Rating: 
Summary: Young author transcends time and space
Review: Ishiquro was born long after the events that inspired this novel passed into history. It is amazing that a man so young -- and native to another part of the world -- could capture so richly and so well England before, during and immediately after the war. It is also interesting that a person of Japanese descent would chose to examine the English reaction to the "other" enemy of World War II: Germany. Ishiquro's butler is a man without emotions and perhaps without thought. He is unable to relate to his father and to the nubile housekeeper. Was he in love with her as other reviewers have stated? Probably not. I think that the point that Ishiquro may be making in his novel is that one must feel, have emotions, if one is to think. The butler relates to no one and so is left behind, a relic of another time and another social system. He is an automaton in a living museum.
Rating: 
Summary: Dense But Good
Review: The language in this novel is fairly difficult, intentionally so, given that the story is narrated by a proper English butler. All the same, the style made the book difficult to plough through at times. The patient reader will, however, be rewarded for his or her efforts. This is an intersting story. Even though the book is short in length, it has few characters which allows for strong character development. The novel is more about psychological revelation than it is about action and plot. The end of the novel is very rich and provocative. Everytime I read it, I come up with a new interpretation. I would recommend this book only to those readers who are willing to endure some difficult and tedious chapters for a rewarding and thought-provoking finish.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and Unsettling!
Review: A short novel without very much in the way of plot yet it stays with the reader for a long time. After reading the book, I kept going back to the characters and the situations they encountered. The use of the English language was absolutely brilliant and in my mind's eye, I could "see" the story as it unfolded. Yet, the novel was unsettling because of the barreness of the life depicted. Could such a life be considered full and productive or was Stevens merely deluding himself and unable to face the emptiness of his life and more exact, the pointlessness? Many of us devote our life to a profession which after all is said and done, means very little in the scheme of life. The book does not offer any solution except to say that we still have "the remains of the day" to live, however that may be.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and superbly crafted
Review: "The Remains of the Day" is a fascinating study of character, and to some extent of history as well. The novel spans the professional life of an English Butler named Stevens. It guides us from his heyday as a loyal servant at Darlington Hall to his twilight years as a curio for the estate's new American owner. Steven's is a man of impeccable loyalty and stubbornness. While these qualities ensure Stevens' professional survival, they also provide his life with tragic limitations.In some parts of the book, Stevens' loyalty is admirable albeit misdirected. For example, Stevens is unable to acknowledge his father's infirmity until Lord Darlington brings it to his attention. He is also unable to shed his professional scales just long enough to have a meaningful interaction with the woman he loves. At the end of the book, Stevens returns to Darlington Hall from a short trip to the country and resolves to master the sort of "bantering" that his American employer requires. All of these factors make Steven's a humorous caricature, but Ishiguro did not write this book merely to make fun of English butlers. The real issue lurking in the depths of this book centers on fascism and conformity. Stevens' master, Lord Darlington has ties to the British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, and is later denounced and disgraced for that reason. Blind loyalty prevents Stevens from acknowledging the error of Lord Darlington's conviction, even after he fires all the Jewish members of his staff. Long after Lord Darlington's death, when his estate has been purchased by a wealthy American, Stevens still feels unquestioning loyalty to the master. It costs him his relationship with the woman he loves, and makes us rather pity his blindness. Stevens is in fact the prototypical conformist. His endless loyalty comes not so much from conviction but from protocol and habit. It is adaptable and transferable to any form of authority be it a fascist aristocrat or an American business man. Much like the fascists of Western Europe, Stevens is still quite useful to have around even when the old order passes and the new one takes over. Obedient, passionless, and blind to the injustices around him--Steven's morality is an open standard that can be retrofitted for any authority. After reading this book, I recommend that you check out Bernardo Bertolucci's film "Il Conformist". Bertolucci explores the same sort of mindset albeit from a different perspective.
Rating:
Summary: The Remains of the Day
Review: So eloquently written that it isn't until the last chapter that the reader realizes his/her heart has been ripped out.
Rating:
Summary: a contemporary masterpiece
Review: I'm hard pressed to think of a book I enjoyed more in the last 20 years. Every time I re-read it, I keep wishing that Stevens will follow his emotions rather than trying to follow his station as butler. Anthony Hopkins does a terrific job in the movie showing the character's extreme restraint and inability to acknowledge his love. Not only is this a great love story, it's a great historical novel, psychology study and beautifully written to boot. Ishiguro writes with such nuance and understatement and with such an eye for detail that I think any reader will be captivated. This is one of the most breathtaking books Ishiguro ever wrote and one of the best contemporary books around.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written and subtly unsettling
Review: This book completely blew me away. It shows us what can happen when rationality and professionalism take over anyone's feelings. I found it difficult to root for the main character in this book, since he is holding back his emotions and restraining himself all the time. The book is written in first person and I was shocked about how Stevens, was always hiding what he really felt. This is a masterful novel, in which everything excels. The writing is beautiful, the dialogues are subtle, and the characters are richly drawn. The author has weaven several themes in parallel successfully. The final encounter with Miss Kenton and the ending of the novel are unforgettable. Read ths novel by all means, it will really touch you and make you think about yourself.
