Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day
3.5 out of 4
This is a story about a perfect English butler who served his master with utmost dignity, even though his master turned out to be a bad man. At times, I felt respect toward the butler for behaving professionally during difficult situations. Other times I felt he was so stupid and a pawn, for being so compliant and following orders like he didn’t have a mind of his own.
I found the story quite applicable to the modern day. Anyone who works for an employer, indeed anyone who participated in any type of organization, at times submits some of their autonomy to that of the group. Sooner or later, there always come times when the group, organization or company is led in a certain direction or does certain things we don’t agree with. Do we go along with it out of loyalty or cowardice? Are loyalty and cowardice the same thing? Is cowardice another term for a wise business decision driven by facts and not emotions? Is following our emotions the noble thing to do? Or is it stupid because it inevitably gets us into trouble?
The story was very British, well written and easy to understand. The author did a good job taking complex philosophical concepts and “showing, not telling” the reader through events and their implications. As the author of “Never Let Me Go,” and having often somewhere the impression “The Remains of the Day” is a book by a protagonist with a terminal illness looking back on his life, I was apprehensive reading anything by this author. However it turns out my impressions were mistaken. “The Remains of the Day” was not a life story of a terminally ill patient at all. It was merely a story about a butler’s road trip through the English countryside.
Upon looking up the author on Wikipedia, I discovered he is the current holder of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The press release notes, "he, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world." I’m not sure I agree with this. In “The Remains of the Day,” I found not an abyss, but two specific and different ways of relating to the world and our experiences: a critical one, and one of acceptance and compliance. I don’t think this suggests that ultimately there is no underlying truth, that neither of these is correct. Rather, the conclusion I draw is we ascribe certain meanings to things that happen to us in our lives. It doesn’t mean those events don’t happen or the meanings don’t exist. It just means we ascribe the meanings and the way we view things often changes over time. Things we may view as good at one time, we may view as bad in another time, and vice versa.
This is a story about a perfect English butler who served his master with utmost dignity, even though his master turned out to be a bad man. At times, I felt respect toward the butler for behaving professionally during difficult situations. Other times I felt he was so stupid and a pawn, for being so compliant and following orders like he didn’t have a mind of his own.
I found the story quite applicable to the modern day. Anyone who works for an employer, indeed anyone who participated in any type of organization, at times submits some of their autonomy to that of the group. Sooner or later, there always come times when the group, organization or company is led in a certain direction or does certain things we don’t agree with. Do we go along with it out of loyalty or cowardice? Are loyalty and cowardice the same thing? Is cowardice another term for a wise business decision driven by facts and not emotions? Is following our emotions the noble thing to do? Or is it stupid because it inevitably gets us into trouble?
The story was very British, well written and easy to understand. The author did a good job taking complex philosophical concepts and “showing, not telling” the reader through events and their implications. As the author of “Never Let Me Go,” and having often somewhere the impression “The Remains of the Day” is a book by a protagonist with a terminal illness looking back on his life, I was apprehensive reading anything by this author. However it turns out my impressions were mistaken. “The Remains of the Day” was not a life story of a terminally ill patient at all. It was merely a story about a butler’s road trip through the English countryside.
Upon looking up the author on Wikipedia, I discovered he is the current holder of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The press release notes, "he, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world." I’m not sure I agree with this. In “The Remains of the Day,” I found not an abyss, but two specific and different ways of relating to the world and our experiences: a critical one, and one of acceptance and compliance. I don’t think this suggests that ultimately there is no underlying truth, that neither of these is correct. Rather, the conclusion I draw is we ascribe certain meanings to things that happen to us in our lives. It doesn’t mean those events don’t happen or the meanings don’t exist. It just means we ascribe the meanings and the way we view things often changes over time. Things we may view as good at one time, we may view as bad in another time, and vice versa.