The Remains of the Day

Review ebook The Remains of the Day

Every day, for the past week I’ve encouraged myself to start writing this review. It felt impossible to find my words to discuss such a literary masterpiece. Who gives me the right to even try?
After staring blankly at the screen for some time, I finally remembered a beautiful passage that can perfectly describe what I felt about this novel. So, I will let the author describe his work. Although the quote depicts the magnificent English countryside It can be applied to the novel as well.

“What is Every day, for the past week I’ve encouraged myself to start writing this review. It felt impossible to find my words to discuss such a literary masterpiece. Who gives me the right to even try?
After staring blankly at the screen for some time, I finally remembered a beautiful passage that can perfectly describe what I felt about this novel. So, I will let the author describe his work. Although the quote depicts the magnificent English countryside It can be applied to the novel as well.

“What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.”

I believe that a restrained beauty is what characterizes The Remains of the Day and the voice of its main character, Stevens. As it was also the case in Never let me Go, the message is hidden in the beautiful pages, only suggested, it comes to the reader in the form of a knot in the stomach or throat and the feelings linger for many days while one ponders on the meaning of his/her life.

“What can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.”

Williams Stevens is a one of the few remaining “great”, devoted butlers, employed most of his life at Darlington Hall in the service of Lord Darlington. After the war and the death of its owner the manor changes its ownership but the reduced staff remains with the new employer, an American known as Mr. Farraday. When the new owner returns to the States for a few weeks he proposes to Stevens to borrow his car and enjoy a drive in the countryside. Although reluctant at first, the butler decides to take on the offer after he receives a letter from a former housekeeper of the Hall, Miss Kenton to who it seems that he holds some affection. He decides to visit her in order to suggest to return to work at the Hall. The trip becomes the perfect occasion for revisiting the most important moments of Stevens past and to meditate on how his loyalty to his master and his decisions/or lack of, made him lose certain opportunities to have a fulfilled emotional life.

“But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is all very well to talk of ‘turning points’, one can surely only recognize such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one’s life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one’s relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.”

The language used by the author is beautiful, exquisite. It is the voice of the butler who writes in the restrained, formal manner suitable for his job. The effect is mesmerizing, sometimes comical and other times heartbreaking in Steven’s incapacity to shed his role even for a second and live for himself.

“I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?”

Beautiful, emotional book that I warmly recommend to everyone. …more