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Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

**spoiler alert**

This story sneaks up on you. Just when you’ve convinced yourself that this is a journey without any real destination (and, in a sense, I suppose it is), things begin to click. The triangle between Mr. Stevens, Miss Kenton, and Mr. Benn mirrors that of Mr. Stevens, Lord Darlington, and Mr. Farraway. In each case, the person stuck in the middle has given all of himself/herself to another, and has little left for the third party. In the case of the first triangle, Miss Kenton has little to offer Mr. Benn, as she has always loved Mr. Stevens. In the second triangle, we see that Stevens has little to offer Farraway, as his loyalties as a butler will forever lie with Lord Darlington.

Throughout the story, Stevens fails to see what is in front of him on both a personal and professional level. The Germans continue to take advantage of Darlington’s kind-hearted nature in order to make gains in Great Britain, but Stevens is too preoccupied with his duties to notice. Moreover, Miss Kenton is desperately in love with him, painfully so, and he cannot see it. He is the quintessential unreliable narrator, confusing past scenes in his memory and hinting (with his sometimes defensive and/or evasive language) that things may not have played out exactly as he describes them.

Perhaps most ingenious about this narrative is how it rarely skims Stevens’ surface. Normally, I would frown upon a story that probes so little into the protagonist’s psyche, but the absence of deep introspection is a powerful characterization in and of itself. In his most candid thoughts, Stevens is often defending a past embarrassment or error in his capacity as a butler. In his most lucid moments, he fails to identify the emotions that Miss Kenton evokes within him. He has remained “in character” for so long that he has forgotten how to be human, how to read between the lines of banter, how to see past façades and into people’s true motives. In his final encounter with Miss Kenton (now Mrs. Benn), she reaches out to him one last time, and he is still as clueless as ever. The novel ends with him thinking of how he might improve his bantering skills in order to impress his new master, Mr. Farraway.

So, in the strictest of terms, the narrative comes full circle. Stevens will continue to be a faithful, albeit somewhat diminished, butler for the rest of his life, pouring the wine while his guests determine the fate of the Western world. He resigns himself to this, declaring it to be inevitable.

Be patient with this book. It may surprise you.