British author Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day is my favorite type of book. Instead of a fast-paced plot with witty one-liners and gritty characters, the mind space accompanied by the story is a bit like having an entire afternoon to run one errand. Eventually, the task has to be completed, but there seems to be an abundance of time to meander while daydreaming, prod at a few things that catch your attention and stumble across a memory to unravel. You pause. Bracing yourself, you tug.
However, as you spiral into the past, you remember that your responsibilities in the present still exist.
In The Remains of the Day, English butler Mr. Stevens is in a perpetual state of suspension. The post-World War II world continues rotating, shaking Britain off her international throne. Mr. Stevens is left to reflect on his time serving his former employer, Lord Darlington. The book offers much to think about morally, philosophically and politically, so I will only try to offer my own thoughts on a small part of what it discusses. A bit reductionistic, maybe. But, the best authors make it so a single sentence might lead to a cascade of analysis.
Mr. Stevens is ultimately a frustrating character to read about, with a tendency to produce rigid, almost teetering on amusing, sentences about dignity or duty. Sometimes, I wonder if the absoluteness of his statements will ever trigger a moment of clarity. Other times, I think that Mr. Stevens is already aware of his inanity and his unwillingness to pry himself apart from his abstraction of a great butler.
Because, if I might offer an absolute myself inspired by Mr. Stevens, the response to rejecting your previous sense of right and wrong is pain. There’s the pain from embarrassment, stemming from misplaced confidence in your supposedly unshakeable principles. The pain from the regret of having a potentially net negative impact on the world, a result of offering your efforts up blindly. Lastly, pain from the fear of living your life using the wrong instruction manual.
It’s easy to get lost in introspection, the lull of the past gently spinning paths and altering memories to explain your loyalties. Mr. Stevens does this quite well, dressing up his old sentiments while letting a slight indication of his current inclinations bleed through from time to time.
It’s also so easy to mourn the lost time and effort. When I was in middle school, I grimaced when remembering my elementary school self. When I was in high school, I thought that I managed the previous two years quite ungracefully. I don’t think I have even begun processing the meat of my time at my high school yet; the change was so rapid, with each year holding as much weight as the entirety of my K-6 years. Throughout it all, the people I met have been with me as I clumsily and, of course, painfully centered, threw and molded my definitions of friendship and connection.
There are things that I have said and done that currently seem too consequential to dismiss as soil for growth, and there are things that I might not even understand the impacts of until later when the strands of cause and effect become visible. Later on, there’s a chance I’ll realize that I have once again changed and therefore my past must be re-examined under another lens. Worst of all, my actions and their impacts must be analyzed once more because although the past is already cemented, the interpretation of it isn’t. Or, I’ll admit that the way I handled certain situations was, in fact, justified, which will hurt because sometimes all that’s desired is an excuse to backtrack.
This is a balance to be met again and again. A recursion of remembering and looking forward. There is a reason why the book’s title addresses the remains and not the chunks of time the clock’s hands already drifted over and why Mr. Stevens gathers the remains of his everything. He has reflected, and that reflection must serve as a directive.
Perhaps one day, I’ll look back on this article and smile deprecatingly because by then, I will have altered my values once more. I might see this as naive or tag the final draft as “under-developed” as it reflects barrenness as I try to strike the core of what I want to express, or feel the inevitable pangs that a writer experiences in the face of their past sentences. If I do, then here is what I have to say to my future self:
You have examined. Take a breath, ready yourself — now, progress.
Grace Oh is a freshman from McLean, Va. studying Molecular and Cellular Biology and Writing Seminars. She is a Science and Technology Editor for The News-Letter.
