The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - [PDF download] - Books Focus
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

The Remains of the Day

By Kazuo Ishiguro

  • Release Date: 1989-09-23
  • Genre: Literary Fiction
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 726 Ratings
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Description

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, here is “an intricate and dazzling novel” (The New York Times) about the perfect butler and his fading, insular world in post-World War II England.
 
This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of a butler named Stevens. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.

Reviews

  • Beautiful

    5
    By Loom muffin
    Reserved yet with so much underlying poignancy

  • My favorite novel of all time

    5
    By JJ bbghtf
    I came across this book years ago, working in a library. I hadn’t yet seen the movie and it really felt like I walked into someone’s world. This is a fascinating look at a character that feels so real and a time so different from ours. It’s like reading someone else’s journal and it comes to life. Maybe this is one of the greatest books of all time.

  • Almost unbearably beautiful and meaningful

    5
    By k10ca
    My beloved, favorite author brings to life the inner life of a character. We see what this man, cut off from himself, is unconscious of. And through the eyes of other characters, we come to see what we were unaware of—the character’s capacity to eventually see himself and to connect with his own emotional life. I wish I could express how moving this book is, this window into another person’s mind and life. Made me think a great deal about what I know and don’t know about my own interiority. And on top of all this, Remains of the Day is riveting. I just couldn’t put it down. I hope you read it.

  • Enjoyable quick read

    5
    By MeleeCyrus
    Fairly standard plot that ventures on absurdism, but well-written and full of subtle charm. Would read again.

  • Great Novel

    5
    By what32
    Intuitive novel about the Everyman who all too often day in and day out works a job in pursuit of praise but often with a blind eye to love,hate and life going around them . Thought provoking and a devastating read.

  • Such a sad and human story

    5
    By epopovitz
    I love his unreliable narrators. always beautiful and heart breaking.

  • The Remains of the Day

    4
    By Marine wife 17
    Great read. Enjoy what time you have left! Do not live on the past, learn from it if not it will effect your future!

  • we are all butlers!

    5
    By Hojjat
    The story that shows how we are all butlers and may ignore important life events because we are busy serving others! May be figuring out how to enjoy, the remains of our days left!

  • Depressing

    3
    By Kat1959 22
    Okay, I cannot argue with the writing, perfect. It's the story! Awful. Really depressing. It wen on and on for pages. When suddenly I thought there was hope, hope for a story, it stopped. By the last 50 pages I got what was going on, but seriously? Not an enjoyable book. I only read this because the Internet had some story about books you should read. I had read half of them, so thought I would give his a go. Really good writing, story within a story, just a really boring story.

  • Buried giant

    5
    By Silver zone
    The themes in this book echo recurring themes from the writer's other books. For example the mist arises just as it did in buried giant, obscuring the world as tHey know it.

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