Reading 1001 discussion

5 stars

This was a lovely, deeply thoughtful book. I started it last night and finished it today because I simply could not put it down. I was enchanted by the story. The main character tells his story which takes place in 1956 England, flashing back over the previous 16 years. He is a butler and see his role as a very dutiful, and rigid one. He takes great care to meet all the demands of that job and sees it as far more than a job or a career. It is his station in life. He is a proud, loyal man with a narrow view of the world. But despite all of that he is likable. I know little about the world in which he lives having grown up in the American West a generation or two later. I know little about the world of wealth, or about the importance of the manners and rules that dictate the way he lives. And yet, I found myself thinking and feeling and associating with him. He entertained me and made me examine the world we live in today.

The backdrop to this gentle and quiet story was the world at war with Hitler and how it personally touches the butler due to the choices of the man he serves. The juxtaposition was beautiful and provoking. And of course, this man defines his own ability to be great by the man he serves. Unfortunately it seems as though the man he served throughout the war was a fool used by Hitler, or worse. Has this butler rewritten history when he says the Lord was a great man or is he in denial? I think perhaps he needs the Lord to have been great or he will have to believe himself a failure. It is a sad place to be -- where your self-worth is completely tied up in the worth of the person you serve.

This book is one that I will certainly read again one day.

I found Simon Prebble's narration to be sublime. Just as I could listen to Jim Dale read the phone book, I could listen to Mr Prebble read junk mail!

4 stars

I can’t seem to decide if I’ve read this before or I just recall the story because I saw the movie back when it came out. Certainly, it was impossible to read without seeing Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins in my mind the entire time, but I also think that this was the sort of book I was starting to want to read right about when it came out, so maybe.

The first third or so bored me a bit, with all the talk of famous butlers and what makes a great butler. Then it finally all gets going - the relationship with his father and Miss Keaton start to deepen and the story starts to really touch on the road to WWII and the way many in the English upper class were deceived by the Nazis, perhaps due to a lack of understanding or perhaps due to an actually sympathy with them. It’s a fascinating way to look at the subject, through the eyes of a butler.

I didn’t love this book, but it grew on me quite a lot while I read it and I was quite impressed by it.

A touching story.

I am guilty of only giving this lovely book 3 stars. It took me so long to read & I struggled to maintain interest in it. A slowburner - my husband who'd read the book several years previously described it to me and it really is. I understand why it needed to be but that didn't make me want to pick it up any quicker. It was very well written though - excellently written in fact. It was the first Ishiguro I've read and am really keen to read the rest of his works.

Read 2013:
The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's third published novel. The work was awarded the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989.

The story, told by an English Butler named Stevens, is set in the time after WWII but is Stevens’ reflections back to the time before WWII and the war. Stevens worked for Lord Darlington and desired to be a truly great and dignified butler. Stevens has worked so hard at being a great butler he has lost out on being fully human. He puts the job before his father’s dying, relationships with the opposite sex and he denies himself even the right to an opinion. It also tells the story of changing times in the backdrop of approaching war, the war and the aftermath of war. As the butler, Stevens is an observer of life but never a participant. He lives vicariously through the people who come to Darlington. The story is told while Stevens embarks on a country drive and he is looking back on his career as contributing to the greater good by serving a “great gentleman”. During this drive, Stevens becomes aware that maybe what he thought was greatness wasn’t. Stevens has a choice to make good on what remains of his day. “The evening is the best part of the day.” I liked the story, Ishiguro is a good writer. This is the second book by the author for me. I enjoyed this quiet, reflective book. Stevens is not the most likeable character. You want to tell him to quit being so obtuse but still he is a sympathetic character. I think liking Downton Abbey made reading this book quite enjoyable.

I listened to this book in less than 24 hours over a weekend, and then I had to think about it a bit before writing a review. It is a very quiet, reflective story and I very much appreciated the method of giving the reader a story between the lines of what the narrator was actually saying much of the time. I truly enjoyed the description of the time and place in which the story was set, and although I have absolutely no experience with which to compare it, I could easily visualize it. Yet, personally, I enjoy more of a plot and I don't know that the details of this story will stick with me for very long.

I have read a lot of Wodehouse, and Sayers, and watched a lot of British crime drama involving proper English butlers, so I found this book amusing. This story follows a butler whose unwavering devotion to his 'people' is becoming increasingly out of place in a society where class inequality is eroding into a general middle/lower class muddle where house servants are just doing a job like everyone else. The loyal butler cannot really imagine any other identity for himself, though, since his whole life has been so completely tied to his being the unblemished butler.
I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads.

I have rated this book 5 stars.
From the POV of Stephens, a English Butler from a distinguished Oxford house in the 1950's, who is contemplating his life during a motoring trip, we slowly have revealed to us themes of dignity, loyalty, the restrictions that social conventions placed on people in service during the 1920's and 30's, and above all Ishiguro's obsession with memory and the unreliable way that it is interpreted. Tightly written with never a slip from the constrained butler who is obsessed with "dignity" as the only framework through which to view his life. Stephens comes to believe that he may have wasted his life because he trusted his employer was doing great work when he was actually promoting the English government collaboration with the Nazi before WWII. There is a hint of redemption in the recognition of human warmth in "bantering" and there is humor of an understated variety. Also, there is a love interest that our narrator can not bring himself to mention but our author leads us there nevertheless. A small book that is truly worthy of the awards it has earned.

Reread for my real world book club. Still one of my favourites of all time. A brilliant and heartbreaking character study of a repressed and misguided butler who puts service to his master before his chance of happiness, but also a stunning examination of the nature of memory and an evocation of a vanished way of life.

Ishiguro is one of my favourite authors for the subtle way he conceals and then reveals the truths that even his characters can’t or won’t face up to, and Stevens the butler is the most memorable example. The true nature of his master’s political manoeuvres and of his relationship with Miss Kenton are gradually revealed almost in spite of his attempts to hide them from himself,

This is a beautiful and haunting book that for me definitely earns its place on the list.

I loved Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and this comes a close second. Both are heartbreaking. The life of servitude has been so ingrained in Stevens the butler, he can only measure his worth by the value of the gentleman he serves. As he puts it, “…great affairs will always be beyond the understanding of those such as you and I, and those of us who wish to make our mark must realize that we best do so by concentrating on what is within our realm; that is to say, by devoting our attention to providing the best possible service to those great gentlemen in whose hands the destiny of civilization truly lies.” (view spoiler)[ He will come to realize that he devoted himself to serving a very flawed man. At least Lord Darlington made his own choices, problematic though they may have been. Stevens just trusted in his employer: “I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. …what dignity is there in that?” This is a harsh realization, given the importance he places on dignity above all. Even after he comprehends this, he can’t separate from the compulsion to please his employer, Mr. Farraday. The book ends with Stevens vowing to practice bantering to “pleasantly surprise him.” (hide spoiler)]

I saw the movie adaptation years ago, and while are some significant differences between the book and the film, both are worthwhile. In fact, I’m going to watch it again tonight.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2

Pre-2017 review:

***

You got to admire Ishiguro's skill in depicting a butler's extreme devotion to the duties of his role; I could almost smell the leather and the books from the reading room, feel the almost austere yet at times bustling nature of Darlington Hall. But that's also where the subject of the novel fails for me; reading about a butler's painstaking and minute account of certain of his career's salient events was burdensome at times. True, there were lighter moments, but I was relieved to reach the last page and finding out that Stevens would belatedly work on his bantering skills: good luck, he's going to need it.