"The Remains of the Day"

[fiefoe]

This novel reminds me of "Memoirs of a Geisha" and might as well be known as "Memoirs of a Butler". There's much commonality between these two professions. In popular images, both provide intimate service with enigmatic reserve, and are deemed quintessential of their respective nationalities. (And confessions of repressed characters are always so irresistible.) Both books are period pieces written by foreign born authors -- Kazuo Ishiguro didn't become a British citizen until his 20s.

Being a butler:

• .. I undertook for myself a number of duties which you may consider most broad-minded of a butler to do.
• It is all very well, in these changing times, to adapt one's work to take in duties not traditionally within one's realm; but bantering is of another dimension altogether.
• In comparison (to England), the sorts of sights offered in such places as Africa and America, though undoubtedly very exciting, would, I am sure, strike the objective viewer as inferior on account of their unseemly demonstrativeness. <> The whole question is very akin to the question that has caused much debate in our profession over the years: what is a 'great' butler? {Now how great a segue is that.}
• I believe strongly that this 'dignity' is something one can meaningfully strive for throughout one's career.
• (A butler after shooting a tiger in the dining room): 'I am plased to say there will be no discerible traces left of the recent occurence by that time.'
• That change of mood within our profession - that change which came to push the polishing of silver to the position of central importance it still by and large maintains today.
• A butler of any quality must be seen to inhabit his role, utterly and fully; he cannot be seen casting it aside one moment simply to don it again the next as though it were nothing more than a pantomime costume.