The Remains of the Day

The Remains of the Day · published 1989 · ISBN 9780679731726

Kazuo Ishiguro — Kazuo Ishiguro (b. 1954) — United Kingdom (born in Japan), writing in English. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017.

“who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” — The Nobel Committee citation

About Kazuo Ishiguro

A British writer of Japanese origin, known for a calm yet haunting narrative voice that circles around memory, self-deception and the things left unsaid. He also writes song lyrics and is a devoted lover of jazz.

How it came to be

Published in 1989 and awarded the Booker Prize that same year, the novel unfolds entirely through the butler's guarded interior voice. Ishiguro uses a distinctly English understatement to lay bare the tragedy of a life eroded by duty.

What The Remains of the Day is about

Stevens, the devoted butler of an English country house, sets out on a short trip through the countryside and looks back over a lifetime of service. Little by little he grasps the price of his blind loyalty: an employer who once leaned toward fascism, and an affection for the housekeeper, Miss Kenton, that he let slip away through sheer self-restraint.

Analysis & legacy

The Remains of the Day is the tragedy of a life worn away by duty, told entirely through the suffocatingly restrained monologue of the butler Stevens. Ishiguro deploys a very English art of understatement — where what matters most always lives between the lines — to expose the cost of blind loyalty and a lifelong habit of clamping down on feeling. A six-day motoring trip through the English countryside becomes a journey back over an entire life: an employer who once drifted toward fascism, and an affection for Miss Kenton that Stevens never dared to name. Winner of the 1989 Booker Prize, the novel is a delicate study of memory, illusion and regret — the very themes that run through the career that carried Ishiguro to the 2017 Nobel.

Themes: Memory & self-deception · Duty · The English class system · Missed love · Regret

Rating: 4.2/5 from 28 ratings (Open Library).

What critics say

• The Remains of the Day is a dream of a book: a beguiling comedy of manners that evolves almost magically into a profound and heart-rending study of personality, class and culture. — Lawrence Graver, The New York Times
• Winner of the 1989 Booker Prize; adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. — Giải Booker 1989, The Booker Prize

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