The Remains of the Day

The Remains of the Day
-Kazuo Ishiguro
　
What makes a great butler?

Stevens ponders the question afresh as he travels.
"Dignity," undoubtedly, is his reply. It is the hallmark of every great butler. Still, dignity alone is not a satisfactory answer. Further thought begs the question: What is dignity? Many long hours have been spent before, meditating on the question of dignity, but it presents itself to him again as he drives.

It is his first vacation from Darlington Hall, where he has served faithfully for thirty years. Presumably to document the English countryside he’s so pleased to finally see for himself, he makes the trip with a journal close at hand. No sooner is his journey underway than he finds himself preoccupied with reflections on his career.　

Taking advantage of the opportunity to rest and collect his thoughts, Stevens begins to write. Pause between thought is necessary when keeping a journal, in order so the pencil may keep up with the mind. Somewhere in those quiet spaces when the mind is still and fingers busied, new thoughts take the opportunity to arise, presenting angles never considered before. Stevens reiterates ideas apparently long held, as if subconsciously trying to persuade himself of something, or keep himself from thinking deeper on matters already decided. Not quite defensively, he repeats statements which would deny himself as an individual, instead assigning all areas of his life to the jurisdiction of himself as a butler.

Very little is mentioned of the splendid scenery. Instead, we find his journal dominated by reminiscence of the past, and solemn consideration of his present situation. His written thoughts show little emotion; he analyzes past and present with an impersonal sort of impartiality, almost as though he were no person of his own, and solely Lord Darlington’s butler.

But somewhere under what, casually observed, would be read as indifference, an undertone vulnerably human comes through. The lines are calm and collected, strictly professional, but read between them and perhaps there can be found whispers of creeping doubt, and faint echoes of something that might once have been love.

Allowing new thoughts to arise could shed a new light on all he has known. What if he were to see things differently? It might prove things to be something other than he’s believed. A man told Stevens that one cannot have dignity without freedom, and the ability to think and choose for one‘s self. His life was dedicated in it’s entirety to the service of Lord Darlington. Now, since His Lordship’s death, what has Stevens left to show of his own?

The House of the Seven Gables

Today, I picked up my book with a resolute determination to make some headway.
(pretty book, isn't it?) After trifling with the introductory chapters, and feeling as though the story was trying to escape me, I decided to just buckle down and dig in. If the story wasn't going to show itself, I was going to find it.

Buckle down I did. Previously I had read more than I assumed I had - turns out, I was already halfway through. So, today I finished it. 11 or so chapters.

The plot revolves around the House of the Seven Gables and the ancestral curse said to plague all offspring of the builder thereof. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Despite the mysterious secrets lying undiscovered in the souls of certain characters, the house itself, dark and decaying, so like its cursed inhabitants, and the two young people, come to stay at the House, so unlike, yet "held united by the stiffened grasp of Death", I was not intrigued.

A good book pulls you in, draws you into the life of the characters, tugs at you to keep reading until the end. Sadly, I felt as though I were plowing through this book. "Keep going, there's only 5 chapters left. I can do this!" Usually when I read, I get so absorbed in the story that I lose all track of chapter breaks. Not so this time. I kept waiting to be intrigued, and it just never happened.

However, I pulled a few quotes I really like from the depressing depths of this dark drama:

"...it should be woman's office to move in the midst of practical affairs and to gild them all, the very homeliest - were it even the scouring of pots and kettles - with an atmosphere of loveliness and joy." (written in contemplation of young Phoebe Pyncheon)

How idyllic! I should wish to do just such. Too bad I'm not a character in a book. We real life people don't usually pull that off so well.

"It was the Eden of a thundersmitten Adam, who had fled for refuge thither out of the same dreary and perilous wilderness into which the original Adam was expelled." (description of the gardens in which aged, troubled Clifford found solace)

I should mention that Clifford, upon gazing into Maule's Well, beheld a colorful "phantasmagoria" -shifting faces, mostly beautiful ones. Any joy in these visions was fleeting, though, for a horrible, gruesome face would always appear and ruin the splendor he found in the rippling water. (Hm. I think that was supposed to be a picture of his life. This book had lots of metaphory type stuff.)

I just had to throw that in there because I'd never heard the word phantasmagoria before and thought it was awesome.

"She knocked a third time, three regular strokes, gentle, but perfectly distinct, and with meaning in them; for, modulate it with what cautious art we will, the hand cannot help playing some tune of what we feel upon the senseless wood."
(Hepzibah Pyncheon, aflutter in alarm, knocking upon the door of her brother's chamber)

So, it is finished. I have conquered the House of the Seven Gables.
No longer shall its shadow fall over the stack of other books I've planned to read this summer. ;-)

Just finished

Villette by Charlotte Brontë

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Brilliantly written, full of feeling and detail, Villette follows the story of Miss Lucy Snow, told in her own words.

Quiet, observant Miss Snow recounts her life for us in detail, and with feeling. Through the secret sorrow of unrequited love, through the joy of finding true friends, through confusion, and restless torment of waiting fulfillment of things still a mystery, we see into the depths of her character. We find her pain, loneliness, happiness, and hope, all underscored with steady, forbearing inner strength.

(I listened to this book on CD - narrated by Davina Porter. Excellently narrated. Her reading did justice to Charlotte Bronte's novel. Highly recommended.)

View all my reviews.

Til We Have Faces -a book review

Til We Have Faces was written beautifully. The characters were real, the story believable, passionate, and gripping.

I set about reading this not knowing what to expect, having pulled it off the library shelf without knowing a thing about it. I didn't know it was a retelling of Cupid and Psyche until halfway through, when I read it somewhere. I'm unfamiliar with it, but I like myths.
Strangely enough, though, I felt very unsatisfied when I reached the end of the book. I felt as though it had no definite meaning or resolve. Of course it had a moral. It was full of philosophy and theology, all about the conflicts of emotion and knowledge, the spiritual and physical.
Somehow it just felt to me that after all the conflict, it simply ended with few enlightened, and everyone dead.

Of course, this is coming from a happy-ever-after lover. So, take it with a grain of salt.