Kazuo Ishiguro

Chris Rice

The Remains of the Day.

*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available to preorder* From the Nobel Prize-winning author of Never Let Me Go Winner of the Booker Prize ONE OF THE BBC'S '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD' A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House. In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the English countryside and into his past.

The Remains of the Day

Cassandra Tang

You’ve got to enjoy yourself. The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it. That’s how I look at it. Ask anybody, they’ll all tell you. The evening’s the best part of the day.

It is my view that our generation has been much too preoccupied with the ‘trimmings’; goodness knows how much time and energy has gone into the practising of accent and command of language, how many hours spent studying encyclopedias and volumes of ‘Test Your Knowledge’, when the time should have been spent mastering the basic fundamentals.

What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.

Frank Huang

And let me now posit this: 'dignity' has to do crucially with a butler's ability not to abandon the professional being he inhabits. Lesser butlers will abandon their professional being for the private one at the least provocation. For such reasons, being a butler is like palying some pantomime role; a small push, a slight stumble, and the façade will drop off to reveal the actor underneath. The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vecing. They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstance tear it off him in the public gaze; he will discard it when, and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone. It is, as I say, a matter of 'dignity'. 

It is sometimes said that butlers only truly exist in England. Other countries, whatever title is actually used, have only manservants. I tend to believe this is true. Continentals are unable to be butlers because they are as a breed incapable of the emotional restraint which only the English race are capable of.

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, here is the universally acclaimed novel—winner of the Booker Prize and the basis for an award-winning film. This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect butler, and of his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.

Aske Dørge

eine schöne erzählung, geleitet von sehr geschickt verwobenen erzählsträngen. z.T. etwas schwere kost, aufgrund der monologe. das traurige & zugleich friedvolle ende zeigt auf, was es bedeutet, dem großteil seines lebens einer arbeit als untertan zu widmen.

Kalle

Parts of it beautifully written, but too much inner dialog. Overall, felt like it did not live up to all the hype.

A respected literary classic with exquisite prose and cleverly layered character, set against vivid historical West England. Yet, the heavy inner monologue kept me detached, and the ending failed to move me. Enjoyable, but not captivating—still curious to try more from this author.

Liana

A respected literary classic with exquisite prose and cleverly layered character, set against vivid historical West England. Yet, the heavy inner monologue kept me detached, and the ending failed to move me. Enjoyable, but not captivating—still curious to try more from this author.



My favorite book. How it feels to isolate yourself from your own feelings, desires, and agency. SS tier.

Ben L

Very much enjoyed this classic. Mr Stevens is just the most endearing character.

Frederik De Bosschere

glória

um livro no ponto de vista do mr collins de orgulho e preconceito

Kazuo Ishiguro's Booker Prize-winning masterpiece became an international bestseller on publication, was adapted into an award-winning film, and has since come to be regarded as a modern classic. The Remains of the Day is a spellbinding portrayal of a vanished way of life and a haunting meditation on the high cost of duty. It is also one of the most subtle, sad and humorous love stories ever written. It is the summer of 1956, when Stevens, a man who has dedicated himself to his career as a perfect butler in the one-time great house of Darlington Hall, sets off on a holiday that will take him deep into the English countryside and, unexpectedly, into his own past, especially his friendship with the housekeeper, Miss Kenton. As memories surface of his lifetime "in service" to Lord Darlington, and of his life between the wars, when the fate of the continent seemed to lie in the hands of a few men, he finds himself confronting the dark undercurrent beneath the carefully run world of his employer.

Gelaine Trinidad

Mat Connor

The Remains of the Day is the scariest book I’ve ever read.

That might seem like an odd statement to make because on the surface this novel is just about a butler calmly looking back on his life. He’s not a creepy murderous butler or secretly a ghost or anything like that. He’s a polite and committed butler, a little repressed and overly formal, but harmless and well-meaning. 

My case for this being a horror novel is that—unlike ghosts, monsters, and vampires—this book touches on ideas that can actually haunt you in life: lost opportunities, regret, the indignities of aging, and the feeling that you’ve either wasted your life or didn’t meet your full potential. 

Mr Stevens, the butler protagonist, looks back on his life and slowly realizes that he missed many opportunities to break out of his comfort zone and lead a more fulfilling, happier life.

A good book club discussion would be to ask the participants if they felt the ending was hopeful or hopeless. The right answer is probably a bit of both, but I bet the answers would tell a lot about each person and lead to an interesting discussion.

I read this book during the pandemic lockdown and I remember the depressing feeling I had when I finished. I would have said then (and probably now) that Mr Stevens clearly wasted his life and that any hopeful feelings he expressed at the end is just more self delusion to help him cope with that realization. 

This book did leave me with a hopeful feeling though, because I made the decision there and then to be more open to new experiences, to be more willing to take risks and escape my comfort zone. I look back on the person I was when I finished that book and the person I am now and I’d make the case that this is one of the most positive, life-affirming novels I’ve ever read. Any novel that can scare you into improving your life is special. 

This is a novel I think everyone should read at some point. Hopefully not too early in life before you are ready to absorb its lessons, but that would still be better than reading it too late.

I feel like I'm supposed to love this and I just didn't. The style is very restrained and the plot is so subtle, which is such an art but doesn't keep me attached. I just never looked forward to reading it.

elizabeth

Sarah Sammis

It took me until page 46 to really get into the book. I started and stopped the book a number of times until he really got started on his trip. Then I was hooked. Stevens's unexpected opportunity to travel gives him the time to rethink his life as a buttler, coming to the conclusion that he was probably not the great buttler he thought himself as. Much of the book is spent reexamining his relationship with Miss Kenton with whom he had a numerous differences of opinion. It's also a study at class, ethnicity and culture, specifically the encroachment of outsiders (neuveau riche Americans) on the well ordered English lifestyle.

