Monday 9 October 2023

The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (1954 - )

 


Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki in 1954.  As his family shifted to Britain in 1969, he had his education in Kent and in East Anglia.  His two novels won Winifred Holtby prize and the third one ‘The Remains of the day’ won Booker Prize in 1989 and was filmed, acted by Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson and won many awards.  Ishiguro, as a writer more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.  Similarly ‘The Remains of the day’ is characterized by nostalgia as Stevens the hero of the novel, looks back to what he regards as England’s golden age.  Hero recollects his memories in fragments that happened in between the First World War and the Second World War. Apart from this ‘emotional restraint’, a traditional trait that is said to be one of the characteristics of English has a big role to play in this novel.