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Summary
Summary
From the Nobel Prize-winning author, here is an elegant Everyman's Library hardcover edition of the universally acclaimed novel--winner of the Booker Prize, a bestseller, and the basis for an award-winning film--with full-cloth binding, a silk ribbon marker, a chronology, and an introduction by Salman Rushdie.
Here is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect butler, and of his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.
Author Notes
Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan on November 8, 1954. In 1960, his family moved to England. He received a bachelor's degree in English and philosophy from the University of Kent in 1978 and a master's degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia in 1980. He became a British citizen in 1982.
His first novel, A Pale View of Hills, received the Winifred Holtby Award from the Royal Society of Literature. His second novel, An Artist of the Floating World, received the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 1986. His third novel, The Remains of the Day, received the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989 and was adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. His other works include The Unconsoled, When We Were Orphans, Never Let Me Go, Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, and The Buried Giant. He was awarded the OBE in 1995 for services to literature and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1998. He received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature. He has also written several songs for jazz singer Stacey Kent and screenplays for both film and television.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (1)
Guardian Review
A chat with Kazuo Ishiguro about hitchhiking and an obsession with WB Yeats were key to transforming the novel into a play, writes Barney Norris There is a film of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day , and a musical, but there has never been a play. How I came to have the good fortune to be asked to write one I do not know, but that is what happened. During the last two years or so, I have worked to find a stage language for Ishiguro's story, seeking to drill down into what it is that really takes place in this tale of Stevens the butler, whose life escapes him while he's looking the other way. I read the novel as a teenager, and went on to read most of the rest of Ishiguro's work throughout my 20s. I liked his books because they were like swans - an image was presented, elegant and pristine, and then by increments the more violent movements propelling and sustaining that image were revealed. His books, like pearls, coalesce around grit, around terrible and barbaric moments: the destruction of a city, the harvesting of organs, the Holocaust. The action of the books seems always to me to be the revelation that civilisation is built on violence, held together by violence, that the beautiful and the ordered is only a skin, a kind of lie. It is an important observation for a writer to make in our society of the spectacle. Naturally, I was intimidated by the thought of adapting a story that had meant so much to so many. A lot of stage adaptations are not very good. Many fail to escape their source text, and allow events to plod on in more or less the same order in which they happened in the original book or film. This is awful, because metabolically and rhythmically the theatre is entirely unlike any other medium, and needs to find its own music. Other adaptations never seem to get past speaking "to" or "about" the source text, rather than telling the story, which always seems to me to reflect the insecurity of a writer manifesting as ego, someone uncomfortable with sharing the billing on a poster. It's quite rare to see an adaptation break through to the Homeric realisation that stories are, in the end, common property - free to be retold and misremembered round the camp fire - and really work to tell the story as if it had never been heard before, without any ironic lens or debt to another mode of telling. The ways of avoiding these pitfalls are always instinctive, not easy things to express. I came up with the structure for my Remains of the Day in an unexpected moment, as my wife and I were leaving our flat to meet friends: I delayed our departure very briefly, and drew a picture on an envelope of two lines intersecting like a sequence of DNA; that was all I ever knew of how my play would work. It never became a verbalised idea. In fact, I found myself becoming fiercely resistant to explaining my structural conceit and outlining why each scene happened when it did, simply because I didn't verbally, intellectually, know. I just had a shape I was following, and had to place my faith in that. I did have a few conscious ideas and questions that I bore in mind while working. When I first met Ishiguro I was struck by his telling me that, as a young man, he sometimes hitchhiked from his family's home south of London to Winchester or Salisbury. As the present action of The Remains of the Day is a journey by car through Salisbury and into the west, this got me wondering how much he had been voyaging into memory as well as into imagination when he wrote. I thought a lot about what the answer to that question would be for Stevens, as he made his own journey west towards the woman he allowed to get away from him, Miss Kenton. Was that a journey away from