Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving 'a great gentleman'. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's greatness and graver doubts about his own faith in the man he served.

A profoundly compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his fading, insular world in postwar England.

Variety goes a long way to creating a satisfying reading experience and we do love our variety! Pulled from the depths of the multicultural contemporary Australian suburb, this month we found ourselves up to our stiffened high collars of England's post-war aristocracy with Ishiguro's fabulous Remains of the Day. Other than the fact that a few of us found it a little slow, it was enthusiastically considered a great read with praise coming across the table on everything from writing style and characterisation to remarkable witticism and humour.
It is interesting that a pedantic, formal, and let's face it, boring character such as Stevens could produce so many opinions and intense scrutiny as he did with our group. Everyone had ideas as to how and why this loyal, stuffy butler marched through his life with blinkers the size of tennis rackets on! His childhood, society, the class system, his birth right, the upstairs/downstairs effect, personality dysfunction ... they were all thrown in and tossed around until poor Stevens had been psychologically studied to death ... What fun!

Viti faithfully (as always) brought us a wonderfully feasible explanation of the title, being the reflections of a day's work (Stevens work was his life), so casting a look back on the remains of his life. Remains could also be considered the wreck of his life. Very profound, we all thought.

There was plenty more to discover in this small but truly enjoyable book, with new insights into a very political time in England between the two World Wars. We all enjoyed the humour of the 'bantering problem' and came to the conclusion that Lord Darlington was probably not anti-Semitic but did cave into the pressures of the time. Not totally forgivable within our group!

We scored it high with nothing under a 7/10, so if you would like a beautifully written, leisurely read with great characterisation and thought provoking themes, Remains of the Day gets our approval this month.