Rating: 
Summary: Carpe Diem
Review: Kazuo Ishiguro's story of an English butler's reflection on his life is a subtle discourse on the consequences of not living life to the fullest, not "seizing the day." As Mr. Stevens journeys towards a meeting with a former housekeeper, Miss Kenton, with whom he had a strange and romantically unfulfilling relationship, he remembers events spanning the period from just after WWI until 1956 about which he has deep, though barely and belatedly acknowledged regrets.Being a butler in one of England's great houses, Stevens witnesses meetings between many of Europe's high rollers. It is only through remembering (a characteristic of Ishiguro's works) that Stevens comes to realize the gross misjudgements of his employer, a Nazi sympathizer. Still, the ever loyal Stevens' defense of his former employer only shows cracks late in the novel, as his disturbing memories continue to surface. Absorbed in his work, like his father, Stevens seems afraid to form close relationships and instead cloaks himself in the "dignity" he feels to be the most important attribute of a great butler. His rationalization of the pride he takes in such a "professional," yet colorless, existence is Ishiguro's subtle and ingenious warning about the regrets such a life eventually causes. Indeed, Steven's own father waits until his deathbed to express his regret over not being a better father. Stevens' relationship with Miss Kenton and the eventual climax are moving. Their exchanges over the years reflect Ishiguro at his best. Unlike The Unconsoled or When We Were Orphans, there is little here that would be considered dream-like, though Ishiguro shows why he is a master of creating a mood. If you've seen the movie, you won't be able to help seeing Anthony Hopkins as Stevens, but it is still worth reading for all the added nuance Ishiguro brings to his characters. Along with The Unconsoled, Ishiguro's best!
Rating:
Summary: A human completely conformed
Review: A lot of literary types babble on about levels way too much. I usually don't buy it, it's just a way to sound smart or justify a career made of criticizing books rather than writing them. This book has levels! I'm not talking about the inventions of pseudo-intellectuals, but real levels that I enjoyed discovering as I read. At it's most basic, it's a very sweet, tender yet tragic love story. It's also a fascinating character study. It's an interesting political story. It's a discussion of a culture, a dying culture. Finally, and at it's heart, it's about human conformity, philosophically and practically. What happens to one who's only concern is duty? That's a pretty important question. Remains of the Day asks it gently and answers it with open ends. This was the first book that made me cry. I recommend this book without qualification
Rating:
Summary: Sheer genius
Review: Kazuo Ishiguro has not created a realistic character in Stevens but an almost mythical figure representing the ideal characteristics of a servant, or perhaps more fittingly, a vassal. Only a writer with an understanding of a rigid class-system could have wrought such a brilliant archetype. Stevens is a samurai so dedicated to his Lord (Darlington) that he has sublimated his entire life to serve him. Stevens has no romantic life--he avoids the subtle and not-so-subtle advances of the housekeeper Ms. Kenton. He reads in his spare time, but only to improve his command of the English language, to make himself a better butler. He has no political views, defaulting completely to his Lord--even reversing his views as his lord reverses himself. And in the final comparison between men--between lord and vassal, the vassal is clearly the greater man. It is Darlington's role in society to conduct diplomacy and he fails miserably, completely outmaneuvered by his counterparts in Germany. But Stevens shines! He even works through his own father's death, never betraying any emotion. Darlington dabbles in work "best left to professionals," while Stevens IS the ultimate professional. Many people see the work as a study in tragic mistakes. But I think there is too much emphasis in Western society on individuals satisfying their own emotional, psychological, and romantic needs. I read this from a more ancient and Eastern viewpoint: Stevens is not haunted during the remains of his life but rather can be proud that he achieved perfection in his craft. The fact that the story can be interpreted in both ways makes it a piece of genius.