home, or a journey towards it? The more I thought about that, the more I felt The Remains of the Day was a way of asking everyone who encountered it: is life a voyage out, or a journey home? I also came to suspect there were literary influences under the surface of Ishiguro's story that worked as a kind of key. The more I read the book, the more it reminded me of WB Yeats. This is perhaps no surprise, as I am a Yeats obsessive. Nonetheless, there seemed to me to be marked tonal similarities between the two writers.Yeats's yearning relationship with Maud Gonne seemed like a possible model for Stevens's relationship with Kenton. Moreover, there were one or two precise echoes of Yeats in Ishiguro's text: a young man, in a sequence I didn't put in my play, speculates on what it might have been like if God had made men as plants, firmly rooted in the soil, which is not an idea I've encountered anywhere else except in Yeats's "A Prayer for My Daughter": "Oh may she live like some green laurel, rooted in one dear perpetual place". Finally, I could not dispel the impression that the best summations I could call to mind of what The Remains of the Day is really about lay in the poetry of Yeats. In Yeats's last poem, "Cuchulain Comforted", Cuchulain walks among the dead and joins them, making a shroud for himself only to find he has joined the company of all the cowards who were ever driven from their homes. This is the realisation of Stevens, who over the course of his story takes "all the blame out of all sense and reason" on himself, as Yeats puts it in "The Cold Heaven", and whose shroud is the story he leaves behind for us to read, the painful confession of his life. Elsewhere, in "Politics", Yeats summarises The Remains of the Day so deftly that I feel I should quote the poem in full: How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics, Yet here's a travelled man that knows What he talks about, And there's a politician That has both read and thought, And maybe what they say is true Of war and war's alarms, But O that I were young again And held her in my arms. This, I think, is the beautiful realisation at the heart of The Remains of the Day : that a life given to serving the big world misses out entirely on the things that matter, the things you will miss when they're gone. This idea became a touchstone for me - a star I tried to steer towards. The greatest challenge to telling this story in 2019 is that people, whatever story they read or play they go to see, will search its pockets for allusions to Brexit. This astonishing narrowing of the focus of our critical faculties is doing great harm in our national life, as the steady dismantling of our welfare state goes practically unremarked, and phenomena such as the rising numbers of rough sleepers are no longer addressed as subjects in themselves, but rather as subordinate clauses of a more storied event. It is a particularly difficult thing to avoid in a play preoccupied with the consequences of appeasement in the years preceding the second world war. And yet, despite this story being in part about Britain's relationship with Europe, I wanted very much to write a play that didn't make people talk about Brexit, because, like Yeats's poem, this story knows that we make fools of ourselves going endlessly over the same contested political turf, because that is not where our lives happen. The route out of the schisms presently besetting us does not lie in the political sphere, but in the human; we must love one another and die, and the rest is transient. Stories are common property. Everyone who ever goes to see a play takes home their own unique version of the tale: like witnesses to a car accident, no two people will ever see the same play. This is a very important principle in adaptation, and also a liberating one. I can never know exactly what The Remains of the Day is really about; I can only know what it means to me, and feel grateful for the opportunity to try to share that with other people.
Excerpts
Excerpts
PROLOGUE • JULY 1956 Darlington Hall It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr Farraday's Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days. The idea of such a journey came about, I should point out, from a most kind suggestion put to me by Mr Farraday himself one afternoon almost a fortnight ago, when I had been dusting the portraits in the library. In fact, as I recall, I was up on the step-ladder dusting the portrait of Viscount Wetherby when my employer had entered carrying a few volumes which he presumably wished returned to the shelves. On seeing my person, he took the opportunity to inform me that he had just that moment finalized plans to return to the United States for a period of five weeks between August and September. Having made this announcement, my employer put his volumes down on a table, seated himself on the chaise-longue , and stretched out his legs. It was then, gazing up at me, that he said: 'You realize, Stevens, I don't expect you to be locked up here in this house all the time Γm away. Why don't you take the car and drive off somewhere for a few days? You look like you could make good use of a break.' Coming out of the blue as it did, I did not quite know how to reply to such a suggestion. I recall thanking him for his consideration, but quite probably I said nothing very definite, for my employer went on: 'I'm serious, Stevens. I really think you should take a break. I'll foot the bill for the gas. You fellows, you're