The Remains of the Day: Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (Vintage International) - Softcover

Ishiguro, Kazuo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679731725 ISBN 13: 9780679731726

Publisher: Vintage, 2017

Synopsis

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, here is the universally acclaimed novel--winner of the Booker Prize and the basis for an award-winning film.

This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect butler, and of his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. 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.

About this title

Review:

The novel's narrator, Stevens, is a perfect English butler who tries to give his narrow existence form and meaning through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession. In a career that spans the second world war, Stevens is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him--oblivious, for instance, of the fact that his aristocrat employer is a Nazi sympathizer. Still, there are even larger matters at stake in this heartbreaking, beautifully crafted novel-- namely, Stevens' own ability to allow some bit of life-affirming love into his tightly repressed existence.

Review:

"An intricate and dazzling novel." --The New York Times

"Brilliant and quietly devastating." --Newsweek

"A virtuoso performance ... put on with dazzling daring and aplomb." --The New York Review of Books

"A perfect novel. I couldn't put it down." --Ann Beattie

"The novel rests firmly on the narrative sophistication and flawless control of tone ... of a most impressive novelist." --Julian Barnes

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0679731725
• ISBN 13: 9780679731726
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256