The Remains of the Day: Review

While in Mexico I had the leisure to read two great books off the Booker Prize list, which I've been working my way through for a couple years. I was kind of hesitant to begin Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day since the imagery of the Merchant Ivory adaptation has always been very vivid for me. In fact, throughout the book I never once pictured Stevens as anything other than Anthony Hopkins or Miss Kenton as anything other than the lovely Emma Thompson.

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It turns out it doesn't really matter what Stevens & Miss Kenton look like. One of the reasons that I've taken so long to write this review is that it's really hard to describe The Remains of the Day. On the one hand, it's a pastoral drive through the most charming parts of English village life and countryside. And it's a frustratingly taut and unrewarding love story. And it's a subtle and tentative political expose of Britain between the world wars.

I enjoyed reading it. It wasn't a page turner per se, but it was so beautifully written that each page was a pleasure.