always locked up in these big houses helping out, how do you ever get to see around this beautiful country of yours?' This was not the first time my employer had raised such a question; indeed, it seems to be something which genuinely troubles him. On this occasion, in fact, a reply of sorts did occur to me as I stood up there on the ladder; a reply to the effect that those of our profession, although we did not see a great deal of the country in the sense of touring the countryside and visiting picturesque sites, did actually 'see' more of England than most, placed as we were in houses where the greatest ladies and gentlemen of the land gathered. Of course, I could not have expressed this view to Mr Farraday without embarking upon what might have seemed a presumptuous speech. I thus contented myself by saying simply: 'It has been my privilege to see the best of England over the years, sir, within these very walls.' Mr Farraday did not seem to understand this statement, for he merely went on: Ί mean it, Stevens. It's wrong that a man can't get to see around his own country. Take my advice, get out of the house for a few days.' As you might expect, I did not take Mr Farraday's suggestion at all seriously that afternoon, regarding it as just another instance of an American gentleman's unfamiliarity with what was and what was not commonly done in England. The fact that my attitude to this same suggestion underwent a change over the following days -- indeed, that the notion of a trip to the West Country took an ever-increasing hold on my thoughts -- is no doubt substantially attributable to -- and why should I hide it? -- the arrival of Miss Kenton's letter, her first in almost seven years if one discounts the Christmas cards. But let me make it immediately clear what I mean by this; what I mean to say is that Miss Kenton's letter set off a certain chain of ideas to do with professional matters here at Darlington Hall, and I would underline that it was a preoccupation with these very same professional matters that led me to consider anew my employer's kindly meant suggestion. But let me explain further. The fact is, over the past few months, I have been responsible for a series of small errors in the carrying out of my duties. I should say that these errors have all been without exception quite trivial in themselves. Nevertheless,I think you will understand that to one not accustomed to committing such errors, this development was rather disturbing, and I did in fact begin to entertain all sorts of alarmist theories as to their cause. As so often occurs in these situations, I had become blind to the obvious -- that is, until my pondering over the implications of Miss Kenton's letter finally opened my eyes to the simple truth: that these small errors of recent months have derived from nothing more sinister than a faulty staff plan. It is, of course, the responsibility of every butler to devote his utmost care in the devising of a staff plan. Who knows how many quarrels, false accusations, unnecessary dismissals, how many promising careers cut short can be attributed to a butler's slovenliness at the stage of drawing up the staff plan? Indeed, I can say I am in agreement with those who say that the ability to draw up a good staff plan is the cornerstone of any decent butler's skills. I have myself devised many staff plans over the years, and I do not believe I am being unduly boastful if I say that very few ever needed amendment. And if in the present case the staff plan is at fault, blame can be laid at no one's door but my own. At the same time, it is only fair to point out that my task in this instance had been of an unusually difficult order. What had occurred was this. Once the transactions were over -- transactions which had taken this house out of the hands of the Darlington family after two centuries -- Mr Farraday let it be known that he would not be taking up immediate residence here, but would spend a further four months concluding matters in the United States. In the meantime, however, he was most keen that the staff of his predecessor -- a staff of which he had heard high praise -- be retained at Darlington Hall. This 'staff' he referred to was, of course, nothing more than the skeleton team of six kept on by Lord Darlington's relatives to administer to the house up to and throughout the transactions; and I regret to report that once the purchase had been completed, there was little I could do for Mr Farraday to prevent all but Mrs Clements leaving for other employment. When I wrote to my new employer conveying my regrets at the situation, I received by reply from America instructions to recruit a new staff 'worthy of a grand old English house'. I immediately set about trying to fulfil Mr Farraday's wishes, but as you know, finding recruits of a satisfactory standard is no easy task nowadays, and although I was pleased to hire Rosemary and Agnes on Mrs Clements's recommendation, I had got no further by the time I came to have my first business meeting with Mr Farraday during the short preliminary visit he made to our shores in the spring of last year. It was on that occasion -- in the strangely bare study of Darlington Hall -- that Mr Farraday shook my hand for the first time, but by then we were hardly strangers to each other; quite aside from the matter of the staff, my new employer in several other instances had had occasion to call upon such qualities as it may be my good fortune to possess and found them to