The Remains of the Day

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English butler Mr. Stevens has served only one master for a long period of time. Lord Darlington used to own Darlington Hall, a vast estate which at the height of its glory had Stevens overseeing over 30 staff members. As Europe is rocked by a new world order following the events of the first World War, Stevens bears witness to various informal gatherings at the mansion where influential political figures, both English aristocrats and Nazi sympathizers alike, converge to take part in the molding of contemporary history. As loyalties shift and fortunes recede, the ownership of Darlington Hall passes over to a wealthy but clueless American eager to impress his acquaintances. Stevens is given a week off which he decides to spend touring the countryside as well as meeting with Miss Kenton, a housekeeper who used to work with him but opted to leave long ago to get married and start a new life.

I’ve read three of Ishiguro’s novels so far and I’ve always found the voice of his main characters to be a bit too tedious for reading. I mean, it is quite understandable given their background: You have a clone in Never Let Me Go; an intelligent android doll in Klara and the Sun. In The Remains of the Day, you actually get an actual human being as a narrator, an aging butler who tells you his life’s story through a formal register that comes across as snooty and artificial. After you finish reading, though, you end up realizing that this is just part and parcel of Stevens’ personality. Somehow, it achieves its intended effect – intentional vagueness.

My reading of Stevens is that of a very sad individual who has dedicated his life to the perfection of his craft – that being a butler – that he has forgotten to find solace and meaning in anything other than that. This just happens to most of us, no? Here you have an individual who is obviously not content with the way he has lived his life, desperately trying to persuade us that he made the right choices when it is very evident that it is himself that he is actually trying to convince. Maybe that's the reason why this was so hard to read. It’s stubborn and depressing, in a way that you can fully relate to because you've actually been there at one point.

Because of the stilted language he employs to tell us his story in first-person-point-of-view, I believe that Stevens is not being truly honest with himself, as if trying to censor his own words in order to appear superior or nonchalant. The concept of dignity is brought up more than once, and reading between the lines makes you wonder whether he is really convinced by his own definition. This is where the talent of an author is really felt. Inner monologues and streams of consciousness are our way into a character’s mind, but Stevens doesn’t seem eager to allow us to go deep. In the end you just feel a mix of frustration and pity for the guy.

Anyway, the ending is almost cathartic. Almost. For over 200 pages you patiently wait to be let into Stevens’ headspace only to be deflected time and again by his prim and proper reminiscing of his own life events and his desperate attempt to whitewash everything. He actually breaks down at that pier in the end, but just for a few seconds or so, before he restrains himself and goes back to glorifying his work as a coping mechanism. Again, it’s stubborn. It’s annoying. But hell yeah, quite relatable. A lot of us tend to do such kind of mental gymnastics to justify our choices in life, keeping emotions suppressed for sanity’s sake. Stevens just happens to beat all of us with experience.

And that’s what makes this novel as powerful as it is. The symbolism of the evening being declared as the favorite part of one’s day, when one gets to recall the events of the day while in a state of rest. It’s a beautiful metaphor for life, towards the end of its duration. The title itself alludes to this: The Remains of the Day. The novel is rather pensive like that. Nothing much happens in terms of exciting plot development. Most of the novel unfolds as the musings of a tired mind, questioning decisions, an honest reflection that makes you contemplate whether the life you have is one that has been well-lived.