A deep analysis of Booker Prize-winning novel, The Remains of the Day
Closely reading to find out what I think about this iconic novel
A self-motivated person could obtain an entire English degree on Substack right now. Podcaster
refers to this as public scholarship, when academics bring their learnings to the public, generously sharing what they’ve spent years and years studying so that others may learn, too.I have specifically been following three women who have taught me how to reflect on what I read in ways I’ve never done before.
writes about the complexities of the reading life; has a doctorate in transatlantic modernist literature and shares a lot of what she learned while obtaining her degrees; and book critic, podcaster, and former English teacher has an abyssal knowledge about classic literature and what makes a book work — and they’re all on Substack.Through their work, I’ve learned how to analyze a book as if I were back in school, which is something I always think about doing. But why, when I have all this at my fingertips?
My husband is often surprised when he learns I didn’t read certain classics in high school. It’s either that I didn’t read them or I don’t remember. I was a very different reader then, finishing a novel because the reading was due; writing the paper because it was required of me. I definitely didn’t learn how to write a reflection that, in the process, taught me more about the book than reading the book had done.
So I tried it out: I read closely and I reflected deeply on the 1989 Booker Prize winning novel The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.
I now know from the three women mentioned above some meaningful questions and practices to do a proper reading reflection. My process and its reveals follow.
Annotating
While she’s reading a book,
underlines with a pencil. Once she finishes, and after she writes a reflection (which I get into below) she goes back and re-underlines with pen. I wondered about this. Why not save time and just do it once? But I tried it out and found that underlining a second time after having completed the book helped me identify themes and make connections I hadn’t while originally reading. As opposed to flipping through the book and looking at the underlined passages, re-underlining propels you into action. It deepened my comprehension of what it was I was re-reading.Ordinarily after finishing a book, I would look through it to mark the underlined pages with sticky tabs so I could easily refer back to them. Instead, I followed the prompts I’d come across from the aforementioned writers and readers, and I wrote a summary next.
In my own words: the summary
For this step in the reflection process, I did not refer to the book for descriptive language, and I waited until I was done with my entire reflection to read this reading guide. I wanted to read elsewhere what this book was about, but I knew the importance of the exercise was to find out what it was to me. I also did this all by hand, which heightened the experience.
Here’s what I wrote in my notebook:
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro is about a butler named Stevens who worked at a stately English home for 35 years. It’s written in first-person point of view, present tense, but most of the novel is in flashbacks. The present storyline is that Stevens is going to take a very brief vacation (his first ever?) to the English countryside on suggestion from the new American owner of his house, Darlington Hall. He [the American owner] even said he’d foot the bill, though Stevens was unsure and insecure about what that entailed.
So Stevens takes the man’s car — as he offered — and drives with plans to meet Miss Kenton, with whom he worked years ago and from whom he received a letter recently saying something about marriage troubles. Stevens is over-worked because the new owner cut most of the staff, and when Stevens receives Miss Kenton’s letter, he reads into it too much and assumes she is insinuating she’d like to come back to Darlington Hall, which would solve some of Stevens’ problems.
The present storyline is this road trip, during which he eventually meets Miss Kenton. The backstory throughout covers this relationship (strictly professional); his three-decade career as a dignified butler; and what he experienced while being privy to Lord Darlington’s political meetings. He never says a bad word about Lord Darlington, but throughout his reflections — this whole book could be considered a reflection — we learn that Lord Darlington may not have been the esteemed employer Stevens always thought him to be.
We also learn about Stevens’ potent desire to be a dignified butler, or a butler who works with dignity, much like his father, who at one point was brought to work at Darlington Hall.
Lastly, this novel is set in post-war England; a time of dramatic change and reflection.
How it affected me and why I care
Petya breaks this part into three separate questions, which are variations of Haley’s reading reflection questions:
How did it affect me?
What will stay with me?
Why do I care so much?