Rating: 
Summary: flawed but brilliant
Review: On a recent Booknotes, Peter Hitchens (brother of Christopher and resident of the opposite end of the political spectrum) was discussing his book The Abolition of Britain. Framed by the funerals of Winston Churchill and Princess Di, the book argues that the greatness of Britain has passed, subsumed in the familiar morass of statism, political correctness, and egalitarianism. After listening to his lament, Brian Lamb asked him what one thing about that now departed Britain he would most like to bring back; Hitchens answer : "Mainly civility..." Now, much of the conservative yearning for the past must be taken with a grain of salt--no one, or very few, think the world was actually a better place fifty years ago, with Jim Crow laws and the like--but on this one point conservatives clearly have a case for the superiority of the past : nothing good has come of the coarsening of society. The complete abandonment of manners and etiquette has been an unmitigated disaster. The argument against civility and manners is that they represent an artificial facade; and we after all live in an age when you're supposed to "act naturally," "be yourself," "let it all hang out," etc., ad nauseum. In the first place, the serious and determined cultivation of civility ( a la George Washington) can serve to shape the underlying person : careful tending to the facade can result in the edifice coming to resemble its front. Second, even if public behavior based on strict etiquette is a front, it is favorable to the alternative : better to be treated decently by someone who loathes you than to be treated in a manner that coincides with their true feelings. Which brings us to the final point, having seen what we're all really like without our masks of civility on, does anyone really want their fellow man to keep on letting it all hang out ? While everyone is busy "being themselves," we've come to the sad realization that we don't much like those selves. Which is not to say that we would liked those selves any better fifty years ago, but, thankfully, fifty years ago those selves weren't on display, instead everyone presented an admittedly artificial, but blessedly good mannered self to the world. Come we now to Kazuo Ishiguro's justly praised novel, The Remains of the Day. In the character of Mr. Stevens, a nearly perfect English butler, Ishiguro created one of the most memorable and sympathetic figures in all of fiction. As Stevens drives his new American employer's car across the countryside, on his way to visit a former housekeeper, Miss Kenton, whom he hopes to lure back top work at Darlington Hall, he reflects on his years of service to Lord Darlington and his own rather complicated relationship with Miss Kenton. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that Lord Darlington was a leading light in the movement to appease Hitler prior to WWII, and that, though neither ever managed to articulate their feelings, Stevens and Miss Kenton were very likely in love with one another, though she eventually left to marry another former staffer. Eventually, as our modern sensibilities seem to require, Stevens comes to understand that he has made a series of dubious, perhaps even tragic, choices, and that both his service to Darlington and his failure to woo Miss Kenton have resulted in his wasting his life. That at least is the intended lesson we are to draw from the story. But lurking within this rather flaccid moral is an ever greater tragedy, one which makes Stevens one of the truly great heroes of Western literature, until his rather maudlin closing scenes make him seem pathetic. The more intriguing reading of the story is that Stevens--with his unyielding professionalism, his ethic of service, and his personal reserve--represents all that was best about the society that has passed. Like Don Quijote, he stubbornly adheres to a code which the rest of the world has forsaken, and like Quijote, his idealism, though easily caricatured, is more appealing than the real world that he refuses to accede to. Ishiguro stacks the deck against this interpretation in two particular ways. First, he makes Darlington and the "appeasers" into pure tools of the Nazis and casts them as a tiny band of wholly deluded aberrations. In fact, appeasement, so-called, was extraordinarily popular at the time. It was actually those few in favor of War, like Winston Churchill, who were the social outcasts and were considered outside the mainstream of political thought. It is instructive that William Manchester's very good book on Churchill during these years is called, simply : Alone. For all that Ishiguro treats Neville Chamberlain like a member of a clandestine cabal, bent on foisting a secret appeasement on Britain, it is well to remember that he was hailed as a hero when he returned from Munich having secured "peace in our time." when a democratic leader achieves the will of the overwhelming majority of the people, he may be said to have acted unwisely, but he can hardly be said to have acted beyond the bounds of reason. Nor is it as self evident as some would like that the appeasers were wrong, even in retrospect, if we consider only British national interests. There is no likelihood that the Nazis ever could have conquered Britain, nor that they could have long held it had they succeeded. The War, though it ultimately ended with Nazi Germany