The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

In honor of Kazou Ishiguro’s recent Nobel Award for Literature, I reread for the third time his most famous novel, The Remains of The Day.  This book never ceases to amaze me, as the novel requires the reader to understand all that is said, but more importantly all that is unsaid. It speaks to England’s role in WWII and the resulting change in the social structure. Ishiguro’s restraint, elegance, and skills as a writer are stunning. The story is told in the first person by James Stevens, the head butler on an English estate named Darlington Hall. He undertakes his job, like his father before him, with solemnity and seriousness as if he is a member of the British military serving his country.

When the novel opens in 1956, eleven years after the end of WWII, Stevens is preparing to travel from Darlington Hall to a small town a few hours away. The journey wakes him to the sad possibility that he might have made a miscalculation in his obedience and incuriosity toward his boss who supported the enemy during the war. “You see, I trusted. I trusted in his lordship's wisdom. All those years I served him; I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can't even say I made my own mistakes.”

And yet Stevens doesn’t linger on his possible miscalculation. He possesses a professional pride such that even when his father lies dying upstairs, Stevens carries out his responsibilities rather than remaining with his dad. And when Lord Darlington demands that Stevens fire two Jewish housekeepers and his colleague Miss Kenton objects, Steven responds, “Surely, I don’t have to remind you that our professional duty is not to our foibles and sentiments, but to the wishes of our employer.”

Stevens intends to visit Miss Kenton, the former head housekeeper at Darlington Hall with whom he worked for many years. While Miss Kenton’s love for Mr. Stevens seems apparent, Mr. Stevens’ is unable to access his feelings about Miss Kenton. Stevens embarks on this pilgrimage, not to untangle his feelings toward her. Rather he psychologically projects his perspective about his life onto her, “All in all, I cannot see why the option of her returning to Darlington Hall and seeing out her working years there should not offer a very genuine consolation to a life that has come to be so dominated by a sense of waste.”

Stevens so embodies his role that he doesn’t know what he thinks or feels, even while he unconsciously fears those feelings. In working to contain his responses, his access to his emotions becomes like a stuck door unable to open. He says, “After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?”

Will Stevens change his life after these small epiphanies of introspection? Not likely. Underneath his professional persona, the reader can see melancholy and pain and a surge of defensiveness. And though Stevens' perspective softens on his journey, I suspect he will fortify his façade for the remainder of his days.