I combined all the questions for this reflection:
This book affected me deeply. I was enthralled with the narration by Stevens. It is so honest, so frank, while simultaneously being very formal, which then speaks to Stevens’ dignity and his commitment to his job. I have read three of Ishiguro’s novels and have loved each one. Why? What is it about Ishiguro’s writing I so admire? In the case of Remains, it is incredibly simple. Very little happens in the present storyline — one might call this a quiet novel — but great events happen in backstory. He, Ishiguro, weaves in and out of backstory flawlessly. It affected me deeply because I felt like Stevens was talking directly to me, opening his chest and bearing his heart. That, and I was bewildered by the author’s talent: subtle and iconic.
Themes
After getting down on paper what I thought the book was and how it made me feel, I determined what I thought the themes were. Petya really focuses on themes that are important to her, so I tried to do the same. What themes stuck out to me? What was I interested in, where was I pausing?
Here’s what I came up with:
Dignity
Self-doubt (unreliable narration) / modesty
Change
Mindset (“frame of mind”)
Love / admiration
I assigned each theme a color (I couldn’t find my sticky tabs so I resorted to mini post-its; I don’t recommend it but it did the trick) then re-read all my underlines and put a post-it on the page if it fell under one of my identified themes. Almost every line I underlined ended up connecting to the themes above, which maybe shouldn’t have surprised me but did.
This color coding is meant to make referencing the book easier, as well as visually communicate the weight of the themes throughout the book. If I sorted my themes correctly, I see an even weight between change and dignity. And I think that makes sense. As Stevens is facing post-war changes, which introduce him to a new employer, he reflects on how he preserved a dignity in keeping with his position as butler.
Another theme I focused on was mindset, or what Stevens calls in the novel “frame of mind.” (In
reading guide, Ishiguro calls it perspective.) Mindsets and frames of mind and perspectives shift as our surroundings become clearer to us, and I think this is much of what the novel was trying to accomplish.What does it mean?
encourages readers to ask themselves what they think the author intended to achieve and whether it worked. I think Ishiguro chose a sturdy, loyal butler in post-war England to reflect on his three-decade tenure as a butler to portray an unwelcome but inevitably shifting perspective, revealing to readers how damning our own perspective (or lack thereof) can be. And yes, I think he succeeded.
If you want to do some literary learning yourself, here are the resources I referenced: (the third one is behind a paywall but I’m including it here because it’s where I learned the specific steps for doing a reading reflection that highlights what a book means to me).
From
:I’m so excited to welcome my first guest writer, Kolina Cicero! I met Kolina here on Substack, as we subscribe to each other’s newsletters. In her newsletter, Words on Words, Kolina writes about her love of literature. And she’s always giving the best reading recommendations.
When I wrote a post in my newsletter about starting to query, Kolina emailed me and very generously offered to let me see her query letter and give me feedback on my draft. I took her up on it, of course, and her edits were extremely helpful!
Today, she is sharing an essay with us about the highs and lows of her nine-month querying journey, and how exactly she landed her agent. It's an inspiring story for all, especially those who are in the querying trenches right now!
I was also asked to be a part of a new series called What’s on your nightstand? I had a lot of fun with this essay. It got me thinking about the items I keep near me as I sleep. They say a whole lot more about me than I would have thought.
From Alexandra Kelebay:
Today’s guest is the ever-inspiring Kolina Cicero, an avid reader and writer I initially connected with on Instagram but have had the pleasure of getting to know better here on Substack. While the overlap of our bookish tastes leaves me always immediately wanting to read every book Kolina has ever loved, I’ve also found her thoughts on the writing life to resonate deeply in ways I never anticipated. She is open, authentic, and incredibly thoughtful in ways that give me hope as an aspiring writer juggling all the responsibilities that come with adulting and parenthood.
Read about what’s on my nightstand here.
What are you reading now? Have you read The Remains of the Day? Did you pick up on the same themes as me?
What I’m reading: Housemates by
and The God of the Woods by Liz MooreLove,
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Wow, Kolina! I enjoy reading each one of your weekly writings, but this one was over the top!
I love this book so much!! I picked up a different theme when I read this. mine was my attitude towards work. work used to take up a huge chunk of my life and during the time I read this I was slowly becoming disillusioned by the corporate life. In the book, Stevens was also coming to terms with the “remainder of his life” which before was solely consumed by his work as a butler. Guess you can say I read this book at the right time.
I also loved the tone of writing of this book. It’s very butler-y.