Rating: 
Summary: A Masterpiece, A Classic
Review: Through the years, I have read a number of the Booker Prize Winners: books like The English Patient, Possession, and Schindler's List, and each time I have been fortunate to fine them to be superb pieces of literature. The Remains of the Day is certainly in the highest ranks of the Booker Prize Winning Novels. It is so beautifully written, it is so thought-provoking, and it is so moving.The narrator of the novel is Stevens, the perfect English butler. He is writing a journal as he takes a motoring trip across England to meet with a Miss Kenton to hire her. Along the way, Stevens begins to reflect on his life. He wonders if his life was wasted in service to others, and he wonders if the man he served was in fact a decent man. Stevens questions himself, mainly about his relationship with Miss Kenton. To the reader, more is revealed through what is not said by this man intent on being a stoic. The novel isn't just a character study, though. The novel also serves to reflect on an English society which has long resisted change. He also studies that moral delimma of tradition verses change. The Remains of the Day is such a superb novel. The characterizationis are marvelous and intriguing. The novel works on many levels. The novel also flows so smoothly due to the author's beautiful prose. The Remains of the Day is one of the rare and brilliant books of the century.
Rating:
Summary: Subtle, Understated, Brilliant
Review: Years ago I had a discussion with someone I had only just met, sitting at a bar or something, and he mentioned to me that he was retired, and retired from a career as a waiter. This struck me for some reason. I thought, how does he justify himself? How does one justify an entire life spent in the service of others? I thought of this when I first picked up this novel, which is also about one who has spent his life in the service of others; in this case an English butler, a Mr. Stevens. It takes place during the early to mid-part of the twentieth century, and in one of the great houses of England. Mr. Stevens' claim is that service to one who serves humanity, is--in his self-admitted small way--of service to humanity itself. It is therefore important that one performs this service with as much skill and ability as one is able to muster. It is an entirely convincing argument, made by a complex and fascinating character. But as this brilliant novel progresses, we realize that the philosophical premise on which Mr. Stevens has based his life has not remained entirely intact. The premise of the novel is that Mr. Stevens is keeping a journal while taking a week-long automobile journey to the west of England, for the purpose of relaxation, and also to visit a former employee of his ostensibly to rehire her. It is a sound literary device: his observations of the people he meets and the events which occur on his journey keep us from getting too bogged down in his reminiscenses. Eventually, we discover that this device serves another purpose: Mr. Stevens' current actions in fact add a great deal of understanding to that which he has left unsaid in his reminiscenses, and our picture of him is greatly illuminated. You see, Mr. Stevens is a very proud man. He is proud of the meticulous care he takes in his work, and he is proud of the stoicism and grace he displays under intense pressure. He relates a remarkable event. During the course of a dinner given for political dignitaries, and at which delicate and controversial issues were being discussed, Mr. Stevens' father, after a brief illness, passes away in the servants' quarters. Miss Kenton, who will figure prominently later in the novel, comes to let him know. "Will you come up and see him?" she asks. "I am very busy just now, Miss Kenton. In a little while perhaps." As she ascends the stairs, he says, "Miss Kenton, please don't think me unduly improper in not ascending to see my father in his deceased condition just at this moment. You see, I know my father would have wished me to carry on just now." "Of course, Mr. Stevens," she replies. How understated, elegant, and moving this is. He relates this to show us, and without being bombastic, that this is the sort of thing to which he most aspires: maintaining one's dignity and aplomb even under the most difficult of circumstances. He recalls the incident with a sense of triumph. But if he is rightfully proud of his work, his journey causes him to reflect on the person to whom he has donated this magnificent service, and it is here, initially, that his not-so-tiny doubts creep in. For Mr. Darlington, his employer for most of his life, has had his reputation damaged, and is no longer held in the esteem he had enjoyed prior to World War II. His reputation, in fact, is in tatters. And his journey also causes him to reflect on the relationship he had had with Miss Kenton, gone these twenty years, and to whom he is now going to visit. Without his ever mentioning it, it becomes clear to us that his feelings for Miss Kenton were much greater than he is letting on, and it is also clear that she had feelings for him. The climax of the novel is their meeting, in which they continue to handle themselves in the restrained, elegant, and understated manner to which they have subjected their entire lives. As they are about to depart from one another, Miss Kenton, whose subsequent marriage to another was not entirely successful, acknowledges that she has occasionally thought about what life would have been like with Mr. Stevens. Mr. Stevens finally lets his reserve down for one brief moment, and acknowledges to us that his heart is breaking. This scene, along with the one which follows, is almost unbearably moving. What a masterpiece Mr. Ishiguro has created. This novel succeeds in every conceivable aspect: from the unusual and perfectly realized characters; to the careful and meticulous way in which the plot is revealed; and finally to its rich, thematic nature, one and not the the least of which is perseverance in doing a job well, no matter how small or seemingly unimportant. This book is a dazzler; the sort of thing we dream about and hope to get each and every time we pick up a novel we have not yet read.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, sad, simple and deep
Review: This is one of the greatest books of our time. It is a deceptively simple story about a wasted life spent in self-imposed servitude, at times very funny, but ultimately very sad. Ishiguro deserves the highest praise for this masterpiece. Writers who set out to write works of literature and end up creating pompous, unreadable novels should be forced to read this book. The movie is also worth seeing, with Anthony Hopkins the perfect casting.