Rating:
Summary: The Cost of Analysis
Review: I haven't more enjoyed a novelist's craftsmanship in a long time. Ishiguro explores the same theme in all his work. Speaking of it, he says: "What I'm interested in is not the actual fact that my characters have done things they later regret. I'm interested in how they come to terms with it." Indeed, Ishiguro's characters define themselves - and Ishiguro uses the first-person point of view -- through their regrets. But ironically, their definition is incomplete, and reveals the incompleteness in their lives, because they are only dimly aware they have regrets. Ishiguro's plots are designed to aid and show the way in which each character begins to understand and reconcile his false memory and view of the world with the actual reality. Ishiguro's use of the first-person point of view emphasizes his character's incompleteness because they are at once unreliable narrators engaging in interior monologue. This produces an interesting dissonance. In each of Ishiguro's novels the protagonists balance between their conscious intentions and the ellipses and elisions, divisions and conflagrations of memory, which in each character, subvert and obscure that intention. Ishiguro employs the first-person narrative to illustrate the discrepancies between the narrators' current account of events and conversation with those they had remembered. It is as if in describing past events that had for long been forgotten, each narrator has finally gained enough distance to recount differently. The struggle to understand why the versions differ provides a vehicle for self-analysis. And that struggle is painful because it threatens to expose the repression and denial upon which each character carefully based his life. For each character to acknowledge that denial and repression means to admit his own emptiness or wickedness. Ishiguro's plots are simple. They exist only to facilitate each character's internal dialogue -- this acknowledgement and admission, the tension contained by this struggle, of having the courage to face the mistakes of one's life, is exquisite. When Ishiguro is at his best, this tension threatens to break the character apart. Thus, while Ishiguro's plots may be simple and cumulatively linear - in The Remains of the Day, the farther Stevens travels from Darlington Hall, the closer he gets to understanding his life there - each character doesn't go gently. There is a limit to how much anyone can stand to know of oneself. And there is a limit to how much anyone can take at once. So Ishiguro's characters skirt back and forth between insight and defensive recoil to long-held repression. Even when the protagonists have revelations, they are not complete. At the end of the novel, the protagonists know and accept more than they did, but their defensive mechanisms are still strong. And this makes them more realistic and believable - they are still fragile, paradoxically much stronger than if they had a complete life change. I was at first puzzled that a Japanese writer would choose an English butler as a subject for the kinds of psychological studies he conducts. But the more I thought about it, the more alike Japanese culture and manners and English domestic service appear. One of the values Mr. Stevens's based his life was his idea of dignity: suppressing one's feelings for the greater good of being a consummate professional, which is very Japanese. The most poignant scenes in the novels occur when Stevens suppresses feelings that we know shatter his psyche. Part of Ishiguro's skill is his ability to at once describe the power of Stevens's repression while at the same time revealing how much it unconsciously or consciously costs him.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect compliment for the movie (and vice versa)
Review: This book is great, you can read more about it in the other reviews, but I'd like to discuss its relationship to the movie. Unlike most adapted movies, where the movie only bears slight resembelance to the original book, this book and movie are perfect compliments to each other. That's not to say they are alike; one large difference is that the book is written in first person whereas the movie is more third person. However, each provides new insight into the other. From the book, we gain understanding of Stevens' thoughts, and his relationship with his employer. From the movie we see more of the relationship between Stevens' and the housekeeper. What surprised me the most about this is how well the movie, and Hopkins' acting, captured the thoughts of Stevens'. There are moments in the movie that perfectly convey the inner thoughts of Stevens' written only in the book. Both the book and the movies are great independantly; but in tandem, they reveal a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing and subtle
Review: I must admit that I was startled by my reactions to _The Remains of the Day_. I had found the movie a little dull, and I expected the novel to be very similar. Instead, I found a miracle (which just goes to show how hard it is to bring a story from printed page to silver screen). The plot is simple. After 30 years as the butler of Darlington Hall, Mr. Stevens takes a road trip to Cornwall to visit the former housekeeper of Darlington Hall, Miss Kenton. Along the way, he is forced to interact with people outside his limited world and often delves into memories of the years of his service. The tone of the book ranges from comic to tragic. Stevens' grim attempts at "bantering" always elicit a smile, but they also underline how little Stevens fits in the post-war world. Stevens' repressed and proper speech is freqently hilarious, but it also emphasizes Stevens' inability to express emotion. He rarely admits that he wept; the reader must read between the lines. The unreliable narrator is part of Ishiguro's achievement in this novel. This novel is not melodramatic or obvious; it's muted and intricate and written in beautiful language. It's also quietly heart-wrenching and well worth the price. Highly recommended to readers who appreciate subtlety.
| 
