Book Review

[kenjari]

The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro

I loved reading this book - Ishiguro's writing is extremely fine. The Remains of the Day is the narrative of Stevens, a middle-aged English butler reminiscing about his life and career as the head butler for Lord Darlington during the first half of the 20th century. Stevens is an incredibly well-drawn character - his voice is beautifully vivid. He's a wonderfully rich and complex person underneath his professional demeanour. Similarly, the narrative itself has a kind of surface simplicity that both belies and illuminates what's going on underneath this surface. This interplay and contrast between the surface and its undercurrents is what makes this novel brilliant.

Comments

[hca.livejournal.com]

The movie is quite good too - Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. And Christopher Reeve. It's a different experience than the book, but worth seeing in its own right.

[outlawradio.livejournal.com]

I read this for a seminar this fall called Judgment and Decision Making (our focus that week was on self-justification). I absolutely adore his writing. I read Never Let Me Go recently by the same author and found it even sadder and almost as good (which still means I thought it was very good indeed).