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A review by savaging
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
4.0
So there's a pedantic butler waxing nostalgic: this has to be boring. This IS boring. But -- don't ask me how -- Ishiguro takes these dull words and injects them with perpetual tension. Class distinctions become class tension. Plus romantic tension, political tension, dramatic irony. I'm left feeling I've read an important, masterful book, but unable to explain why or how.
No: I have one explanation for its importance. This is a book about normalizing fascism. About doing your job and acting with dignity and not letting something unseemly show up on your face or come out of your mouth. About trusting the 'great ones' to know best. About the heroic effort of a person repressing love and grief and criticism, and calling it triumph.
We live now in a Great Normalization of Fascism. Don't be a Mr. Stevens. Remove your clothes in public.
No: I have one explanation for its importance. This is a book about normalizing fascism. About doing your job and acting with dignity and not letting something unseemly show up on your face or come out of your mouth. About trusting the 'great ones' to know best. About the heroic effort of a person repressing love and grief and criticism, and calling it triumph.
We live now in a Great Normalization of Fascism. Don't be a Mr. Stevens. Remove your clothes in public.