Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘The Remains of the Day’ follows Stevens, the butler of Darlington Hall, as he takes a week out from his position to go on a motor trip through the English countryside. The present day storyline is extremely basic and unexciting for the most part, but the book is primarily made up on his reminiscing of past experiences as butler for Lord Darlington, often serving on the global geopolitical stage in the period between WW1 and WW2. 

A lot of Stevens’ recounts focus on what makes a good butler and why he believes he is such, not one of the ‘greats’ but still highly experienced and successful. This leads to a lot of emphasis being placed on duty before anything else, and in the cases of his empathy towards others being backseated in favour of professionalism he occasionally comes across quite dislikable. For the most part, however, Stevens is a respectable and likeable character with a lot to share. 

It happens to be the second book of the week about a journey through the countryside, reminiscing on the past and discussing the rise of fascism, of which is a really strange coincidence for this wasn’t intentional, though I think ‘Remains of the Day’ did the latter two similarities far better than Orwell’s ‘Coming up for air’, that being said, though Ishiguro is likely only trying to portray Stevens as extremely loyal and professional, his emphasis on duty meaning he does not question and oppose neo-fascist ideologies despite limited internals hints of opposition is both problematic but an interesting look at conformity of those in lower-class positions. In the political debates though, I did prefer ‘Coming up for Air’. This may have been an unlikely book to draw on for this review but it was such a recent similar read I felt obliged to. 

‘Remains of the Day’ is largely a quaint relaxing story too, raising interesting questions on morals versus duty and also embracing nature. There isn’t much character development and the final message was a little rouge given the tone of the book, but it was ultimately enjoyable.