This book, Kazuo Ishiguro's many-prize-winning novel about, as my dad (who is not a literary critic) put it, actually quite aptly, "a boring butler who realises he's lived a boring life and gets sad", is an immediate contender for the best novel I've read all year.
Straight to it!
Mr Stevens is the butler of Darlington Hall and has been for several decades. He takes immense pride in his work, having learned from one of the best; his father, a butler of truly great standing in that profession, the key and elusive characteristic to which being 'dignity'. (Extensive sections of the novel are, admittedly, about being a great butler. However, unlike those gratuitous portions of Moby Dick that are just about how to identify, capture and dismember sperm whales, these are both [a] enjoyable to read thanks to the amusingly impervious politeness of Mr Stevens's narration, and [b] essential in building up our understanding of Stevens's identity as a butler, which is precisely what begins to slip in the novel's more poignant parts). In July 1956, he receives a letter from Mrs Benn, formerly Ms Kenton, who was the housekeeper at Darlington Hall for many years until leaving for marriage long ago. Stevens, on pretense of 'trying to persuade her to retake her position' following a troublesome staff plan, decides to visit her in Cornwall - having been more or less told by his American-nouveau-riche employer Mr Farraday to take some time off for a holiday, something Stevens has basically never had. So, our dignified narrator drives from Darlington Hall to Cornwall, rekindling along his way aspects of a humanity that he had, for the sake of professionalism as a butler, kept buried for most of his life. He begins to learn how to interact with strangers, converse in a non-servile manner, how to properly enjoy things for their own sake without quite so much concern for their organisation or efficiency.
And, most importantly, he reflects on previous times in his life where he had failed to embrace these aspects of his personhood. A considerable bulk of the novel is comprised of flashbacks upon Stevens's life and career as a butler: the grandiose and perhaps-questionable political orchestrations of Lord Darlington (his late employer, the original owner of Darlington Hall); the professional glaze lent to any and every relationship rendering it stilted; previous times in which he was deeply proud of his work and other deep disappointments; the loss of his father; occasional odd little anecdotes; and the unpicked fruits of a possible friendship (or more) in his working relationship with Ms Kenton. It is in the jumps between these remembrances and Stevens's slowly shifting perspective in his present adventure that we see him begin to realise, with dawning immensity of regret, how much he has missed in his life by being too devoted to being a butler. Here he is, a decade or two from death's door, the best of his career behind him, few friends, no family, and nothing to show for himself but a lifetime of impeccably good service to gentlemen and their guests in stately homes.
What is left for Stevens and people like him? 'The remains of the day', all the time we have left after we decide to start making the most of life outside our work, is all that we can make the most of, and so we should embrace that. Of course, that's not to say we shouldn't take pride in our work - Stevens's life is meaningful to him precisely because he has achieved so well within the spheres of butlerdom - but we cannot be confined to that. Ultimately this novel is a parable of how we enjoy our lives by living them, including our work, but never letting work dominate us such that it becomes an irremovable identity, locking us out of so much else that is special, as being a butler did to Stevens.
There is also a fair deal of thought-provoking content about a variety of topics; class identity and how it changed in Britain between the '20s and the '50s (quite a bit), the boundaries between gentlemen and persons worthy of political decision-making, what it means to take pride in something, the ubiquity of etiquette, and what we choose to place our identity in and how that can hurt if misplaced.
I may have made it sound deep but it's a relatively easy read. Extremely moving in parts, bubbling with restrained humour in others (one part fully gave me the giggles; Stevens's awkward endeavour to relay a certain piece of unexpected news to Mr Reginald Cardinal - you'll have to read it to find out), and throughout narrated by Mr Stevens's perfectly-pitched English propriety. It's a truly delightful book, although as noted by my dad one that has far much more character and emotion than it does plot, which personally I adore in a novel but lots of people find boring - if you're one of those people who does find that boring in a novel you probably shouldn't be reading this blog. In fact, no, I'm outright banning you. Read this novel and love it or get out.
Straight to it!
Mr Stevens is the butler of Darlington Hall and has been for several decades. He takes immense pride in his work, having learned from one of the best; his father, a butler of truly great standing in that profession, the key and elusive characteristic to which being 'dignity'. (Extensive sections of the novel are, admittedly, about being a great butler. However, unlike those gratuitous portions of Moby Dick that are just about how to identify, capture and dismember sperm whales, these are both [a] enjoyable to read thanks to the amusingly impervious politeness of Mr Stevens's narration, and [b] essential in building up our understanding of Stevens's identity as a butler, which is precisely what begins to slip in the novel's more poignant parts). In July 1956, he receives a letter from Mrs Benn, formerly Ms Kenton, who was the housekeeper at Darlington Hall for many years until leaving for marriage long ago. Stevens, on pretense of 'trying to persuade her to retake her position' following a troublesome staff plan, decides to visit her in Cornwall - having been more or less told by his American-nouveau-riche employer Mr Farraday to take some time off for a holiday, something Stevens has basically never had. So, our dignified narrator drives from Darlington Hall to Cornwall, rekindling along his way aspects of a humanity that he had, for the sake of professionalism as a butler, kept buried for most of his life. He begins to learn how to interact with strangers, converse in a non-servile manner, how to properly enjoy things for their own sake without quite so much concern for their organisation or efficiency.
And, most importantly, he reflects on previous times in his life where he had failed to embrace these aspects of his personhood. A considerable bulk of the novel is comprised of flashbacks upon Stevens's life and career as a butler: the grandiose and perhaps-questionable political orchestrations of Lord Darlington (his late employer, the original owner of Darlington Hall); the professional glaze lent to any and every relationship rendering it stilted; previous times in which he was deeply proud of his work and other deep disappointments; the loss of his father; occasional odd little anecdotes; and the unpicked fruits of a possible friendship (or more) in his working relationship with Ms Kenton. It is in the jumps between these remembrances and Stevens's slowly shifting perspective in his present adventure that we see him begin to realise, with dawning immensity of regret, how much he has missed in his life by being too devoted to being a butler. Here he is, a decade or two from death's door, the best of his career behind him, few friends, no family, and nothing to show for himself but a lifetime of impeccably good service to gentlemen and their guests in stately homes.
What is left for Stevens and people like him? 'The remains of the day', all the time we have left after we decide to start making the most of life outside our work, is all that we can make the most of, and so we should embrace that. Of course, that's not to say we shouldn't take pride in our work - Stevens's life is meaningful to him precisely because he has achieved so well within the spheres of butlerdom - but we cannot be confined to that. Ultimately this novel is a parable of how we enjoy our lives by living them, including our work, but never letting work dominate us such that it becomes an irremovable identity, locking us out of so much else that is special, as being a butler did to Stevens.
There is also a fair deal of thought-provoking content about a variety of topics; class identity and how it changed in Britain between the '20s and the '50s (quite a bit), the boundaries between gentlemen and persons worthy of political decision-making, what it means to take pride in something, the ubiquity of etiquette, and what we choose to place our identity in and how that can hurt if misplaced.
I may have made it sound deep but it's a relatively easy read. Extremely moving in parts, bubbling with restrained humour in others (one part fully gave me the giggles; Stevens's awkward endeavour to relay a certain piece of unexpected news to Mr Reginald Cardinal - you'll have to read it to find out), and throughout narrated by Mr Stevens's perfectly-pitched English propriety. It's a truly delightful book, although as noted by my dad one that has far much more character and emotion than it does plot, which personally I adore in a novel but lots of people find boring - if you're one of those people who does find that boring in a novel you probably shouldn't be reading this blog. In fact, no, I'm outright banning you. Read this novel and love it or get out.
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