be, I would venture, dependable. So it was, I assume, that he felt immediately able to talk to me in a businesslike and trusting way, and by the end of our meeting, he had left me with the administration of a not inconsiderable sum to meet the costs of a wide range of preparations for his coming residency. In any case, my point is that it was during the course of this interview, when I raised the question of the difficulty of recruiting suitable staff in these times, that Mr Farraday, after a moment's reflection, made his request of me; that I do my best to draw up a staff plan -- "some sort of servants' rota' as he put it -- by which this house might be run on the present staff of four -- that is to say, Mrs Clements, the two young girls, and myself. This might, he appreciated, mean putting sections of the house 'under wraps', but would I bring all my experience and expertise to bear to ensure such losses were kept to a minimum? Recalling a time when I had had a staff of seventeen under me, and knowing how not so long ago a staff of twenty-eight had been employed here at Darlington Hall, the idea of devising a staff plan by which the same house would be run on a staff of four seemed, to say the least, daunting. Although I did my best not to, something of my scepticism must have betrayed itself, for Mr Farraday then added, as though for reassurance, that were it to prove necessary, then an additional member of staff could be hired. But he would be much obliged, he repeated, if I could 'give it a go with four'. Now naturally, like many of us, I have a reluctance to change too much of the old ways. But there is no virtue at all in clinging as some do to tradition merely for its own sake. In this age of electricity and modern heating systems, there is no need at all to employ the sorts of numbers necessary even a generation ago. Indeed, it has actually been an idea of mine for some time that the retaining of unnecessary numbers simply for tradition's sake -- resulting in employees having an unhealthy amount of time on their hands -- has been an important factor in the sharp decline in professional standards. Furthermore, Mr Farraday had made it clear that he planned to hold only very rarely the sort of large social occasions Darlington Hall had seen frequently in the past. I did then go about the task Mr Farraday had set me with some dedication; I spent many hours working on the staff plan, and at least as many hours again thinking about it as I went about other duties or as I lay awake after retiring. Whenever I believed I had come up with something, I probed it for every sort of oversight, tested it through from all angles. Finally, I came up with a plan which, while perhaps not exactly as Mr Farraday had requested, was the best, I felt sure, that was humanly possible. Almost all the attractive parts of the house could remain operative: the extensive servants' quarters -- including the back corridor, the two still rooms and the old laundry -- and the guest corridor up on the second floor would be dust-sheeted, leaving all the main ground-floor rooms and a generous number of guest rooms. Admittedly, our present team of four would manage this programme only with reinforcement from some daily workers; my staff plan therefore took in the services of a gardener, to visit once a week, twice in the summer, and two cleaners, each to visit twice a week. The staff plan would, furthermore, for each of the four resident employees mean a radical altering of our respective customary duties. The two young girls, I predicted, would not find such changes so difficult to accommodate, but I did all I could to see that Mrs Clements suffered the least adjustments, to the extent that I undertook for myself a number of duties which you may consider most broad-minded of a butler to do. Even now, I would not go so far as to say it is a bad staff plan; after all, it enables a staff of four to cover an unexpected amount of ground. But you will no doubt agree that the very best staff plans are those which give clear margins of error to allow for those days when an employee is ill or for one reason or another below par. In this particular case, of course, I had been set a slightly extraordinary task, but I had nevertheless not been neglectful to incorporate 'margins' wherever possible. I was especially conscious that any resistance there may be on the part of Mrs Clements, or the two girls, to the taking on of duties beyond their traditional boundaries would be compounded by any notion that their workloads had greatly increased. I had then, over those days of struggling with the staff plan, expended a significant amount of thought to ensuring that Mrs Clements and the girls, once they had got over their aversion to adopting these more 'eclectic' roles, would find the division of duties stimulating and unburdensome. I fear, however, that in my anxiety to win the support of Mrs Clements and the girls, I did not perhaps assess quite as stringently my own limitations; and although my experience and customary caution in such matters prevented my giving myself more than I could actually carry out, I was perhaps negligent over this question of allowing myself a margin. It is not surprising then, if over several months, this oversight should reveal itself in these small but telling ways. In the end, I believe the matter to be no more complicated than this: I had given myself too much to do. Excerpted from The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
