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queenlua* Pithy summary: Kazuo Ishiguro read that Sartre bit about the waiter in the cafe, and was like, "this is an interesting thought experiment but I would like to turn it all the way to 11, and also the guy should be an English butler," and lo, a novel was born.
* More seriously, I went into this novel nearly totally blind: a few friends had told me that it was really really good, and I vaguely knew some of the likely themes based on some half-remembered commentary on one of Ishiguro's other novels, Never Let Me Go, years ago (some long explainer on why the British class system is apparently incomprehensible to Americans, iirc?). And I'm actually glad I went in with so little advance knowledge, because uh, if you google this title, even the politest summaries include what I'd consider a medium-sized, experience-dampening spoiler. (Not experience-ruining, just... dampening.) Ergo, anything remotely spoilery is going under a cut; read on thus cautioned!
* Going in blind as I was, I at first wondered if the novel was going for an almost magical-realist feel. Our butler, Mr. Stevens, opens by narrating The Duties Of A Butler, in such excruciating detail as to be a bit comic. His employer suggests he takes a vacation, and he decides it may be pleasant to drive across the country to catch up with a former coworker, who was a housekeeper alongside him for many years—purely in a professional capacity, of course; the estate could use an extra employee and Miss Kenton was an excellent professional, so maybe he can convince her to come back—and I was sort of chuckling and grinning like, ha ha, we get it, you've got the hots for her and you can't admit it, carry on, loverboy.
* And that bit of initial misapprehension made the minute-by-minute, page-by-page revelations of just how deeply repressed this dude is all the more jaw-dropping and horrifying. His father (also a professional servant-type) becomes old and starts having health issues, and all Mr. Stevens can talk about is how this affects the scheduling of duties in the manor. Then my eyebrows shot to the top of my head when Mr. Stevens took a moment to dispel the nasty, "untrue" rumors about his employer being anti-semitic... and then a bit later on we learn more about just how friendly said employer was with the Nazis and the fascists before WWII... and by the end you're just dragging your hand down your face like auuuughhhhh come on Mr. Stevens my dude snap out of iiiiiit
* Thus, this book had me simultaneously yelling "KISS THE GIRL," and also doing the sort of long-low-pained-moan that comes from reading a Greek tragedy where everything is so frustratingly inevitable even though you badly wish it weren't, and also dropping my jaw from time to time.
* It's also the kind of story that only works with the close-first-person unreliable-ish narrator thing that's going on. Only by being inside Mr. Stevens's head do we realize he's so repressed that he has almost no insight into his own emotional state; only by seeing the staggering lengths he goes to to deny his own agency or rationalize things, do we grasp how pitiful and awful that state is. Told from someone else's point of view, Mr. Stevens may well come across as uncaring, and even from Mr. Stevens own point of view, he may want you to think that, but that's so painfully not the case.
* The bit that stuck out in my mind the most, upon waking this morning, was an incident between Mr. Stevens and Ms. Kenton during their employment together (he's head butler dude, which means all the male staff are under his purview; she's head housekeeper, which means all the female staff are under her purview). Their employer, Lord Darlington, wants the two Jewish members of the staff fired. Mr. Stevens relates this news to Ms. Kenton impersonally, and Ms. Kenton is furious—calls it a sin, sure as sin can be, and says she'll quit if her two girls are fired. Mr. Stevens fires them anyway; Ms. Kenton is sulky and peevish for a good while, but stays on. A year later, the Lord mentions that he regrets firing the Jewish girls, and gives Mr. Stevens permission to try and reach out and apologize if possible. Mr. Stevens relates this to Ms. Kenton, and Ms. Kenton says "well gee Mr. Stevens, you didn't seem to mind them getting fired in the first place," and Mr. Stevens says "wait I actually thought it was a shit decision, I just didn't say so because it's not my role as a professional to throw shade on my employer"—
—and that's when Ms. Kenton gets really upset. She tells him: I fucking hated those girls getting fired. I thought so hard about quitting. And I couldn't quit, in the end, because I was too scared to try and find someplace else, too scared of winding up back home with my aunt who sucks to live with, too scared of all of that—it was pure cowardice on my part. And I thought I was all alone, and you're telling me this whole time you could've honestly said "I agree this is bullshit," and you didn't do that?
