The Remains of the Day
I came across a Substack book club that peaked my interest and their book for June was The Remains of the Day. I easily found it at the library and honestly started reading without any idea what the book was about. I knew it was a movie, but one that I’d never seen, and being a Nobel Prize winner I began reading with a few assumptions.
My experience with butlers comes from many BBC and PBS shows and of course reading Wodehouse. This was somewhat reminiscent of Wodehouse and Ishiguro gives Stephens his own little sense of humor, but it’s definitely not a humorous novel. Many have labeled it a memory novel —a looking back and life, stream of consciousness writing.
Stephens gives us a picture into his life and there were so many times I was so incredibly frustrated with him. I don’t know how much of that was the British-ness of him or just the butler-ishness…maybe both.
The whole conversation he has with himself about “witticism” is hilarious. I love that this American comes in with his, what I would honestly label sarcasm (are Brits not sarcastic?), and Stephens, whose only goal in life is to please, realizes he needs to figure out how to banter with his new employer. Later in the novel he continues to wonder if that this is how many people interact with each other—perhaps this is also a version of small talk that he doesn’t understand? I do love his interaction when he is in the pub and he tries to offer a jest in response to the others in the inn and realizes later that perhaps using a cockerel as a response might not have been the smartest. My own sarcasm gets the best of me sometimes, and I often find myself wondering just like Stephens if I should have just remained quiet.
But this small episode is as good an illustration as any of the hazards of uttering witticism. By the very nature of a witticism, one is given very little time to assess its various possible repercussions before one it called to give voice to it, and one gravely risks uttering all manner of unsuitable things if one has not first acquired the necessary skill and experience. (p.131)
I found myself somewhat aggravated by his lack of awareness of the people around him. He’s a butler, so his job is to constantly be attentive to the needs of his employer—in most cases anticipating those needs. Yet, he was so oblivious to actual people. Consider his interactions with Miss Kenton and how she tried so hard to break through that butler facade and he just refused. His response to his father becoming ill and the subsequent effects of that. Even just the reality of this American who has come in and honestly couldn't care less about the forks at the table. Stephens holds so tightly to the way things were or are supposed to be because they always have been.
What happened with the Jewish housemaids was remarkable. His conversation with Miss Kenton over this is a perfect example of this sort of robotic, less human, response to life he feels he needs to have.
“Miss Kenton, I am surprised to find you reacting in this manner. Surely I don’t have to remind you that our professional duty is not to our own foibles and sentiments, but to the wishes of our employer.”
“There are many things you and I are simply not in a position to understand concerning, say, the nature of Jewry. Whereas his lordship, I might venture, is somewhat better placed to judge what is for the best.” (p.149)
She is begging him to see these housemaids, to really see them and he can’t or won’t. There’s this line of - the employer is always right and who is he as the butler to have any opinions? Is he driving home the idea that only the aristocracy can have opinions and the lower classes don’t have the wherewithal? Even in their conversation about this event at the end of the book, I don’t think he can fully admit this was wrong or that he handled it poorly. He only admits that Darlington realized it was wrong and therefore he is agreeing with him; not fostering his own opinion.
Everything he seems to do, every decision he seems to make, is purely based on making himself a better butler. Even his “pleasure” reading isn’t for pleasure. His conversation with Mr. Cardinal brings it all to a head when Cardinal is pushing him about curiousity. Stephens declares that’s not his place. How one could function in the world while snuffing curiosity is a mystery to me. It seems such a sad life.
But I suppose you wouldn’t Stephens, because you’re not curious. You just let all this go one before you and you never think to look at it for what it is. (p.223)
But all this leads to the question of who really is the narrator? We get glimpses of Stephen’s humanity even amidst his roboticness. This trip to visit Miss Kenton; he shrouds it with the idea that he’s merely going because he needs new staff, but he there are breakthrough moments where we see bits of care for her. When he talks of other butlers, there is a sense of camaraderie that he is missing.
There are moments where he is crying as he remembers. You have to work hard to pick up one those, but Stephens is a hard nut to crack and he’s trying hard for the reader not to see his humanity.
Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. After all, 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? (p.244)
Is he regretful?
Is meeting Miss Kenton stirring up (finally!) his soul?
Would he really have done things differently?
When I was younger I struggled so much with regret. We made so many decisions that seemed so rash and I would look back and wonder what and why had we done what we had done. It was so easy to cast blame for all the hardness when I wallowed in regret. As I’ve gotten older (hopefully wiser?) I think I’ve realized that regret and denial are bedbrothers. When I wallow in regret I’m denying the role I played in those decisions. When I sit and ponder what could or should have been, I’m denying where I’m at in that moment. There’s a point where memory is good, but it can so easily plummet us into regret.
I do love the ending scene with him sitting and waiting for the lights to come on. To join in the excitement with the others for this daily event. It does give us a small glimpse of the true Stephens.