Title: The Remains of the Day
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Original language: English
Translation(s): 47 languages
Context: The Remains of the Day (1989) is a translated novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. The novel is for anyone who has never expressed their love to the one they love and have ever held back their real feelings.
Synopsis: The story, an elusive masterpiece about the ageing butler in quiet desperation is set in the summer of 1956. At Darlington Hall, a long-serving butler named Stevens plans to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The excursion which he goes for six days turns out to be a journey into the past of England and Stevens. This past takes in an unsuccessful love between Steven and the housekeeper, two world wars and political regime. Stevens has a very long record of services as butler at a stately home Darlington Hall, close to Oxford.
Other works by the Author:
Private agonies of the ageing butler are so movingly presented and executed by the author in the novel, Remains of the Day. The novel is perceptive about the kind of life led by so many similar kinds of people over the world. Propriety has burdened the butler so badly that he is ready to allow the love of his life slip through his fingers.
The chief of staff, Mr. Stevens sets out to meet the housekeeper, Miss Kenton who wanted to get married and had left 2 decades ago. Steven wants to find out if she is keen in rejoining work again. Miss Kenton with her exemplary professionalism has a lot of affection for the house. Stevens felt that if she joined back then this would help accomplish the staff plans for Darlington Hall. However he comes to know through hints in Miss Kenton’s letter that her marriage will no longer sustain.
Novels
1982 – A Pale View of Hills
1986 – An Artist of the Floating World
1995 – The Unconsoled
2000 – When We Were Orphans
2005 – Never Let Me Go
2015 – The Buried Giant
2021 – Klara and the Sun
Short-story collections
2009 – Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
Screenplays
1984 – A Profile of Arthur J. Mason
1987 – The Gourmet
2003 – The Saddest Music in the World
2005 – The White Countess
Short Fiction
1981 – A Strange and Sometimes Sadness
1983 – A Family Supper
1983 – Summer After the War
1985 – October 1948
2001 – A Village After Dark