Rating:
Summary: Missed chances always make me cry
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Englishness
Review: Ishiguro masterfully challenges the reader to ponder what it means to be "English". The quintessential English qualities - blind loyalty and emotional restraint - are what Stevens strives for in the novel ... and also what prevents him from "doing the right thing" for his country and for himself. He becomes an indirect accomplice in Darlington's brief flirtation with Nazism, and he fails to receive Miss Kenton's affection with open arms. I wonder what the typical reaction of English readers might be ...
Rating: 
Summary: What is a great Butler?
Review: Kazuo Ishiguro writes a very detailed analysis on the lead character Stevens. Stevens is an aging butler, who embarks on a six-day trip to England's beautiful West Country. The novel shows Stevens dedication and admiration for his work as a butler and his family. The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro's third novel, examines the intersections of individual memory and national history through the mind of Stevens, a model English butler who believes that he has served humanity by devoting his life to the service of a "great" man, Lord Darlington. The time is 1956; Darlington has died, and an American businessman has let Darlington Hall. As Stevens begins a solitary motor trip to the west country, traveling farther and farther from familiar surroundings, he also embarks on a harrowing journey through his own memory. What he discovers there causes him to question not only Lord Darlington's greatness, but also the meaning of his own insular life. The journey motif is a deceptively simple structural device; the farther Stevens travels from Darlington Hall, it seems, the closer he comes to understanding his life there. But in Stevens's travel journal Ishiguro shapes an ironic, elliptical narrative that reveals far more to the reader than it does to Stevens. The butler believes, for instance, that he makes his trip for "professional" reasons, to persuade a former housekeeper, Miss Kenton, to return to Darlington Hall. But through deftly managed flashbacks and Stevens's naive admissions, the reader sees instead that the matter is highly personal: Stevens had loved Miss Kenton but let her marry another man; he now wishes to make up for lost time, to correct the mistakes of his past. Honestly at first I thought the book seemed boring but it is interesting how Stevens reflects on his past making the story more intriguing. It is a book I would read again.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Short Read
Review: If you get a chance, pick this book up. It's the story of a butler who travels down memory lane and questions the decisions he made in his life. Ishiguro does that very admirable literary task - creating an interesting story solely out of a perfectly uninteresting figure. This book shows just how many significant moral choices lie in the seemingly insignificant life and its moments. Remains of the Day is also very human in its treatment of remorse, regret, reflection, and acceptance. We see the quiet life of a butler through his quiet mind and how loud the consequences of hic choices were.
Rating:
Summary: Passable as a good book, but very difficult to absorb.
Review: Maybe it was because I'm only fourteen, but I had a lot of trouble with this book. Ishiguro writes very verbosely, and goes off on too many tangents to count. But it is the tangents that are truly the story, and not what actually happens in terms of the road trip Stevens takes. In the story, Stevens is given tume off from his job as a butler for the first time in his life. He uses the time he drives to check out the countryside recommended in the travelbook, and think about what he has done his entire life as a butler. He has dedicated his entire life to butlering and has let nothing come between what he has to do, even his father's death. He mindlessly serves his pro-nazi employer without one thought of the politics Lord Darlington, his employer was into, leaving politics for the Lords and the rich. He finds that although he has served his master, he has not served himself or anyone else (besides his matsters' guests) at all. He has overdone the "duties" required of him, at the expense of his life, and that is the point Ishiguro is trying to make. The book is very confusing, which detracts from the message, but if you are prepared to take in all the lengthy descriptions and understand the signifigance of all the little stories, and give this book a chance, you will get something out of it.
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece by a master
Review: The Japanese-English author has done an amazing job portraying the inner-struggle of such a quintessential English character. Hats off to Mr. Ishiguro.
Rating:
Summary: brilliant
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. Something like ten years after publication I finally got around to reading it. It is so moving, so perfectly crafted, that it is one of those books that remain with me, hovering in my subconscious. Ishiguro captures movingly and brilliantly the psyche of Mr. Stevens and the psyche of a certain kind of British sensibility.A real masterpiece
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