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A review by matconnor
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
5.0
The Remains of the Day is the scariest book I’ve ever read.
That might seem like an odd statement to make because on the surface this novel is just about a butler calmly looking back on his life. He’s not a creepy murderous butler or secretly a ghost or anything like that. He’s a polite and committed butler, a little repressed and overly formal, but harmless and well-meaning.
My case for this being a horror novel is that—unlike ghosts, monsters, and vampires—this book touches on ideas that can actually haunt you in life: lost opportunities, regret, the indignities of aging, and the feeling that you’ve either wasted your life or didn’t meet your full potential.
Mr Stevens, the butler protagonist, looks back on his life and slowly realizes that he missed many opportunities to break out of his comfort zone and lead a more fulfilling, happier life.
A good book club discussion would be to ask the participants if they felt the ending was hopeful or hopeless. The right answer is probably a bit of both, but I bet the answers would tell a lot about each person and lead to an interesting discussion.
I read this book during the pandemic lockdown and I remember the depressing feeling I had when I finished. I would have said then (and probably now) that Mr Stevens clearly wasted his life and that any hopeful feelings he expressed at the end is just more self delusion to help him cope with that realization.
This book did leave me with a hopeful feeling though, because I made the decision there and then to be more open to new experiences, to be more willing to take risks and escape my comfort zone. I look back on the person I was when I finished that book and the person I am now and I’d make the case that this is one of the most positive, life-affirming novels I’ve ever read. Any novel that can scare you into improving your life is special.
This is a novel I think everyone should read at some point. Hopefully not too early in life before you are ready to absorb its lessons, but that would still be better than reading it too late.
That might seem like an odd statement to make because on the surface this novel is just about a butler calmly looking back on his life. He’s not a creepy murderous butler or secretly a ghost or anything like that. He’s a polite and committed butler, a little repressed and overly formal, but harmless and well-meaning.
My case for this being a horror novel is that—unlike ghosts, monsters, and vampires—this book touches on ideas that can actually haunt you in life: lost opportunities, regret, the indignities of aging, and the feeling that you’ve either wasted your life or didn’t meet your full potential.
Mr Stevens, the butler protagonist, looks back on his life and slowly realizes that he missed many opportunities to break out of his comfort zone and lead a more fulfilling, happier life.
A good book club discussion would be to ask the participants if they felt the ending was hopeful or hopeless. The right answer is probably a bit of both, but I bet the answers would tell a lot about each person and lead to an interesting discussion.
I read this book during the pandemic lockdown and I remember the depressing feeling I had when I finished. I would have said then (and probably now) that Mr Stevens clearly wasted his life and that any hopeful feelings he expressed at the end is just more self delusion to help him cope with that realization.
This book did leave me with a hopeful feeling though, because I made the decision there and then to be more open to new experiences, to be more willing to take risks and escape my comfort zone. I look back on the person I was when I finished that book and the person I am now and I’d make the case that this is one of the most positive, life-affirming novels I’ve ever read. Any novel that can scare you into improving your life is special.
This is a novel I think everyone should read at some point. Hopefully not too early in life before you are ready to absorb its lessons, but that would still be better than reading it too late.