"The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro

The novel "The Remains of the Day" presents a butler named Stevens who has served to a lord Darlington for most of his life and who appeared to be on the crossroads after the death of his master. When Darlington Hall is purchased by a rich American, Farraday, Stevens has to get used to the new house rules. This is the moment when, for the first time in his life, he begins to consider a nice long vacation. His travel throughout England will help Stevens to reconsider his values and attitude, look backwards and forwards, and give an answer to a very difficult question: what is waiting for him at the remains of the day?

The style, the atmosphere, the setting

The style of Kazuo Ishiguro is simply marvellous - very rich, very beautiful and... very British. As well as the novel itself. Every little detail in it is purely British, be it landscapes, conversations or behaviour of the characters. That came as a great surprise for me. Of course I was aware that the author has spent most of his life in Britain but still there must be something hinting at his real nationality, some peculiar way of thinking, of perceiving the world, some very special ideas... If there are some of those they aren't depicted in the book and the atmosphere is the same as, let's say, Downton Abbey series.

What adds to such "Britishness"? Firstly the setting. The author avoids prolonged descriptions of interior or landscape and the result of it is the brightness and importance of each and every detail the author gives - altogether they have a great power of moving the reader in space and time and showing him a clear and credible picture of 20th century Britain.

Next, the phenomenon of the butler itself is British by its nature. This doesn't mean there are no butlers in other countries, but perhaps you will agree that only Britain has developed such profound and complicated system of social division mixed with traditions and conventions. There are thousands of rules restraining behaviour of masters and servants which were thoroughly depicted in this book. (Just take notice that we don't know first names of the main characters, from the very beginning up to the very end they stay Mr. Stevens, Miss Kenton, Mr. Farraday and Lord Darlington, isn't that conventional? Just think about it - the position in society is more important than individual name)

What is also important is that the author depicts the difference between Mr. Farraday and Lord Darlington, American and British gentlemen, very masterfully. Many details which may seem irrelevant at first sight but which are very meaningful to Stevens himself help to create two very different pictures the comparison of two nations which may be of a great pleasure to any sophisticated reader.

Time arrangement

This point is also worth mentioning, the author uses complicated time arrangement which is so common of post-modernist prose. The main plot line, or better to say the first one, as it is difficult to tell which events are of more importance here, takes place in 1956 - that is Stevens's journey. But this is only one small part in the book, most of it is made up of Stevens's memories which are given randomly and take place in the period from 30th to 50th. Although events are mixed up in time, they are connected logically so that doesn't make perception of the novel any more difficult, but on the contrary, prevents the reader from getting bored as it probably would happen if the author would be describing all the events within those 30 years in chronological order.

So as you can see, in the mean of form the novel is really amazing but what about the contents, the ideas?

The Portrait of the Butler

First let us see what is the butler like in Kazuo Ishiguro's interpretation. Mr. Stevens is very reserved and strict. He believes that the main goal of his life is to perform his job excellently. This feature may seem not so bad but let's agree that something IS wrong if one values well-polished silver spoons more than human relations.

Stevens contemplates a lot about 'dignity', the most relevant quality of a great butler which seems a very urgent issue to him, maybe his kind of philosophy even. What is peculiar about it is that he never fully realizes what butler dignity is. Or even if the phenomenon really exists.

The other idea which is important to Stevens is the idea of a "small contribution". The best way to present it is the following quote:

"...each of us harboured the desire to make our own small contribution to the creation of a better world, and saw that, as professionals, the surest means of doing so would be to serve the great gentlemen of our times in whose hands civilization had been entrusted."

With such thought Stevens completely denies the fact that each of us is unique and talented and each can improve his skills and talents so that some day we could make something remarkable, something useful for the humankind. In his opinion there are only several "great gentlemen" who can do it and the fate of other is merely serving to them.

Themes

From this let us move directly to the themes and the first is politics and common people. Kazuo Ishiguro mentioned in the interview for BBC that "butlerism" was some kind of metaphor for the attitude of common people to politics. Like Stevens many people think that they are not apt, not clever enough to grasp politics so they suppose that the best strategy is to obey the government without thinking why they should do so and why they should support this or that political party. That is why it is at times so easy for politicians to manipulate people in their own interests.

Another theme connected with the previous one in some way may be defined as "watching but not seeing" . Serving to Lord Darlington Stevens witnessed a lot of significant events and met important and famous persons (politically important mostly) but he never tried to understand what was going on around them. Watching, listening, talking with people he thought it unnecessary and improper for a butler to meddle into the matters of Lord Darlington and his guests. So much information was exposed to him and he never made any use of it. Unfortunately such habit affected his whole character and soon the reader finds out that Stevens prefers not to meddle in anything at all, including the events and situations concerning himself greatly. As a result he fails to notice the actual attitude of Miss Kenton towards him and probably misses the opportunity of his life, an opportunity to have a family, some warmth, real life...

As I already mentioned "real life", let's face another problem of Stevens and consequently another theme - what happens if you devote all your life to work? Well probably you will have much money and good reputation in addition to that and maybe you'll even make something very useful for other people, but at the end of your life will that be important for you? Will there be anything to tell your grandchildren or will you even have any? And when you look back what will you see? For Stevens that would be polished silver spoons, clean napkins and people whom he never really knew.

Stevens’s life flew past him while he was busy pondering about dignity and arranging tea parties for Lord Darlington. When Lord Darlington dies once in his whole life Stevens has a moment to stop and look back and to think about the things that really matter. All the events described in the book including the journey of Stevens don’t solve the inner conflict as it often happens with the protagonist, they rather develop it. And in the end Stevens finds himself between years of hard and possibly useless labour in the past and vague future. What will he do at the Remains of the Day? The author doesn’t tell us. But he brings the character to understanding of what is necessary to do and now it is up to Stevens to decide how to use the knowledge he possesses.

Many people say they cried in the end but for me the ending is really optimistic. It’s not a love story of Mr. Stevens and Miss Kenton. It is a story of Stevens, the tragedy of the life unlived and things unnoticed but the life which isn’t over yet, for after all there are still remains of the day...

P.S.  As you can see I have used pictures from the screen version where Stevens is performed by the unsurpassed Sir Anthony Hopkins. Several days after I had finished Ishiguro's novel, I came across a video which has been since then  strongly associated with "The Remains of the Day" in my mind as it expresses the mood of this story more than anything ever could. I invite you to enjoy the exquisite waltz written by Hopkins and brought to life by the amazing orchestra of André Rieu.