Book Review- The Remains of the Day

For July's book pick, we read The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.   

The narrator of this book is a butler in a fairly prestigious house in England.  It's set some time after World War II, but I can't remember when.  He takes a short trip to persuade a former housekeeper to come back and work for him again.  On this trip, he reminisces about when they had worked together and about events that had happened in his life with his previous employer.

Stevens, the butler, was an odd man, in my opinion.  He had an extremely high opinion of his job and the "dignity" that went along with it, to the point of ruining all personal relationships he could have had.  

I didn't really get the book until the very end.  For awhile, I was like, where is this book going and what is the point?  But it all came together in the last couple of pages.  I did like the theme and the reminder that looking back in history is pointless because there's nothing you can do about it.  However, I feel like the main character, Stevens, needed to follow his own advice.  

I read this book just after I finished The Help.  My review of that book is here.  It was really interesting to compare the maids in The Help to Stevens in The Remains of the Day.  The expectations, family commitments, and social standings are extremely similar, but so different as well!  I could go on, but it wouldn't make a lot of sense if you haven't read both books.

All in all, this was a good book.  It was fairly easy to read, once you got over all the commas and no punctuation after abbreviated names!