The Remains of the Day
4 journalers for this copy...
This book was originally a loan from Limerickwriter. He said it was hilarious. HILARIOUS? Well, for sure, parts of it were funny, but I wanted to throttle Mr. Stevens SO MANY TIMES. Poor, pathetic, uptight guy.
Anyway, there it was....a copy at BMV for one buck. Can't beat that!
" Full of music from a past that, through nuance and innuendo, is slenderly poisoned, turning wit and perfectly timed farce into a political ghost story....Ishiguro has become one of the finest prose stylists of tour time..." (sez Michael Ondaatje - Author of The English Patient)
The writing IS gorgeous. Up for grabs!
Anyway, there it was....a copy at BMV for one buck. Can't beat that!
" Full of music from a past that, through nuance and innuendo, is slenderly poisoned, turning wit and perfectly timed farce into a political ghost story....Ishiguro has become one of the finest prose stylists of tour time..." (sez Michael Ondaatje - Author of The English Patient)
The writing IS gorgeous. Up for grabs!
A very good book - for ONE DOLLAR at good old BMV Books on Yonge Street. 'Taking to Yellow Griffin Pub meetup tomorrow.
A very good book - for ONE DOLLAR at good old BMV Books on Yonge Street. 'Taking to Yellow Griffin Pub meetup tomorrow.
got it at the BC social - I'm very curious about this book, having read other stuff by ishiguro
received from July Social--excited to read & then watch the movie!!
'Great to see this book is travelling again. The person who loaned this book to me, joined BC'ing after the loan, so he's out of the loop, but I copied him on the JE's - he'll be so pleased!
Bookgirrl: Thanks for connecting me to the discussion, but I don't think I said "hilarious" ... "precarious", perhaps, or maybe "atrabilarious" or, more likely, "vicarious" ... anyone of which may have sounded like "hilarious" if I was mumbling in my beard.
This is one of my favourite all time books, one that I'd take to a desert island (if I am ever forewarned of an impending shipwreck). Ishiguro succeeds in doing an amazing thing in this book. Taking the voice of Stevens, who is an emotionally shallow butler, he tells a story of amazing emotional depth. This book charms me in the way that some of the best monochrome sketches and paintings do ... even deprived of the dimension of colour, some artists have the ability to portray an amazingly rich image, one so vibrant that you mistakenly believe that you saw the image in colour.
I know people who have started into "Remains of the Day" and have quickly given up because it strikes them as a badly written book ... very flat, as if the author lacks imagination or lacks the ability to describe the things he sees. But that's exactly the wonder of this book. Ishiguro has a huge talent as a writer, but he assumes the world view of the narrator, and doesn't cheat by stepping outside that role to fill in the emotions that the butler is too dim to perceive. Bookgirrl is right, you do get to a point of wanting to slap the butler silly and say "wake up!", but Ishiguro gets you to that point using only the butler's words; you know the world only through his eyes, and yet you see so much more than he does.
So if you find the start of the book slow going, I'd encourage you to hang in until page 50 or so. If it still seems dull by then, then you have my reluctant permission to give up ... but if you do you will miss out on one of the most nearly perfect books of the last 20 years.
I also thought the movie was remarkable for the same thing. I liked the book so much that I didn't want to see the movie; I couldn't imagine how one could pull of the same trick in a film. But with Ivory's direction and Hopkins' acting, they manage to do exactly the right thing. I thought that Hopkins deserved the Oscar for this performance (he was nominated, but it went to Tom Hanks, doing a much less remarkable piece of acting in Philadelphia). This was also Christopher Reeve's last good movie before the riding accident that left him paralyzed.
This is one of my favourite all time books, one that I'd take to a desert island (if I am ever forewarned of an impending shipwreck). Ishiguro succeeds in doing an amazing thing in this book. Taking the voice of Stevens, who is an emotionally shallow butler, he tells a story of amazing emotional depth. This book charms me in the way that some of the best monochrome sketches and paintings do ... even deprived of the dimension of colour, some artists have the ability to portray an amazingly rich image, one so vibrant that you mistakenly believe that you saw the image in colour.
I know people who have started into "Remains of the Day" and have quickly given up because it strikes them as a badly written book ... very flat, as if the author lacks imagination or lacks the ability to describe the things he sees. But that's exactly the wonder of this book. Ishiguro has a huge talent as a writer, but he assumes the world view of the narrator, and doesn't cheat by stepping outside that role to fill in the emotions that the butler is too dim to perceive. Bookgirrl is right, you do get to a point of wanting to slap the butler silly and say "wake up!", but Ishiguro gets you to that point using only the butler's words; you know the world only through his eyes, and yet you see so much more than he does.
So if you find the start of the book slow going, I'd encourage you to hang in until page 50 or so. If it still seems dull by then, then you have my reluctant permission to give up ... but if you do you will miss out on one of the most nearly perfect books of the last 20 years.
I also thought the movie was remarkable for the same thing. I liked the book so much that I didn't want to see the movie; I couldn't imagine how one could pull of the same trick in a film. But with Ivory's direction and Hopkins' acting, they manage to do exactly the right thing. I thought that Hopkins deserved the Oscar for this performance (he was nominated, but it went to Tom Hanks, doing a much less remarkable piece of acting in Philadelphia). This was also Christopher Reeve's last good movie before the riding accident that left him paralyzed.
wow, thank you for reallly making me want to red this one...I will let you know my overalll rating soon!!!