A Novel

Kat Albanese

A masterful tone and crafted tempo. Just right. A beautiful joy. 

Adam Scharf

Apurva Chitnis

I saw the film adaptation of the book many years ago as a young teenager and barely understood it, and so I found it terribly boring.

Many years later I've just finished listening to the audiobook, and it's incredible. A showstopper of a novel. It starts gently with a drive in the English countryside, and eventually concludes with the unravelling of the protagonist's understanding of his life and place within society. Along the way, he thinks of the role class, banter, love, loyalty and dignity played in his life. And, as usual with a Kazuo Ishiguro novel, the narrator is unreliable, so you have to carefully pick out the story from what he says.

My only minor point is that sometimes the themes of the novel are too obvious, and important sections are too neatly signposted. Perhaps that's just the style of the novel, but it came as a shock to me, coming from my usual sci-fi, in which things are often more mysterious.

Overall a wonderful read, strongly recommended!

Bhargav Acharya

Great book - crisp simple writing that captures the reader's attention

i see myself in mr stevens and it was quite a journey too as i lived through his motoring stories and reminiscences. his development was aligned with the longing that was filled slowly and gently. realistically but gently. 

Nate

Syasya Diyana 

This is the first book I’ve finished after months of not being able to read more than one page of any book. I am now left with an immense hallowness thinking about my remains of the day. Maybe, like the Mr Stevens, I would have to start adopting the belief that ‘evening is the best time of the day’.

Amelia Lang 

this is my favourite book now. i need to sit down.

Laura Mauler

The book is very subtle, and at the beginning a little slow. Give it time. The magic is in the layering, the shifting, and the repeated tiny dawnings of understanding that start the process anew. Quiet, delicate, and profound.

Satyajeet Pal

an odd style of book, lots of description of past events of a butler's life as he travels through England. lots of character development and less plot, but oddly fascinating to read.

The remains of the day

Will Vunderink

Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day is about an English butler willfully stuck in his profession's old ways who has given himself entirely, naively, to his work. Told in the first-person as a reflection on the years he's spent serving at Darlington Hall, Stevens recounts what he considers his pursuit of greatness and dignity via his noble profession. But doubt -- about his longtime employer; about his relationship with Miss Kenton, one of the maids he supervised; about his own capabilities -- creeps in as his narrative progresses, and it becomes something much more complex than a series of reminiscences on the happy past.
 
We learn that Lord Darlington, whom Stevens trusted entirely, fraternized with Nazis; that Miss Kenton's sometimes erratic behavior was due to her love for him, despite Stevens' blindness to it; that Stevens' devotion to his job has left room for absolutely nothing else in his life. Since we inhabit Stevens' mind for the duration of the novel, this last realization is the most jarring of all. His way of speaking and interacting with other people often make him seem robotic; it's as though the line between his human persona and his butler persona has been erased, and the butler persona has unequivocally triumphed. (He often goes so far as to refer to himself as "one" instead of "I.") 

It's a testament to Ishiguro's mastery -- I'm reminded of Never Let Me Go, too -- that he can so fully inhabit his character and never stray from his mode of speech. The butler's reserve, tact, understatement, and distance from emotion are maddening at times, and there's humor in Stevens' lack of common social sense, but they always feel true to his complete immersion in the butler persona.

But The Remains of the Day is a very sad book. We suspect all along that Stevens' quest for greatness and dignity is doomed -- despite his high self-regard owing to brushing shoulders with supposedly great men -- because he's a butler, after all. But it's crushing to see how little Stevens is left with outside of his job. He's sacrificed his life to serve others, which is noble to a degree, but he doesn't realize the extent of his sacrifice until he is old enough to want to retire. The book isn't really about sacrifice, or obsession, or service, exactly; it's more about unwitting self-deception, a sacrifice that is all the more pathetic because it's done unknowingly.

Stevens posits that "'dignity' has to do crucially with a butler's ability not to abandon the professional being he inhabits" (42). If this is the case, then he would seem to have been successful. But by the novel's end both Stevens and the reader realize that the cost of achieving his goals has been far too high.

Among the more agonizingly beautiful novels I have ever had the privilege of reading. Concerned above all with the deeply noble, deeply British notion of sacrifice for a cause, even if that cause is one of one’s own invention. Smolders with a passion all the more powerful for being continually smothered by English restraint. 

James Feinberg

Lara Engle

This book isn't for everyone. If I'd never seen Downton Abbey, I probably wouldn't have understood the intricacies of rank and responsibility that create some of the layers of meaning in the interactions of the staff of Darlington Hall. If I'd read this when I was younger, I wouldn't have caught the wistfulness of reminiscence. I read this at the right time with enough understanding to be able to read between the lines politically, socially, and personally. Because of that, this book is perfect. Beautiful, sentimental, and just perfect.

Really enjoyed this joint. The story is incredibly simple and then we are  presented with layers of subtext via the narrators memories. The result of this is a thematic study of blind-loyalty and regret. 

Nicholas Laurie

altlovesbooks

"...try to make the best of what remains of my day."

I really liked the author's use of an unreliable narrator in telling this wonderful story. Having to read between the lines and gauge the emotions and intentions of the people around Stevens lent another level to the book that really made it a compelling read. The entirety of the book is Stevens' musings about what it means to be a great butler, the price of duty, and how hard it really is to tell a good joke, and while the format would probably have annoyed me in any other book, the author manages to pull it off in a way that's compelling and engaging. The humorous bits sprinkled in are fantastic as well.

The Remains of the Day.

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