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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
reflective
medium-paced
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Antisemitism, Classism
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.5.
ESP:
Ha sido una lectura exquisita y llena de detalles, una narración pausada y que te conduce inevitablemente a la reflexión. Además muy original en el sentido de que vemos con los ojos de un mayordomo inglés, algo no tan común en la literatura. Si no le doy más nota y para mí no llega al 4 es porque no siento que haya una trama en sí. No sé a dónde quería llegar el autor. Entiendo que es un libro sobre reflexiones del pasado y lo que para el protagonista significa la dignidad, pero a lo largo de la trama no pasa gran cosa, y eso hace que el libro pueda ser lento. Sin embargo, sí que me ha gustado mucho la pluma de Kazuo y espero leer algo más de este autor.
ENG:
It was an exquisite read, full of details, a slow narrative that inevitably leads you to reflection. It is also very original in the sense that we see through the eyes of an English butler, something not so common in literature. If I don't give it a higher mark till 4, it's because I don't feel that there is a plot per se. I don't know what the author was getting at. I understand that it is a book about reflections on the past and what dignity means to the protagonist, but nothing much happens throughout the plot, and that makes the book slow. However, I really enjoyed Kazuo's style and I hope to read more from this author.
ESP:
Ha sido una lectura exquisita y llena de detalles, una narración pausada y que te conduce inevitablemente a la reflexión. Además muy original en el sentido de que vemos con los ojos de un mayordomo inglés, algo no tan común en la literatura. Si no le doy más nota y para mí no llega al 4 es porque no siento que haya una trama en sí. No sé a dónde quería llegar el autor. Entiendo que es un libro sobre reflexiones del pasado y lo que para el protagonista significa la dignidad, pero a lo largo de la trama no pasa gran cosa, y eso hace que el libro pueda ser lento. Sin embargo, sí que me ha gustado mucho la pluma de Kazuo y espero leer algo más de este autor.
ENG:
It was an exquisite read, full of details, a slow narrative that inevitably leads you to reflection. It is also very original in the sense that we see through the eyes of an English butler, something not so common in literature. If I don't give it a higher mark till 4, it's because I don't feel that there is a plot per se. I don't know what the author was getting at. I understand that it is a book about reflections on the past and what dignity means to the protagonist, but nothing much happens throughout the plot, and that makes the book slow. However, I really enjoyed Kazuo's style and I hope to read more from this author.
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Quick thoughts:
- First Ishiguro and love his use of language
- Love a diary, esp with a male narrator
- You ever be so busy
you’re not with your dad when he passes away even though you’re in the same house?! - Incredibly meditative, thought provoking, perfect for the end of summer
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
reflective
sad
medium-paced
What appears to be a novel about one butler’s motor excursion through the English countryside becomes an entirely different novel when read through the words he leaves unspoken. Butler Stevens reminisces on his time serving the late Lord Darlington in a prose as constructed and precise as the silverware he polishes or the table he sets. But Stevens’s facade of self-assurance has notable cracks that break his deceivingly seamless narrative from the first chapter. Ishiguro manipulates Stevens’s language to incite contradictions and uncertainties, creating a narrative of unreliability that is built upon his repression (or perhaps conscious removal) of all emotion or feeling, thereby rendering any “truth” to his words and stories inaccessible to the reader. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the dreamlike fragmentation of Stevens's memories, and the sporadic manner in which they are told, seem to have made him the most ideal literary subject of Freudian psychoanalysis, specifically as Freud understands “the dream”: to gather up the indifferent residues of the day which turn out to be wishes or fears unacknowledged. And like the psychoanalytic subject, Stevens is perpetually divided between the truth of the past and the memories he has conveniently constructed to preserve his “dignity.” It is a story of sadness that is understated until the final few chapters, when Stevens reunites with Miss Keaton, the woman who threatens this very dignity he fights to preserve, and the prospect of their unrealized relationship is both introduced and abolished in the same page. A great book with many layers that I would recommend to anyone.