I had decided to buy a hardbound book after a hiatus. The kindle had tried to substitute it for some time but fared, I’m sorry to say, poorly. As a result, I was back to browsing real books in a real bookstore, turning the pages, taking in the scent of newly minted volumes and experiencing, with gratitude, all those clichés that book-lovers can go on about.

And it was then, in a stack of contemporary classics that I came across Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, The Remains of the Day.

As well-known as the work is (most people immediately recognize the film based on it; Anthony Hopkins after all, has played the part of the English butler, Mr. Stevens) I’m ashamed to say that I had not read it.

I found quickly that I could not put it down. I read ten pages simply standing there in the bookstore, a couple of other books tucked under my arm, awaiting consideration.

In the end, despite the price and despite my friend telling me that he could download the kindle version for me, I decided to buy it. I’m glad I did.

From the first page, the book hooked me for two reasons: first, the use of the first person; not uncommon, yes, but rare for most classics, with most writers preferring the partial omnipresent if not the omnipresent voice. And that brings me to the second reason: the language, the point of view,and the characterization rooted me firmly in Mr. Stevens and only Mr. Stevens’ head, until of course, I saw what Ishiguro was doing.

This is imperative to the book since Mr. Stevens’ journey (I call him Mr. Stevens for I’m sure he wouldn’t appreciate being referred to any other way) is not so much outward into the English countryside as it is inward, into his own mind.

Memory thus, plays a pivotal role in the book and it is as revelatory as it is undependable.

The hint of inconsistency in Mr. Stevens’ recollections as we move forward (or is it backward?) with him deeper into his psyche (and the countryside) reminds me now of something that the poet and writer, Jorges Luis Borges gleaned during one of his recorded lectures at Harvard University. In it he mentions the power of simply stating a perspective, or insight, or better still hinting at it. The level of subtlety then, in Ishiguro’s book is his most powerful tool. With it, he draws the reader in and with it, he compels the reader to pause, step outside the journey, watch what’s going on, and smile to herself, all the while recognizing herself and her life scrawled into the corners of the book and along the edges of its characters.

The journey is also a classic example of the landscape mirroring the ‘mindscape’ and vice-versa. Mr. Stevens’ pride and nobility are clearly silhouetted in the meadows and mountains he describes, the church steeples he spots and the villages that have sprung up around them. But there is more ‘mirroring’ that takes place than is obvious to the reader at first glance.

Despite the solitary nature of his journey, Mr. Stevens is almost never alone and every person he meets, every acquaintance he makes, not only tells us more and more about him but also tells us that about him which he doesn’t know or recognize yet. These corollary insights about his personality are at times at odds with how he sees himself, or how he would like himself to be seen by us. And this is interesting, for as he does so, we realize, very, very slowly, that it was not simply fate that made him butler to a man like Lord Darlington for (you guessed it), the two are mirror images in more ways than is obvious to them! It is no wonder that Mr. Stevens is oblique about his having served Lord Darlington to the public when he seems to take great pride in having done so in his personal memoir. The fact is, that Mr. Stevens’ personality and his life’s journey are as much a contradiction as his employer’s.

Of course, the above alone would be simplifying the matter (and the character), and the layers that Ishiguro adds to further bring the character to life cannot be, must not be overlooked, for they are layers assembled from and wrought by the context.

The time period, namely the World War, brings with it astute notions of class, culture, nationality, politics (the politics of the State as well as personal politics) and all the social norms dictating conduct, acceptability and propriety. To say that most of these were hypocritical would be to throw away the prisms that would in fact help us scatter the light that Ishiguro hopes to show us in all its myriad colours.

It is important to look for these prisms, arrange them according to their importance and watch the light diffuse into something else altogether, something that perhaps, even comes close to the truth of the time. For Mr. Stevens is, if nothing else, an embodiment of time, of the past(his past), of the present (his present), and of the future(his future). The two are inextricably tied together and must be for us to see both, the microcosm and macrocosm at the same time; see them reflected in each other, see them struggle with each other and finally, see them unable to escape each other.

If at all you find the pace of this book a little slow, it is because this journey’s aim is not its destination. The reasons that spurred the journey, like the character, break down as the journey comes to a close. Mr. Stevens is not everything he portrays himself to be, and yet he is, just like the shifting but omniscient landscape he has been motoring through. The pace of the book may also be accounted once again, to the nature of time, and particularly the rhythm of that time. For time cannot be rushed, nor can it be slowed down, and as Mr. Stevens and Miss Kenton both discover, it certainly cannot be turned back.

Mr. Stevens, through the pretext of this journey, finds time to reflect upon his days and the time to ponder what to do with what remains of them.

PS: I did look out for the film after I put the book down but put it off almost instantly. The fact that it begins with a reconstruction of Miss Kenton’s letters was (I’m sorry to say) predictable and completely put me out of the protagonist’s head, which is, as I’ve said, the book’s mainstay. Anthony Hopkins though, is faultless, and I’m sure has done a wonderful job as has Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton.

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Pages: 245

Published by: Faber and Faber (originally published in 1989)

the remains of the day