Details
Synopsis
Kazuo Ishiguro's subtly observed third novel (1989) tells the story of a butler named Stevens. Over the years, as Stevens has perfected the art of self-effacement and complete submission to the needs of Lord Darlington, his aristocratic employer, he has managed to ignore the fact that Darlington was a prominent Nazi sympathizer. Now, in the rapidly changing world of post-World War II England in which the class system is in decline and Stevens has outlived his usefulness, he begins to understand that his obtuseness has blinded him not only to the real nature of his employer but (as he prepares for an unprecedented visit to Mrs. Kenton, the now retired housekeeper) to the workings of his own heart. The overarching themes of the novel are those that Ishiguro has grappled with in many of his books: self-deception, the past's influence on the present, and the essential loneliness of struggling humanity. THE REMAINS OF THE DAY won the Booker Prize and was made into a well-received film directed by Ang Lee and starring Anthony Hopkins as the repressed and lonely Stevens.
| Details | | Series: | Vintage International Series |
| Size | | Length: | 245 pages | | Height: | 8.3 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 7.2 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr. Farraday's Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through the finest countryside of England to the West country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days."
Industry Reviews
"A flawlessly written, finely tuned portrait of an extraordinary spiritual imprisonment."
Robert Stone
"A fine piece of storytelling, this novel...also gives the reader a unique lens through which to attain a fresh view of the postcolonial age, focusing on how the collapse of colonialism led to major social upheavals, both tribal and global warfare, and the rise of totalitarian states....The core of the novel concerns the colonialism of the heart, and the destruction caused by the suppression of the human instinct to love."
Hungry Mind Review - Kathleen Norris
"[A] chilling rendition of a bootlickingly devoted but morally blank English butler, THE REMAINS OF THE DAY [is] a thoughtful, crafty, and finally very disquieting look at the effects of dehumanization on any group that's subject to it. In Ishiguro's subtle hands, these effects are far from obvious. There's no Them-Bad, Us-Good preaching; rather there's the feeling that as the expectations of such a group are diminished, so is its ability to think outside the box it has been shut up in. The reader reaches the end of the book wondering exactly where the walls of his or her own invisible box begin and end."
Slate - Margaret Atwood (04/01/2005)
"THE REMAINS OF THE DAY is in fact a brilliant subversion of the fictional modes from which it at first seems to descend....A story both beautiful and cruel...."
Observer (London) - Salman Rushdie
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