In postwar England, an upstanding English butler embarks on a road trip through the English countryside—his first vacation in decades. While this butler, whom we come to know as “Mr. Stevens,” initially reflects upon his many years of service to the great Lord Darlington with confidence and satisfaction, inklings of doubt and shame creep into his conscience as he moves from town to town. Stevens’ poignant, yet hopeful story touches on the pitfalls of pride, the intricacies of memory, and the painful realities that aging brings to light.
While much of the book is spent immersed in Stevens’ detailed memories of Darlington Hall in its prime, Stevens is a very opaque character. He looks back on his service years and his relationships with his staff—housekeeper Miss Kenton, in particular—with a degree of objectivity that seems to mask sadness, guilt, and contempt. Stevens meditates thoroughly upon the characteristics of “dignity” and what it means to bring this quality to one’s profession as a butler, yet we gradually get the impression that the narrative he tells himself about contributing to society by serving a “distinguished gentleman” is not fully convincing. In particular, cracks in Stevens’ polished facade emerge when he reflects upon his personal interactions with Miss Kenton—many of which he approached with an unsettling lack of empathy—and the tensions that bubbled up with his declining father, who once was a butler himself. And what of Lord Darlington, whose moral compass was never as intact as Stevens makes it out to be?
Some moments from the book that stood out to me most are Stevens’ recollections of his father’s behavior. After asking his father to step down from his post as under-butler at Darlington Hall due to a stumble, Stevens glimpses the man repeatedly ascending and descending the steps he fell on outside, trying in vain to regain the grace he once took pride in. This pathetic state is somewhat paralleled in Stevens’ present life as he tries and fails to maintain his long-held opinions on the principles of service, the impossibility of democracy, and the centrality of the “great houses” of Britain outside the walls of Darlington Hall. Like a physically aging person frantically clinging to their former vitality, Stevens finds that his aging perspective cannot be sustained in the evolving world that confronts him along his road trip.
With an engrossing character arc unfolding along winding English roads, Ishiguro demonstrates his skill in depicting the relentless passage of time and humanity’s ability to recall, reframe, and retool the past. Stevens has the same “growing pains” that many of us do when faced with a difficult reality that alters our staunchly held beliefs; for this reason, he touched me deeply. As we grow older and the relentless change surrounding us feels impossible to keep up with, how will we handle the remains of each day we have left?