defeated, devastated Britain. The civilization for which Winston Churchill fought did not long survive him, which inevitably raises the question of whether it was a worthwhile fight. Ishiguro counts on our willfully blind remembrance of the War, which has been glorified into a popular and noble struggle against the Holocaust and its perpetrators, to make Darlington seem more ridiculous than the events of the day or subsequent history would indicate him to be. The intent is of course to cast a pall over Stevens's service to the man, by debasing the cause he served, but this is manifestly unfair. Moreover, it raises an unfortunate analogy between fascism and the English pre-War culture, such that Darlington's service to the Nazis is akin to Steven's service to Darlington, as if the two are intertwined. This is ludicrous. There were, of course, British fascists. And anti-Semitism was prevalent and virulent, though not as virulent as in continental Europe. But to portray Darlington as a genuine fascist or anti-Semite would make him so abhorrent that Steven's loyalty to him would not be at all sympathetic. But the demands of the novel should not have led Ishiguro to completely rewrite history. We are ignorant enough of our own history without the popular culture further clouding it. As for Miss Kenton, here to Ishiguro tries to have it both ways. She is only slightly less reserved than Stevens--after all, it's not as if she ever comes right out and tells him how she feels either. But at the same time, he has her flee, rather than work things out. And they would work out eventually : even proper English butlers married and had kids, witness Stevens's own father. Perhaps their reserve would have made the process agonizingly slow, but we have no doubt it would eventually have happened and, in the meantime, their relationship, though stilted, had always seemed one of immense rewards and real affection, however frustrating at times. At novel's end, it's hard not to feel that it was Miss Kenton who made the mistake by leaving, rather than Stevens by not stopping her. A Stevens who was capable of the type of emotional openness for which Miss Stevens seems to be pleading, and which Ishiguro apparently thinks healthy, would not even be the same person with whom both she and we have fallen in love. This is the odd paradox of the novel : Ishiguro has crafted this character who readers love, but is suggesting that he should be someone else entirely. Though the author intends us to see tragedy in Stevens inability to change, it is far easier to perceive tragedy in the way the surrounding world did change. The world of Churchill and Darlington and Stevens has been, as Peter Hitchens says, abolished. In its stead stands the Britain of Tony Blair and Charles and Camilla and Elton John. Gone are gentlemen's gentlemen. Gone are gentlemen. Gone is the ideal of "dignity" of which Stevens so often speaks in the novel. How can that conceivably be a good thing ? GRADE : B+
Rating: 
Summary: A compelling story of a private life
Review: A story about an English butler of post-war England that is well worth your time to read. It is a short 250 page book that is great for weekend reading in the cold of winter. I could not put it down and having read the book it added greatly to my enjoyment of the movie by the same name in which Anthony Hopkins played a "perfect" Mr. Stevens.
Rating:
Summary: Would it be too much to say: A 'Perfect' Book?
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A Deserving Winner of Booker Prize
Review: Not often would you find the protagonist of a novel bereft of emotions and sentiments. Stevens, the narrator-hero of the `The Remains of the Day' is one such rarity. In the novel, Stevens, the archetypal butler, recounts his experiences in an aristocratic household in the post-war England, as he travels to meet a long separated female colleague. The aftermath of the war has rattled his cloistered and complacent life and he never reconciles to the fact that the distinguished household should ever pass on to the hands of a strange American. This American master has given Stevens the keys of his Ford and has sent him out to explore the world. Once out of the claustrophobic atmosphere of Darlington Hall, Stevens discovers a totally different world: beautiful, expansive, informal, accommodating and full of zest. Towards the end of the journey he is found reflecting, `I should cease looking back so much, ... I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day.' Characterization and language contribute greatly to the enduring quality of the novel. Stevens is a very complex, self-effacing and inhibited character who likes to `minimize my presence by standing in the shadows.' He takes refuge in a highly regulated and formal lifestyle, where all human emotions are set aside. His mindless loyalty to and blind faith in his employer (`I have every trust in his lordship's good judgment.') look odd in the light of the fact that the master is a strong sympathizer of Nazi Germany and hater of Jews. The language is tuned perfectly to the needs of the narrative -- sometimes subdued, sometimes formal or stiff-upper-lippish, but always a pleasure to read. The novel derives its greatest strength from a big irony around which it is built: Stevens making all the fuss of himself and his master, without knowing what kind of a fool he is. A well-deserved winner of the Booker Prize.
