A review by alexisreading23
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
4.0
I went into this expecting to really love it and was slightly disappointed although it is difficult to pinpoint why. I did thoroughly enjoy it but found that it did not leave quite the impact I was hoping for.
The butler of the great Darlington Hall has devoted his life to serving Lord Darlington and the manor house in which he resides. The novel follows him on a brief tour by car to meet a former colleague wherein he ponders his life's meaning and his tireless service to a dwindling institution.
As always, Ishiguro is a master of conveying voice and character through his style and I found the narrative quirks of Stevens both humorous and touching. With a slight and subtle hand, Ishiguro demonstrates Stevens's own flaws and occasionally irritating nature through his interactions with Miss Kenton. This is balanced by the delicate sympathy developed through Stevens's slightly strange relationship with his father and most of all, the profound disturbance of his devotion to a man that dwindles in influence, reputation, and esteem through his Nazi leanings. What I found deeply unsettling and provoking was the sadness suffused within the novel and the prospect of questioning the worth of one's life and what it has been dedicated to. The what-ifs prompted by Miss Kenton render this novel all the more bitter in its portrait of a life that has endured with little thanks or recompense, emerging into a new world that neither values nor cares to remember its contributions or existence.
At the time, I felt the novel was lacking in something although I think having thought about it since then, its profundity is better felt with the passage of time. I read it and was slightly impatient to 'understand' it and get to the heart of the novel, reaching the end quickly having not found a certain sticking point that would indicate to me, yes I am truly in the thick of it now. Then, I found this disappointing, but the more I contemplate it I think this is fitting for the novel.
The butler of the great Darlington Hall has devoted his life to serving Lord Darlington and the manor house in which he resides. The novel follows him on a brief tour by car to meet a former colleague wherein he ponders his life's meaning and his tireless service to a dwindling institution.
As always, Ishiguro is a master of conveying voice and character through his style and I found the narrative quirks of Stevens both humorous and touching. With a slight and subtle hand, Ishiguro demonstrates Stevens's own flaws and occasionally irritating nature through his interactions with Miss Kenton. This is balanced by the delicate sympathy developed through Stevens's slightly strange relationship with his father and most of all, the profound disturbance of his devotion to a man that dwindles in influence, reputation, and esteem through his Nazi leanings. What I found deeply unsettling and provoking was the sadness suffused within the novel and the prospect of questioning the worth of one's life and what it has been dedicated to. The what-ifs prompted by Miss Kenton render this novel all the more bitter in its portrait of a life that has endured with little thanks or recompense, emerging into a new world that neither values nor cares to remember its contributions or existence.
At the time, I felt the novel was lacking in something although I think having thought about it since then, its profundity is better felt with the passage of time. I read it and was slightly impatient to 'understand' it and get to the heart of the novel, reaching the end quickly having not found a certain sticking point that would indicate to me, yes I am truly in the thick of it now. Then, I found this disappointing, but the more I contemplate it I think this is fitting for the novel.