Review: The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Remains of the Day is a hard book to describes. Ostensibly about an aging butler who’s given a few days off to tour the English countryside, there are many, many layers to this complicated novel. Stevens is the prototype of the repressed butler who has a preoccupation with maintaining one’s “dignity.” Being a butler is not simply a job; it’s a way of life. Stevens’s relationship with the lively housekeeper Miss Kenton is shaky, and Stevens prides himself on the way he deals with her. His obsession with being the “perfect” servant is a little unsettling at times, and there was nothing in his behavior that I could sympathize with, but in all this is a wonderful psychological study of a man who essentially doesn’t have a life of his own. I've never seen the movie, but as soon as I read this book, I added it to my Netflix queue.

Also reviewed by: Semicolon, Books 'N Border Collies, A Guy's Moleskin Notebook, Books I Done Read