f7d9395c_atings_and_reviews___Gwern_net__Review
[Title] The Remains of the Day [Author] Kazuo Ishiguro [Rating] ★★★★★ [Year] 2005 [Read] 2012/07/21 [Review] 
Of Ishiguro’s novels, this is the most elegant, most restrained, and most English. The prose is so smooth that like Gene Wolfe’s, it becomes invisible, and you pass through it to the slow silent sorrow of the protagonist. Ishiguro makes the tragedy clear enough, shows us the heart of the story, but without ever being gauche. In July 2012, I re-read it and for good measure, I watched the movie too. (The movie, IMO, was pretty good with excellent casting, if unfortunately often blunter than the novel and the ending especially so.) What struck me this time through was the ending of the novel: the butler has come to realize that his life has been suboptimal and less joyful than it could have been because he shunned Miss Kenton and denied his emotions out of a misguided sense of professionalism. But instead of the typical Hollywood ending where he woos Miss Kenton or quits his job etc, he realizes that it really is too late: his and Miss Kenton’s day is almost over, and the important thing to do is make the most of ‘the remains of the day’, which for him is returning to his butlering job but being less rigid and more human. It is, in other words, a beautiful tale of not honoring sunk costs or pursuing lost opportunities.
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