There’s a certain charm to Nobel Prize laureate, Kazuo Ishiguro’s book ‘The Remains of the Day’ that puts you in a pensive mood. It is a subtle narration of a classic English butler Mr. Stevens, who aspires to great lengths to perfect the art of his profession.
After the demise of his old employer, Lord Darlington, to whom he devoted the better half of his life, he has now landed himself a job in an American household. His new owner Mr Farraday is not familiarised with the etiquettes and decorum of class and butlership, much to his surprise.
In the due course of his narration, he often reminiscences about his time at the Darlington Hall, unveiling how unrealistic and misconceived his beliefs are in pursuit of this insane need for perfection. With vivid descriptions of his past, we realise that his accounts are a mere fabrication of his mind and his doctrine of decorum, a cover for his negligence as a human. His ignorance towards his family and his apathetic behaviour towards his fellow employees just to serve his master well, are well accounted for in his own memories. He believed that his sole duty is to serve his ever-so great master Lord Darlington well. This he believed was his gateway to contribute to humanity and mark a few pages of history. His obliviousness to Darlington’s radical anti-Semitic beliefs and his undying loyalty is an acceptance of an inescapable truth that he, or the people of his class, can never be in a position to influence the world and have to accept the world as it is under their master’s guidance. A hint to how this deep-seated class system prevailed in his time that he set his entire life’s principles in accordance to fit in.
This novel is a revelation of an era through the portrait of an idealist, whose life is a consequence of both self-ignorance and misplaced loyalty. The effort to preserve the remnant societal norms of an age people have outgrown. The author presents an intricate novel of the loneliness and melancholia that one faces when his ideals are far greater than his will to accept the truth.