The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Genre: Fiction
Publication Date: 1988
Pages: 245
Challenges: A-Z Reading #43 (I Author)

Mr. Stevens is the perfect English butler. He’s also the perfect unreliable narrator for this beautifully written story. Told in the first person through Stevens’ heavily filtered and imperfect memories, this book is slow to draw the reader in, but the writing brings the payoff.

In 1956 Mr. Stevens takes a road trip and along the way he looks back over his life and career as a butler focusing on the years between World War I and World War II. His loyalty to his long time employer, Lord Darlington can be considered both flawed and admirable. His efforts to be what he considers a ‘great’ butler and to achieve ‘dignity’ come at the price of his own emotions and relationships.

This is a fairly short novel, but the writing is so precise and dense that the story feels much longer. The restrained and careful prose is the perfect depiction of the restrained and careful Stevens. Although I saw the movie many years ago, I didn’t remember much about it. Maybe I’ll get it from the library and watch it again. I did picture and hear Anthony Hopkins as Stevens and Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton as I read and I didn’t feel like the actors got in the way of the story as I went along. They seemed to fit.

I thought this book was very good and I’m glad I finally got around to reading it. The occasional inadvertent humor did manage to lighten the heavy tone here and there. I loved Stevens’ efforts to learn ‘bantering’. Ultimately however, it’s a sad story of a man whose profession is going by the wayside.