Book Review: The Remains of the Day

[osprey_archer]

After Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun absolutely blew me away, I decided that I had to read more of his books… after a suitable waiting period, because it seemed unfair to subject any book to close comparison with Klara and the Sun.

The waiting period has passed, and I dived back into Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, which also blew me away. I love books that immerse the reader in a point of view that they may find alien, and Ishiguro simply knocks it out of the park. In Klara and the Sun, that POV character is a Klara, a robot programmed to be the perfect friend; in The Remains of the Day, the mid-twentieth century butler Stevens strives to completely inhabit his role as butler.

There is of course a certain commonality between these two viewpoints: both characters define themselves as conduits of service toward their principals. But they approach the topic from completely different angles. Klara and the Sun shows a state of acceptance so complete that it can imagine no alternate state of non-acceptance, whereas in The Remains of the Day Stevens is looking back on his long years of service to a man who perhaps was not morally worthy of this total sacrifice.

But Stevens can’t allow himself to look at this directly, because “butler” is his whole identity. He comments repeatedly that a great butler sets aside his dignity only when he is absolutely alone, and he is so completely encased by that dignity that he’s basically unable to respond when, for instance, his housekeeper Miss Kenton loses her only living relative, or indeed even to acknowledge that he’s in love with Miss Kenton.

(One feels that Miss Kenton may have dodged a bullet there, but then a Stevens capable of admitting that he loved Miss Kenton might have been a Stevens capable of being a good husband.)

It’s just fascinating to be immersed in this viewpoint where the job completely subsumes the personal identity - or ought to completely subsume it; Stevens occasionally slips in times of great emotion. And Ishiguro just nails that point of view. No matter how uncomfortable the character’s actions may be for the reader, you never feel that Ishiguro is winking at you to let you know that he knows this is messed up. The author is totally effaced at the service of his characters - which is, in its own way, a bravura display of authorial skill.

***

Which other Ishiguro books should I read? I know that Never Let Me Go is the other famous one. (I put off reading Ishiguro for years because I found the premise of Never Let Me Go so off putting, but at this point I might read it…)

Comments

[asakiyume]

Sounds like all three of these deal with people subsuming themselves entirely for other people's benefit, even unto death. That's a rich theme but wow, a tricky one.

[sovay]

people subsuming themselves entirely for other people's benefit, even unto death. That's a rich theme but wow, a tricky one.

It's one of the reasons I'm interested in Living (2022), beyond Bill Nighy and the usual compare-and-contrast instinct; if it follows its original, it'll be Ishiguro writing about someone who figures out how to stop doing that.

[asakiyume]

Interesting! I had (a) forgotten/not known that Ishiguro did the screenplay for that and (b)hadn't thought of the original Kurosawa movie in those terms--so now I'm wondering if that's because this re-visioning has a different focus or whether I just missed that in the original.

[sovay]

forgotten/not known that Ishiguro did the screenplay for that

I first heard it was happening because I ran across an article in which Ishiguro talked about how it had occurred to him to re-set the story in England of the same period, which it would be useful if I remembered the details of.

so now I'm wondering if that's because this re-visioning has a different focus or whether I just missed that in the original.

From what I have read, I don't know that the new film has a different focus so much as the idea of stepping outside of the cogs of bureaucracy has a different resonance in context of Ishiguro's work, where his characters are more likely to stay on the rails of their assigned roles, than it does in Kurosawa's.

[asakiyume]

*nodding*

I'm happy to think of Ishiguro thinking in these terms. And yeah, in the Kurusawa, my sense was that the guy had subsumed his life to societal expectations and was reclaiming a small measure of freedom--which is related, but not quite the same thing as giving your life over to another individual person.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, that theme seems to be an Ishiguro special. And the two that I've read approach it from very different angles - he has fresh things to say about it each time.