Mr. Stevens offers all kinds of justifications for his adherence to "professionalism" throughout the novel—insisting that, as a servant-class dude, the highest "impact" he can have in the world is by assisting and facilitating the "great" men who make the real choices that shape the world. And in some sort of base-utilitarian-calculus way, Mr. Stevens may well be right—it's the kind of choice a certain type o' New College Grad tends to agonize over when they're trying to decide which gigacorp could best use their talents. But, for fuck's sake, Miss Kenton example suggests, at least be honest with yourself about what you're doing, and try to speak up and reach out and break character where you can. Abstracting away an act of sin under the guise of professionalism is worse than just letting yourself feel the weight of the thing. Sometimes we make bad choices (free or unfree), and our choices fucking suck, but we should at least know they suck. Or, to use Mr. Stevens's preferred framing: maybe "dignity" lies in this kind of self-awareness.
* Something I need to chew on more: the various dimensions of what the book's wanting to say about professionalism. Mr. Stevens's misplaced sense of "professionalism" is obviously what leads to every missed opportunity for connection or real meaning in his entire life. But there's other professionals in the novel—the professional statesmen, who easily outfox old-timey Lord Darlington and use him for his own ends; the narrative comes across as somewhat conflicted about what to make of the decline of the nobility in the face of this new class of sharks. And a late-book encounter with a small-town normie guy who's really hype about local politics is similarly complicated—the dude's likable, engaged, but seemingly unaware of his own limitations, and possibly a bit silly or impractical in his political ideals. It's not that Ishiguro's implying this dude is stupid or pathetic; it's more that it's honestly examining the weird muddle that results from the mixture of earnest everyman democratic ideals with de-facto class barriers, and making you sit and stew uncomfortably with that for a bit.
* It was actually kind of interesting reading this one so soon after finishing Murata's Convenience Store Woman, since on a surface level they're very much about the same sort of thing—taking refuge in one's work, to the exclusion of other considerations—but they have such different attitudes toward the idea.
* There's apparently a... movie... of this novel...? I... can't imagine it's good? It seems like the kind of story that'd be so hard to tell outside the format of a novel, but, maybe they make it work?
* Anyway. It's hard to say I "enjoyed" this, even though I am in fact glad I read it. It's just that it's not enjoyable in the I-had-a-fun-rollicking-time sense; by the time I finished, I had the kind of gloomy mood that leads to pacing around one's own apartment and staring at random walls or flecks of dust overlong. But, y'know, in a good way.
* More seriously, I went into this novel nearly totally blind: a few friends had told me that it was really really good, and I vaguely knew some of the likely themes based on some half-remembered commentary on one of Ishiguro's other novels, Never Let Me Go, years ago (some long explainer on why the British class system is apparently incomprehensible to Americans, iirc?). And I'm actually glad I went in with so little advance knowledge, because uh, if you google this title, even the politest summaries include what I'd consider a medium-sized, experience-dampening spoiler. (Not experience-ruining, just... dampening.) Ergo, anything remotely spoilery is going under a cut; read on thus cautioned!
* Going in blind as I was, I at first wondered if the novel was going for an almost magical-realist feel. Our butler, Mr. Stevens, opens by narrating The Duties Of A Butler, in such excruciating detail as to be a bit comic. His employer suggests he takes a vacation, and he decides it may be pleasant to drive across the country to catch up with a former coworker, who was a housekeeper alongside him for many years—purely in a professional capacity, of course; the estate could use an extra employee and Miss Kenton was an excellent professional, so maybe he can convince her to come back—and I was sort of chuckling and grinning like, ha ha, we get it, you've got the hots for her and you can't admit it, carry on, loverboy.
* And that bit of initial misapprehension made the minute-by-minute, page-by-page revelations of just how deeply repressed this dude is all the more jaw-dropping and horrifying. His father (also a professional servant-type) becomes old and starts having health issues, and all Mr. Stevens can talk about is how this affects the scheduling of duties in the manor. Then my eyebrows shot to the top of my head when Mr. Stevens took a moment to dispel the nasty, "untrue" rumors about his employer being anti-semitic... and then a bit later on we learn more about just how friendly said employer was with the Nazis and the fascists before WWII... and by the end you're just dragging your hand down your face like auuuughhhhh come on Mr. Stevens my dude snap out of iiiiiit
* Thus, this book had me simultaneously yelling "KISS THE GIRL," and also doing the sort of long-low-pained-moan that comes from reading a Greek tragedy where everything is so frustratingly inevitable even though you badly wish it weren't, and also dropping my jaw from time to time.