Rating:
Summary: An Absolute Masterpiece
Review: One can't, in The Remains of the Day, hope for the same intellectual fulfillment that may come from reading a novel such as The Great Gatsby. However, this does not, in any way, detract from the novel's worth and greatness. The Remains of the Day is a brilliantly crafted novel, concerned primarily with the character of Mr Stevens, that uses the plot as a device for the characters, rather than the other way round. In other words - Mr Stevens, Miss Kenton, Mr Farraday and Lord Darlington are such well written characters that one is genuinely able to care about them and the way they live their lives. Stevens, despite being often infuriating and incredibly stubborn, is at times simply magnificant in his devotion to duty. Arguably, the reader can never feel totally satisfied with Stevens' progress due to the final moments of the book. I do not wish to elaborate on this, as it may lessen your enjoyment of the novel, but suffice to say - the greatest potency in The Remains of the Day comes from not what will happen, but from what will not happen. The philosophical doctrine of Carpe Diem is at its most profound, yet also at its most unorthodox, in Ishiguro's quite beautiful masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: A portrait of an emotionally obtuse butler
Review: Kazuo Ishiguro gives his readers some food for thought about what it means to have "dignity" and how to approach one's job. Stevens, the oh-so-pompous butler who narrates this novel, thinks he has carried out his functions as a butler to an English lord with suspicious ties to the Nazis in a way that exemplifies dignity. Although he expresses doubts about the lord he serves, ultimately, he is nothing more than a robot, carrying out orders without thought or regard to their consequences. More disturbing, though, is Steven's lack of emotions, as well as his inability to understand the emotions of others. As a reader, I wanted to knock some sense into this guy, yet Ishiguro does a masterful job of making the reader care about this butler, even if he has the EQ (emotional quotent) of a gnat!
Rating:
Summary: A "Michenerian" blend of history & fiction.
Review: I spent a considerable amount of time trying to discover which of the characters in this novel are real and which are fictitious. An understanding of pre-WW II history is helpful. The German Ambassador, Herr Ribbontrop, is real. Herr Joachim von Ribbentrop was German Foreign Minister to Adolf Hitler from 1938-1945. He was later hanged as a war criminal. I could think of no specific reference for the mysterious French liaison, M. DuPont, although it is probably to the famous French-American industrialist, Pierre Samuel DuPont. As for Lewis, the tactless and conniving senator from America, I found no direct correlation. However, I suspect the reference here is to Edward Mandell House, a Texas politician and diplomatic attache for Woodrow Wilson at Versailles. This historical context is the setting for an exploration of 19th century values: dignity, honor and loyality. These, in the 20th century amount to little more than demagoguery. "A lot of rot." according to a good citizen from Devonshire. Ishiguro suggests that real power and influence lie not in the chambers of government, but "in the privacy and calm of the great houses" (p.115) and the great decisions of the world are made by informal power brokers. The narrator of the story, "Stevens", is butler-valet to Lord Darlington (both fictitious), and is therefore privy to the clandestine meetings of foreign dignitaries at Darlington Hall. The questions of remorse and reparation are intimately reflected in Stevens' relationship with the former housekeeper, Miss Kenton. The style of writing is distinctly English. I found this novel quite enjoyable.
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