…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?”

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki Japan in 1954. At the age of 5, his family moved to Britain. His first two novels were set in Japan. But in an interview, Ishiguro stated that the Japanese settings for those novels were imaginary. Japan was a country to which he had a strong emotional tie but of which he had no real knowledge. Ishiguro’s next book, The Remains of the Day explored British life. He believes that his experience growing up in a Japanese family, where his parents tried to keep in touch with Japanese values, gave him a unique perspective. The Remains of the Day is set in the large country house of an English Lord in the period leading up to World War II. The book received the Booker Prize for fiction. In 1993 it was adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Ishiguro has written five more novels and won the Nobel prize for Literature in 2017. His science fiction novel, Never Let Me Go was named the best novel of 2005 and one of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. 

Several members of the group commented that they had liked the book much more than they expected, with some having been prepared to not like it at all. Discussion was lively and continued past the end of the meeting. The book follows Stevens, a butler for a large, traditional British country house, as he looks back on his life. The book is an intense character study of Stevens. One reader noted they felt like they really got to inhabit the character’s mind. The reader got to really know Stevens, but, in contrast, he wasn’t at all self-aware. One person noted they really love when an author can take them on a journey with a character like this book did.

Throughout the book, Stevens is obsessed by the idea of dignity. One person noted that he had internalized the attitudes of the aristocracy to the point that he has become a shell of a person. Everything is tied to his position. In fact, he can’t let his guard down at all. A butler never reveals his true self unless he is alone. Another reader pointed out that he never lets his facade down, even in the car. 

Several readers found Stevens’ relationship with his father telling. His father was his role model and raised him to be the way he is. When his father could no longer serve as a butler at another house, he joined Stevens in Lord Darlington’s household. But even as he became older and weaker, he resisted giving up his role. One reader pointed out that after his father dropped a tray outside and was no longer permitted to carry heavy serving trays, the book describes him as outside looking at the ground as if searching for gems, and, in fact, he was looking for a way to regain his lost dignity, his identity. If he couldn’t do his job, who was he? 

A number of readers were struck by Stevens’ reaction to his father’s death. He barely took any time away from serving Darlington during an important meeting to be at his father’s side as he died. His father asked repeatedly if he had been a good father. But Stevens can’t answer him and goes back to work. Readers pointed out that he had so internalized his father’s example that Stevens saw his own failure to react or adjust his behavior to his father’s death as proof of achieving greatness as a butler.

Stevens’ retreat behind his identity also impacted his relationship with the housekeeper, Mrs. Kenton.  As some pointed out, he didn’t understand her at all and completely missed that she was interested in him romantically. As another stated, she was clumsy about it, but when she confronts him in his room and insists on seeing what he is reading, it was a romantic overture. All he could see was that she intruded on the time he had where he could stop being a butler, the time when he was completely alone. One person wished that the book included her point of view because Stevens’ descriptions of her actions made her sound petulant. 

In much of the book, Stevens is looking back and questioning his life and actions while working for Lord Darlington. Darlington was, as some said, typical of British aristocracy in the years leading up to World War II, completely taken with Hitler. Stevens blindly supported Darlington rationalizing it as just having followed orders. Someone pointed out that at the Nuremberg trials, just following orders was not a defense.

Another reader contrasted Stevens’ willful obliviousness to the man in the village, where Stevens sheltered one night, who constantly questioned things and encouraged the rest of the village to engage with and understand political events. One person pointed out that Stevens’ support of Darlington’s attempt at appeasement of Hitler contrasted with the village couple who sheltered him. He was sleeping in the room of their son who died in the war. 

The book begins with Stevens recounting his failed attempts at bantering with his new employer. Readers noted that bantering requires understanding people and personalities, something Stevens was incapable of. By the end, Stevens resolves to try to practice and improve his bantering skills. Readers were left wondering if he had learned enough about human nature to be successful.

 As Stevens looks back, he realizes that he had followed his employer blindly, focused completely on the dignity of his role as butler. For Stevens, dignity was the definition of being a good butler. But his blind devotion to the role, as one reader pointed out, left him emotionally bankrupt. “All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?”

At least one reader felt that Ishiguro’s outsider position in British society allowed him to write this book. They questioned whether a British writer would be able to write it. In their opinion, Ishiguro nailed it.

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