* It's also the kind of story that only works with the close-first-person unreliable-ish narrator thing that's going on. Only by being inside Mr. Stevens's head do we realize he's so repressed that he has almost no insight into his own emotional state; only by seeing the staggering lengths he goes to to deny his own agency or rationalize things, do we grasp how pitiful and awful that state is. Told from someone else's point of view, Mr. Stevens may well come across as uncaring, and even from Mr. Stevens own point of view, he may want you to think that, but that's so painfully not the case.
* The bit that stuck out in my mind the most, upon waking this morning, was an incident between Mr. Stevens and Ms. Kenton during their employment together (he's head butler dude, which means all the male staff are under his purview; she's head housekeeper, which means all the female staff are under her purview). Their employer, Lord Darlington, wants the two Jewish members of the staff fired. Mr. Stevens relates this news to Ms. Kenton impersonally, and Ms. Kenton is furious—calls it a sin, sure as sin can be, and says she'll quit if her two girls are fired. Mr. Stevens fires them anyway; Ms. Kenton is sulky and peevish for a good while, but stays on. A year later, the Lord mentions that he regrets firing the Jewish girls, and gives Mr. Stevens permission to try and reach out and apologize if possible. Mr. Stevens relates this to Ms. Kenton, and Ms. Kenton says "well gee Mr. Stevens, you didn't seem to mind them getting fired in the first place," and Mr. Stevens says "wait I actually thought it was a shit decision, I just didn't say so because it's not my role as a professional to throw shade on my employer"—
—and that's when Ms. Kenton gets really upset. She tells him: I fucking hated those girls getting fired. I thought so hard about quitting. And I couldn't quit, in the end, because I was too scared to try and find someplace else, too scared of winding up back home with my aunt who sucks to live with, too scared of all of that—it was pure cowardice on my part. And I thought I was all alone, and you're telling me this whole time you could've honestly said "I agree this is bullshit," and you didn't do that?
Mr. Stevens offers all kinds of justifications for his adherence to "professionalism" throughout the novel—insisting that, as a servant-class dude, the highest "impact" he can have in the world is by assisting and facilitating the "great" men who make the real choices that shape the world. And in some sort of base-utilitarian-calculus way, Mr. Stevens may well be right—it's the kind of choice a certain type o' New College Grad tends to agonize over when they're trying to decide which gigacorp could best use their talents. But, for fuck's sake, Miss Kenton example suggests, at least be honest with yourself about what you're doing, and try to speak up and reach out and break character where you can. Abstracting away an act of sin under the guise of professionalism is worse than just letting yourself feel the weight of the thing. Sometimes we make bad choices (free or unfree), and our choices fucking suck, but we should at least know they suck. Or, to use Mr. Stevens's preferred framing: maybe "dignity" lies in this kind of self-awareness.
* Something I need to chew on more: the various dimensions of what the book's wanting to say about professionalism. Mr. Stevens's misplaced sense of "professionalism" is obviously what leads to every missed opportunity for connection or real meaning in his entire life. But there's other professionals in the novel—the professional statesmen, who easily outfox old-timey Lord Darlington and use him for his own ends; the narrative comes across as somewhat conflicted about what to make of the decline of the nobility in the face of this new class of sharks. And a late-book encounter with a small-town normie guy who's really hype about local politics is similarly complicated—the dude's likable, engaged, but seemingly unaware of his own limitations, and possibly a bit silly or impractical in his political ideals. It's not that Ishiguro's implying this dude is stupid or pathetic; it's more that it's honestly examining the weird muddle that results from the mixture of earnest everyman democratic ideals with de-facto class barriers, and making you sit and stew uncomfortably with that for a bit.
* It was actually kind of interesting reading this one so soon after finishing Murata's Convenience Store Woman, since on a surface level they're very much about the same sort of thing—taking refuge in one's work, to the exclusion of other considerations—but they have such different attitudes toward the idea.
* There's apparently a... movie... of this novel...? I... can't imagine it's good? It seems like the kind of story that'd be so hard to tell outside the format of a novel, but, maybe they make it work?
* Anyway. It's hard to say I "enjoyed" this, even though I am in fact glad I read it. It's just that it's not enjoyable in the I-had-a-fun-rollicking-time sense; by the time I finished, I had the kind of gloomy mood that leads to pacing around one's own apartment and staring at random walls or flecks of dust overlong. But, y'know, in a good way.
