A Servant of Self-Deceit

...An Artist of the Floating World, Ishiguro's second novel, explored a similar problem by examining the conscience of a painter who had supported Imperial Japan's expansionist policies in the years leading up to World War II...

...He is serving port to the guests when Lord Darlington approaches: "'Stevens, are you all right?' '"Yes, sir...

...His narrators make excuses, keep secrets, tell lies...

...It soon becomes apparent, however, that the past, not the present, is what weighs most heavily on Stevens' mind...

...In spite of these denials—made, Stevens explains, for the sake of his career —the butler would like to believe his lordship was not all that bad...

...His new work as well exhibits a special ability to create characters who embody the difficulties of ethical situations that occur in the twilight region between right and wrong...

...His father, too, plays an important role...

...Like most of the information Ishiguro dispenses early on, though, this turns out to be considerably less than the whole picture...

...Few writers dare to say so little of what they mean as Ishiguro...

...That his standard is indeed high is demonstrated by a story Stevens' butler-father was fond of telling...

...The aging butler is at first resistant...

...Thus Stevens claims Lord Darlington dismissed two Jewish maids not out of anti-Semitism, but because he was manipulated by a strong-willed friend who belonged to Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists...

...In Stevens' initial recollections he is a "shy and modest" man with "a deep sense of moral duty...

...Then he decides to tour England with the idea of ultimately contacting a former housekeeper he recently heard from and persuading her to return to Darlington Hall to help him handle its current problems, which he believes are the result of a cutback in staff...

...Following orders, after all, is what a butler is supposed to do...

...Nevertheless, his lordship continued his efforts to bring the Nazis and the British government together—and Stevens continued to assist...

...Afterward, Darlington asked if it was possible for Stevens to get the girls back...

...The butler had left the dining room quietly, taking care to close the doors behind him, and proceeded calmly to the drawing room where his employer was taking tea with a number of visitors...

...Stevens labors to construct a wall against his regrets by imagining himself one of the world's greatest butlers—but in the end it is self-deceit he serves more than any proprietor of Darlington Hall...

...History itself, weeventually learn, is the beast beneath the dining table at Darlington Hall, where he has been employed since he was a young man...

...Miss Kenton reports one instance where the old man was "proceeding very slowly towards the dining room with his tray, and I am afraid I observed clearly a large drop on the end of his nose dangling over the soup bowls...

...When the butler reappeared in the drawing room some time afterwards to refresh the teapots, the employer had inquired if all was well...

...But when we come upon St evens he is up against more than amere tiger...

...Slowly and carefully he lays bare the butler's inner thoughts, intertwining past and present, truth and evasion, seeming at times to meander yet inevitably closing in on the series of admissions at the novel's heart...

...Brought on to the Darlington staff in old age, his presence soon creates an uncomfortable situation...

...contributor, "Massachusetts Review, " "Story Quarterly" Kazuo Ishiguro takes his time...

...He likes to think himself as competent and imperturbable as his celebrated forebears—butlers in the great houses of England's past...

...Perhaps you will permit the twelve-bores to be used?' "And according to legend, a few minutes later, the employer and his guests heard three gun shots...

...Indeed—why should I not admit it?—at that moment, my heart was breaking.' It is as big a confession as Stevens makes, and one of the few occasions where he reveals himself...

...In one of the novel's central scenes, Stevens tries to keep the house running smoothly for a score of visitors while his father is dying...

...The sequence of events shows off Ishiguro's narrative deftness at its best...

...Perfectly fine, thank you, sir,' had come the reply...

...It is worth pointing out," Stevens argues defensively, "that his lordship had by that time severed all links with the 'blackshirts,' having witnessed the true, ugly nature of that organization...

...It is to those days that Stevens' thoughts constantly return as he makes his way through the English countryside to his rendezvous with the housekeeper, Miss Kenton...

...We already have our suspicions by the time (more than halfway through the book) Stevens gets around to mentioning the visit to Darlington Hall of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's ambassador to Britain...

...He has been unprotestingly obedient throughout his life, and he now finds himself full of regret and struggling to give voice to his feelings...

...There he attracted his employer's attention with a polite cough, then whispered in the latter's ear: 'I'm very sorry, sir, but there appears to be a tiger in the dining room...

...In both books, to his further credit, he avoids reaching for simple answers...

...Lord Darlington, of course, is another vivid figure...

...In his two previous novels, A Pale View of Hills and An Artist of the Floating World, this Japanese-born, British-educated writer expertly made use of gradual disclosure to build subtly plotted works whose main characters were convincingly complex...

...The Remains of the Day has similar qualities...

...Lord Darlington, it seems, is an advocate of Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement, and thus an unwitting abettor of the Nazi cause as he introduces Ribbentrop to high-ranking British politicians...

...A feisty woman, appearing always to be at odds with the more restrained Stevens, Miss Kenton is oneofahandful of people prominent in the butler's memory...

...Stevens is neither hero nor villain...

...His tale is an account of Stevens confronting his moral and his emotional emptiness...

...The butler] had entered the dining room to make sure all was well for dinner, when he noticed a tiger languishing beneath the dining table...

...The current owner of the estate, an American businessman, offers Stevens the use of his car and a few days off...

...Although the book is set in the mid1950s, what Stevens recalls happened 20 years before, when Lord Darlington was still master of Darlington Hall and the guests were aristocratic nabobs in the last years of the British Empire...

...Its narrator is an English butler named Stevens, a kind of troubled Jeeves...

...The elder Stevens is senile, which his son refuses to acknowledge but others cannot help noticing...

...After he is disgraced, Stevens disavows any connection to his former employer whenever Darlington's name is mentioned to him...

...Yet Ishiguro has made Stevens compelling, and his story—not quite farce, not quite tragedy—is often funny, always entertaining, and surprisingly moving...

...One of the major issues a reading of The Remains of the Day brings to mind again and again concerns the perennial question of personal responsibility for actions carried out at the behest of the state...

...Perfectly.' "'You look as though you're crying.'" Stevens takes out his handkerchief as if responding to a command and wipes his eyes, making no admission of sadness or loss...

...While driving he begins to reminisce, mull over his regrets, make his apologies and, finally to attempt to justify his life...

...The novel is rich with examples of the contortions it is possible to go through to rationalize past errors...

...Moreover, as you might appreciate, their implications were such as to provoke a certain degree of sorrow within me...

...A poignant—and economical—example of what he has forfeited is his reaction when Miss Kenton tells him that she might have spent her life with him, instead of marrying and leaving Darlington Hall: "I do not think I responded immediately, for it took me a moment or two to fully digest these words of Miss Kenton...

...Dinner will be served at the usual time and I am pleased to say there will be no discernible traces left of the recent occurrence by that time.'" Stevens has the proper attitude and training, and his diction is impeccable —one of Ishiguro's achievements is the way he sustains the formal tone of the above passage (while maintaining our interest) throughout...

...If a person of consequence like Darlington could commit such folly, how could Stevens be expected to rise to a superior morality...

...Usually, the butler's feelings are hidden in painfully correct periphrasis, or refracted in dialogue spoken by other characters...