The Remains of the Day

by Kazuo Ishiguro | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 0571154913 Global Overview for this book
Registered by Danielle23 of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear United Kingdom on 3/30/2009
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5 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by Danielle23 from Sunderland, Tyne and Wear United Kingdom on Monday, March 30, 2009
'In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely motoring holiday that will take him deep into the English countryside and into his past...

A haunting tale of lost causes and a lost love, 'The Remains of the Day' contains Ishiguro's now celebrated evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House - within those walls can be heard ever more distant echoes of the violent upheavals spreading across Europe.'

Journal Entry 2 by Danielle23 from Sunderland, Tyne and Wear United Kingdom on Monday, May 25, 2009
I quite enjoyed this book although the character of Mr Stevens did annoy me at times, especially the way he behaved toward Miss Kenton/Mrs Benn at several points. It also ended rather too abruptly for my liking.

Reserved now for chucklesthescot and will be sent along soon xx

Journal Entry 3 by Danielle23 at Sunderland, Tyne and Wear United Kingdom on Monday, June 1, 2009

Released 14 yrs ago (6/1/2009 UTC) at Sunderland, Tyne and Wear United Kingdom

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Another thank you Lynn and another book for you. I hope you enjoy it xx

Journal Entry 4 by Chucklesthescot from Paisley, Scotland United Kingdom on Thursday, June 4, 2009
Thank you Danielle for another lovely gift! I really appreciate your kindness! Hugs! xx

Journal Entry 5 by Chucklesthescot from Paisley, Scotland United Kingdom on Monday, June 15, 2009
I couldn't get into this book at all-I definitely prefered 'Never let me go'. All the details about the perfect butler and how to be dignified and all that stuff was driving me nuts! What an irritating man! Get a real job!

Journal Entry 6 by Chucklesthescot at Paisley, Scotland United Kingdom on Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Released 14 yrs ago (7/16/2009 UTC) at Paisley, Scotland United Kingdom

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This book is going in round 2 of the ABC bookbox

Journal Entry 7 by HerbertLooby on Friday, July 24, 2009
I've wanted to read this since I read 'Never let me go' so I can have a look at it now. Taken from ABC2 Box

Journal Entry 8 by HerbertLooby at Cardiff, Wales United Kingdom on Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Ready for RABCK'ing or wild releasing

Journal Entry 9 by HerbertLooby at Cardiff, Wales United Kingdom on Thursday, January 6, 2011

Released 13 yrs ago (1/6/2011 UTC) at Cardiff, Wales United Kingdom

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Sent to fellow BookCrosser as a RABCK

Journal Entry 10 by akosikulot at Panabo City, Davao del Norte Philippines on Thursday, January 20, 2011
Got this yesterday, all the way from UK - a RABCK request I made, along with another book, from generous HerbertLooby. Thank you very much! Can't wait to sit down and read it. :D

Journal Entry 11 by akosikulot at Panabo City, Davao del Norte Philippines on Thursday, February 10, 2011
"Don't keep looking back all the time, you're bound to get depressed." - Thoughts on The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

It seemed quite unlikely that I'd be impressed with Mr. Stevens' accounts of his motoring holiday that took him to see the English countryside, so subtly interwoven with his reminiscences of certain instances and occasions during his days as butler to the great Englishman Lord Darlington. Quite frankly I judged the book as a mere simpleton, and was, to say the least, puzzled as to how it won an award as prestigious as the Man Booker Prize.

That was my opinion upon reading the first page.

I would like to admit now, having finished the book, that I could not have been more wrong. I love Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. In fact, it now counts as a favorite.

You see, it really did all lie on the simplicity of the book - a simplicity in writing and narration that hid a fistful of complications, surfacing one by one in the subtle way that Ishiguro must be known for (this being my first book by him). Stevens' motoring adventures across the countryside was inconspicuous enough to have served as a backdrop for his musings and dipping into his past, brought about by a letter from a former houseworker, Miss Keaton, who worked with him during the glory days of Darlington House - glory days that were now marred with gossip against his former employer Lord Darlington, and the role the Englishman played during Hitler's regime.

I was at first, though, torn between merely adoring Stevens and intensely loving him and being on his side, come what may. He talks extensively and highly of being a butler as a serious profession; of the business of bantering, and how he fails miserably at it; of tradition; and, most importantly, of certain memories recalled during his trip - memories that are both honest and unreliable, supposedly painful but were otherwise remembered not because of the pain felt, but by the great accomplishments achieved as a butler during those times - emotional and powerful memories, diminished into mere memorable butlering trivialities. Stevens tells and retells his stories again and again, with facts and their probable implications altered each time; these being seemingly random memories, when so obviously things are not remembered just because. "There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable." Here was a man who was so out of touch with his country - "restricted as I am by my responsibilities in the house" - and himself. He was a sad man, and even he didn't know that about himself, and I loved him for it.

The Remains of the Day is a story of, among other things, nostalgia, regrets, denial, and a lost love. It is a story of how looking back is a dangerous thing, in a way - we try to remember and see faults, and in seeing those faults we are pained. "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?"

PS. I would like to thank the previous owner of the copy I read, who spared no marginal space in writing copious notes - it is all thanks to you that I was able to realize a love story was involved, even before it was hinted at. Yes, I am quite appalled I was that daft.

Originally posted here.

Journal Entry 12 by 1001-library at Helsinki, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Thursday, February 24, 2011

Thanks so much for your donation akosikulot!

This book is now part of the 1001-library. If you want to take this book from the library but don't know how to proceed, please refer to the 1001-library bookshelf.

Journal Entry 13 by akosikulot at Panabo City, Davao del Norte Philippines on Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Reserving for pauojeda54.

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