Eric Maas’s Reviews > The Remains of the Day > Status Update

01. Day One — Evening (Salisbury)

[The great butlers] wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit […] he will discard it when, and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone .

Which must be during the remains of the day…

…the sorts of sights offered in such places as Africa and America, though undoubtedly very exciting, would, I am sure, strike the objective viewer as inferior on account of their undeniably demonstrativeness.

Stevens, making me laugh out loud. He is so conditioned, that a different reality is out of the question. And the understated British landscape being the summum would fit him perfectly of course.

And yet tonight, in the quiet of this room, I find that what really remains with me from this first day’s travel is not Salisbury Cathedral, nor any of the other charming sights of this city, but rather that marvelous view encountered this morning of the rolling English countryside.

So Eric, not the few hours of privacy remaining after a day’s service, but that which stands out most at the end of the day

00. Prologue: July 1956 - Darlington Hall
Already feel sorry for Stevens. How can he ever expect to give an authentic response to Mr. Farraday’s banter, if he has never been endorsed to develop a sense of humor. It feels like, with this nutshell character sketch of a very restricted man, of which I am sure he’s not even aware he’s given, the point of the story has already been made…