Who’s Kazuo Ishiguro? It’s not only the Japanese but many others around the world who might be asking this question. In the early 1990’s even I had no idea who he was; I just picked the book because of its beguiling title “The Remains of the Day.” It was an engaging story of a British butler told by a Japanese author. Apart from several praiseworthy aspects of the book , the best that I liked were the well-researched details of the duties of a butler who takes pride in his perfection of setting the table. Through such details Ishiguro builds the story to bring in smoothly a piece of history; an important dinner where the butler too plays ‘his role’ along with the international dignitaries including Herr von Ribbentrop, the Nazi foreign minister. There is much more in the book that gives an insight of Britain’s social and political life in the second quarter of the twentieth century and the change that comes with the Americanization. Ishiguro shows all this through the little World of the Darlington Hall where change comes through the change of masters-from British to an American.
Ishiguro has written several books but my favorite will always be “The Remains of the Day” and, as he receives the Nobel Prize, I am planning to reread it. Those who do not have the patience of reading can see its film version, a beautiful Merchant Ivory Production starring appropriately the British actors Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins along with the all-American Christopher Reeve.
parveentalpur 