What makes his narrative so poignant as well as funny, its pathos and satire evenly matched, is the sincerity with which the fa,cade has been cultivated.Īs he travels westward, taking in the scenery, Stevens's mind is more on the past than on the landscape. Ishiguro has, in fact, lived in England since 1960, which makes him almost as English as Stevens, because Stevens (by his own unwitting admission) has tailored his life to produce a complete fa,cade. Stevens is the narrator of his own story, and his perfect, perfectly parodied, butler's style of speaking can be contagious! That a writer born in Nagasaki in 1954 should have written a novel that so brilliantly captures the voice of a middle-aged English butler in the summer of 1956 reflecting on times past is remarkable, but not really another instance of the current 'the Japanese do us better than we do ourselves'' syndrome. Benn), a former housekeeper, to return to Darlington Hall, which he hopes will run more smoothly again with her to help him. More specifically, he hopes to persuade Miss Kenton (now Mrs. His general aim is to see something of the countryside (where he's lived all his life but never really visited). Having reached an age when, although still fully employed, he is starting to think about the shape of the rest of his life – 'the remains of the day'' – Stevens has set out (with his employer's blessing, to be sure) on a highly unaccustomed (for him) motoring trip.

All his life he has sought to embody the ideals of his profession: service, composure, dignity, and discretion. Stevens, the hero of The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro's third novel, is the perfect butler.

The remains of the day book reviews