the best of his ability as head butler he is serving the greater interests of humanity. Despite recurring doubts he attempts to justify in his own mind that he has been true and right in pursuing this goal. In this sense he is correct, he did serve Lord Darlington with great loyalty and devotion but this came at a terrible cost. He was so focused on this goal that he does not allow himself to fully develop as a human being and interact with others in a real and normal way. This brings us to the second thread of the story: his relationship with Miss Kenton, the housekeeper of Darlington Hall. During his years of service as head butler Miss Kenton joins the staff as head housekeeper. She is a young, attractive, strong willed woman. In the early stages of their professional relationship they clash on various things, usually concerning aspects of housekeeping, but it becomes evident that this is down to a strong sexual tension between them. They slowly grow to respect and esteem each other and this interaction with Miss Kenton is the closest thing that Steven’s has to a meaningful relationship in his life but he represses his feelings for her, often avoiding or rejecting any flirtatious behaviour or intimacy that she tries to initiate. He is not a stupid man by any means but in many ways he is very blinkered in his thinking and flawed in his character. Perhaps that is a bit too harsh on him. His father was also a butler so you can imagine that this way of life and thinking is all Steven’s has ever known. At times, as a reader, you are wanting him to just express himself outside of his usual protocol and stop pretending. But these flaws do not make him an unsympathetic character. Despite his flaws he is essentially a good and well meaning man, much like Lord Darlington. Both are misguided and somewhat naïve and they are both limited and confined by the social class they were born into. Lord Darlington seems to be more free on the surface but he too is confined to his social class, mixing only with aristocrats and prominent public figure. The novel is in some ways a damning condemnation of the trappings of the social class system. The reader could easy conceive that in different circumstances both men would have lived much happier and fulfilling lifes. The Remains Of The Day is essentially a tragedy, although not in a dramatic or extraordinary way. One reviewer described the book as ’quietly devastating’ and the power of the unfolding tragedy is brilliantly written by Kazuo Ishiguro, who thoroughly deserved to win the Booker Prize for this masterpiece. His command of the English language is superb, and the fact that English is not his mother tongue makes his achievement all the more impressive.
The Remains Of The Day - 9/10