by Kazuo Ishiguro, 1988
Winner of the Booker Prize in 1989
About Mr. Stevens, an English butler for “Darlington Hall. His whole adult life was spent (wasted?) on becoming and being the perfect butler. He misses being with his father (who was also a perfect butler) as he dies (in a small attic room like a prison cell) because he needs to be at a dinner party and the beck and call of the guests. He misses seeing that Miss Kenton, the housekeeper, is in love with him. She marries someone else and leaves Darlington Hall and he misses their times drinking cocoa in her parlour discussing the day.
He never even leaves the grounds until his new master, an American named Farraday, advises him to take his car and see the English countryside. He takes him up on the offer and drives to see Miss Kenton, Mrs. Benn now. It’s been about 20+ years since he’s seen her and he tells himself from a letter she wrote, that her marriage is over and she wants to come back to Darlington Hall. He reminisces as he drives and sees things he has never seen before. We learn that his former master, Lord Darlington, whom he respected to the utmost, was actually trying to get England to side with Hitler. He explains it as a good heart who was still operating under his first conviction that the world (England and especially France) were too hard on Germany after WWI. That was his first “cause.”
Anticipation builds in the reader as he gets closer to meeting Miss Kenton because you realize after all this reminiscing that he completely and totally gave his life to this Lord Darlington and now that he’s dead, you are hoping he can finally have a life of his own with the woman he obviously has loved, but would never admit to himself that he had that emotion, or any other emotion.
When he finally meets with her, in a tea room in Little Compton, Cornwall, it is to find out that she is not leaving her husband. She is expecting her first grandchild and she will go back to him. But she does admit that she left her husband 3 times and when she first married, she didn’t love him. She really loved Mr. Stevens – he never saw it. The last chapter, Mr. Stevens is in Weymouth, a seaside town. He is sitting on a bench waiting for evening to come and the lights of the pier to be turned on. An old man sits next to him and they strike up a conversation – Mr. Stevens laments that he’s not able to be as good a butler to Mr. Farraday as he was to Lord Darlington – he keeps making trivial errors. He laments that he gave it all to Lord Darlington – his best – and Lord Darlington ended up being misguided – but Mr. Stevens had trusted him. “All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?'” The old man comforts him, tells him not to look in the past so much. “The evening’s the best part of the day.”
“…the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day. Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day.” He hears a group of people behind him oohing and aahing over the pier lights and realizes they are a group of strangers come together to enjoy the lights. “As I watch them now, they are laughing together merrily. It is curious how people can build such warmth among themselves so swiftly. It is possible these particular persons are simply united by the anticipation of the evening ahead. But, then, I rather fancy it has more to do with this skill of bantering.”
He started out the book with the idea that his new master, the American Farraday, wanted to banter with him and he had absolutely no idea how to do it. He ends the book: “After all, when one thinks about it, it is not such a foolish thing to indulge in – particularly if it is the case that in bantering lies the key to human warmth.
“It occurs to me, furthermore, that bantering is hardly an unreasonable duty for an employer to expect a professional to perform. I have of course already devoted much time to developing my bantering skills, but it is possible I have never previously approached the task with the commitment I might have done. Perhaps then, when I return to Darlington Hall tomorrow – Mr. Farraday will not himself be back for a further week – I will begin practicing with renewed effort. I should hope, then, that by the time of my employer’s return, I shall be in a position to pleasantly surprise him.”