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The Remains of the Day (Vintage International) (Paperback)
by Kazuo Ishiguro
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Fiction |
| Market price: ¥ 158.00
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¥ 148.00
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 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Profoundly moving, beautifully elegant, this story of human warmth is made so rich and readable through a contrast between perception and reality. |
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Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Publisher: Vintage; Rep/Mv Tie edition
Pub. in: September, 1990
ISBN: 0679731725
Pages: 256
Measurements: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00424
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- MSL Picks -
Well, when going through the sea of positive reviews about this book, we know we don't have to say anything else than the below review by Erica Saltzman. She has it all, she says what we precisely have in our mind.
"Some books are powerful through the dramatic events they describe, or the profound observations they make, or the invocation of sex or violence or controversy. The Remains of the Day is powerful through its quietude and control. Stevens, an aging butler, keeps a journal during his odyssey through the British countryside, recounting the journey as well as a lifetime of professional and personal experiences.
The story Stevens tells is both an ordinary and a remarkable one, and this distilling of universal experiences into an apparently singular tale is compelling. The narrator's wry observations and the gradual explication of his philosophy of life are entertaining and eminently readable and carry the novel along through its subdued series of events.
It's easy, at times, to miss the depth of the narrator's feeling, to see him as a set piece and an example of a way of life that is comical and outmoded. Perhaps the author allows this intentionally, but interpreting the narrator's careful intensity as unruffled poise does the character, and his story, a disservice. "The Remains of the Day" is not just the tale of a way of life now of questionable relevance; it is the tale of a man questioning his own relevance, and its power comes not from what it has to say about the destiny of the British servant class but from what it has to say about the eventual destiny of us all."
Target readers:
General readers
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Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. He is the author of five novels, including The Remains of the Day, an international bestseller that won the Booker Prize and was adapted into an award-winning film. Ishiguro's work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. In 1995, he received an Order of the British Empire for service to literature, and in 1998 was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
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From Publishers Weekly
Greeted with high praise in England, where it seems certain to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Ishiguro's third novel (after An Artist of the Floating World) is a tour de force - both a compelling psychological study and a portrait of a vanished social order. Stevens, an elderly butler who has spent 30 years in the service of Lord Darlington, ruminates on the past and inadvertently slackens his rigid grip on his emotions to confront the central issues of his life. Glacially reserved, snobbish and humorless, Stevens has devoted his life to his concept of duty and responsibility, hoping to reach the pinnacle of his profession through totally selfless dedication and a ruthless suppression of sentiment. Having made a virtue of stoic dignity, he is proud of his impassive response to his father's death and his "correct" behavior with the spunky former housekeeper, Miss Kenton. Ishiguro builds Stevens's character with precisely controlled details, creating irony as the butler unwittingly reveals his pathetic self-deception. In the poignant denouement, Stevens belatedly realizes that he has wasted his life in blind service to a foolish man and that he has never discovered "the key to human warmth." While it is not likely to provoke the same shocks of recognition as it did in Britain, this insightful, often humorous and moving novel should significantly enhance Ishiguro's reputation here.
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| View all 14 comments |
S. McAbney (MSL quote), UK
<2007-01-08 00:00>
A short monologue (about 250 pages) dictated by Stevens, the Butler of Darlington Hall in the 1950s who, on the recommendation of his new American employer, takes a trip out to the English countryside.
Of course, priding himself on his professionalism, he uses the trip for work purposes in the hope of recruiting a former worker back to Darlington Hall after he had convinced himself that, from her letter, she wanted to return.
So off he goes and all the while he recalls the major events of Darlington Hall during the 1930s as his employer, Lord Darlington, dabbles in politics and demonstrates Nazi sympathies - a man more influenced by others than someone to aspire to. All the while, of course, Stevens is the consummate professional and his attitude to his master is one of love and respect, a man whom he would obey without question.
The prose is sweet. Stevens' voice is smooth, well constructed, and so utterly natural, and his musings over trying to come to terms with the world via such minor quibbles as perfecting the art of bantering demonstrate a wonderful character. Polite the whole way through his language only falters when it almost seems his emotions are about to better him and tears are ready to gush.
Written in the late 1980s this Booker Prize winner from Ishiguro is an interesting look at professionalism and I think, at least to me, it demonstrates how we need to find a balance between achieving our goals and being true to ourselves. |
Krish Raghuram (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-08 00:00>
The beauty of Ishiguro's writing is hard to get right the first time when, let's say, you are trying to describe it to someone you really like, and have taken her out to dinner. To finish the job, you'll need to throw a wine and anthrax party simply to do justice to his use of language alone. All authors weave a carpet, and some authors manage to turn that into a magical one and deliver you into pure flights of fantasy. This one does both. Remains of the day is like a finely tailored suit from Saville row. The finest of the fine. Brave, honest, tragic, tearful of lost opportunities and bygone days, how loyalty to ethics can cloud Ethics itself. After I read this, i picked everyone of his novels to read. They are spellbinding. |
Frank (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-08 00:00>
When one begins to despair about the quality (or lack thereof) of the modern novel you come across a gem which dispels that despair for the time being. Not only is this one a gem but also it is something much more and being just over 240 pages one that I finished all too quickly. I could not get enough of it. The narrator and main character of the novel is a Mr. Stevens who is the butler of a mansion where he heads a considerable compliment of staff to keep it running smoothly. His employer, a Lord Darlington, is doing what he can to alleviate some of the supposed harsher terms of the Versailles treaty and realizes too late that he was being used as a pawn by the Germans. And what did Mr. Stevens think of this? He didn't, he maintains that wondering about what was happening would have interfered with his running of the estate. There is also the head housekeeper that he buts heads with a few times and also a few other instances which makes one wonder if she has something other that a professional interest in Mr. Stevens. You'll have to read the book if you want to know more. I read mainly Victorian literature simply because they are well written and what passes for a novel nowadays usually is not. If you get this book you will not be sorry. |
Justin (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-08 00:00>
Please ignore the reviews here that offer a tepid endorsement of The Remains of the Day as a quaint piece of Victorian revival literature. These reviewers have just utterly missed the point - indeed, one wonders whether they can actually read.
Kazuo Ishiguro's novel is in fact the most brilliant, emotionally subversive piece of literature to come out in many decades. It's true that on the surface the thing reads like a Victorian-era life-in-the-great-house kind of novel. The genius of the book is that Ishiguro never drops this tone, never once breaks the conceit, yet it quickly becomes clear that the novel, just below the surface, is about something else entirely. It is about emotional truth, and the way that refusing to come to grips with emotional truth can shatter a life. In other words, Ishiguro copies the form of a Victorian novel while brilliantly subverting it to a modern purpose.
The tension between the surface calm of the novel and the deep emotional tragedy at its heart grows and grows, becoming nearly unbearable, yet by then you are hooked and cannot stop reading. Don't deny yourself the pleasure of this amazing novel, and don't imagine that seeing the movie is any kind of substitute for reading it. It is a modern masterpiece. |
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