The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

I found Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day to be beautiful and thought-provoking. It is not a typical “war novel” at all but, a fascinating look at the intersection of private lives and international politics.

More than anything else I've read this year, it raises deep ethical questions and leaves the answers for the reader to explore. Is it best to make your own choices (and mistakes) or to follow someone you trust blindly. Is it ever safe to assume that those who are close to you truly understand your feelings and motives? Which is more dangerous, self-repression, or lack of self=knowledge? Can individuals be trusted to make important decisions despite their lack of knowledge, or should they leave that responsibility to their "betters"? How does one live, work, and die, with dignity? What constitutes a life well lived, a meaningful existence?

The story, told from the point of view of a traditional English butler, is not quite an allegory, but Darlington Hall is a microcosm of Britain and the events that take place inside the manor do reflect the tensions in the outside world. The war itself is noticeably absent – the events in the book are mainly before and after the war, but do show the lead-up and aftermath. Darlington Hall manages to be both sheltered from, and embroiled in, the war in complex ways.

I found the butler Stevens' personal journey more compelling than the oblique political references, probably because I know very little about the ways in which WWI reparations brought about WWII, or about the political machinations that we on behind the scenes prior to Britain, and eventually America's, participation in the war. If, as Socrates said, the "unexamined life is not worth living" then it is vitally important that Stevens finally finds the time and space to examine his own. The butler never saw the country (or himself) closely, but as he discovers it we see the downfall of class system and rise of democratization in Britain. Furthermore, we see how many choices, and words spoken and unspoken, changed the course of his relationship with the former housekeeper Miss Kenton.

Even without the larger narrative of war and politics, the novel is an amazing character study. Stevens seems to never have looked clearly at those around him, muchless into his own heart. Gradually he learns that the old ways are not necessarily good, that change is not always a bad thing, and that self-reflection and open communication are keys to a meaningful and rewarding life.

I saw the film many years ago when I was too young to fully appreciate its nuances. Watching it again after reading the novel, I found the casting excellent and the direction appropriately understated. I was very displeased, however, at a specific change in the ending. It may be a small thing that only bothered me because I had so recently read the book, but there was one “heartbreaking” line uttered in the book by the housekeeper which was left unspoken in the film. That *really* bothered me, because leaving things unspoken was the cause of so many misunderstandings earlier in their friendship. The fact that she speaks that line, so that there is no doubt left in anyone's mind, is *very* important to the themes of the novel, in my opinion.

The movie did however clarify some of the cause-and-effect situations that may have been a bit too vague in the book - specifically how Stevens' seemingly nonchalant response to one of his boss' demands adversely affected Miss Kenton's opinion of him.

The book and film both show the consequences of allowing another to make your choices, and well as the consequences of not speaking out – whether it is to rail against injustice, or to voice the feelings in your heart.

War Through the Generations WWII Reading Challenge - My Status

Due to some changes in my interests and other factors, I haven't necessarily read the same books I originally set out to read, but here's where I stand on the War Through the Generations WWII Reading Challenge:

1. I Escaped from Auschwitz by Rudolf Vrba - read and reviewed

2. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - read and reviewed

3. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro - read (and watched movie), haven't reviewed either yet

4. Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman - read Vol. 1: My Father Bleeds History; not read Vol 2: And Here My Troubles Began yet (want to read both & review as a set)

5. The Book Thief - currently reading, about halfway through

*6. Catch-22, The Good German, Suite Francaise, Hiroshima, or Atonement - whichever I feel like reading in Nov/Dec.

So I guess I've almost fulfilled the challenge requirement to read five, although I have a lot of reviews to write still! I intend to reach my personal goal of 6 by December 31st.

*For book #6 I'm leaning towards either The Good German (because my dad highly recommended it) or Hiroshima (to focus on the Japanese front since everything else I've read this year has been focused on Germany). I'm open to suggestions, and will probably read some of the reviews on the War Through the Generations site too before I decide.

"The mind wants to live forever..."

In a fit of ennui and needing an antidote, I just retreated to a hot bath with my copy of Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk and re-read her essay "Total Eclipse." Reading this sort of writing is, for me, like reading some sort of religious text. It is comforting and unsettling at the same time. It takes me out of the repetitive paths of my usual thoughts and into an unfamiliar plane with new words, thoughts, and connections. Dillard seems to translate daily existence into something more mysterious, and in mystifying it somehow illuminates it, bringing forth the deeper aspects of otherwise quotidian things. It has all the symbolic power of poetry, yet in the familiar attire of prose.

These are the lines which jumped out at me tonight, standing forth in blazing text, prompting me to read and re-read them in an attempt to understand. But if I had understood them, I would have skipped right over them. It is their complexity and uniqueness which draws me in and keeps me coming back to them, turning them over in my mind:

"We live half our waking lives and all of our sleeping lives in some private, useless, and insensible waters we never mention or recall. Useless, I say. Valueless, I might add -- until someone hauls their wealth up to the surface and into the wide-awake city, in a form that people can use."

"All those things for which we have no words are lost. The mind -- the culture -- has its two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel. With these we bluster about the continents and do all the world's work. With these we try to save our very lives."

" 'It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.' Wallace Stevens wrote that, and in the long run he was right. The mind wants to live forever, or to learn a very good reason why not. The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness; the mind wants to know all the world, and all eternity, and God. The mind's sidekick, however, will settle for two eggs over easy.... It is everlastingly funny that the proud, metaphysically ambitious, clamoring mind will hush if you give it an egg."

I am not at all well-read when it comes to non-fiction. I was exposed to precious little in school, and have pursued little more by choice. However, Annie Dillard's essay was introduced to me by a great teacher at an impressionable age, and has always stuck with me. I've also read a good deal of her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, though I don't think I ever finished it. It is so dense with meaning, it can't be read in a sitting like a novel. It is something to read in small bits and ponder and meditate over. Maybe it's time I take it up again and see how it can illuminate my life today.

If anyone's still out there reading this blog, who is your non-fiction author that helps you make sense of the world, or illuminates aspects of life otherwise unfamiliar to you?

The Life According to Literature Meme

Saw this at The Indextrious Reader and Of Books and Bicycles and couldn't resist joining in.

How it works: Using only books you have read this year (2009), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title.

Here goes, my Life according to Literature.

Describe yourself:
A Wrinkle in Time (Madeline L'Engle)

How do you feel:
Stumbling Upon Happiness (Dan Gilbert)

Describe where you currently live:
The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton)

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
Pemberley Manor (Kathryn L. Nelson)

Your favorite form of transportation:
Last Bus to Woodstock (Colin Dexter)

Your best friend is:
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

You and your friends are:
A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy O'toole)

What’s the weather like:
When Twilight Burns (Colleen Gleason)

You fear:
The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)

What is the best advice you have to give:
Travels with Barley (Ken Wells)

Thought for the day:
And only to Deceive (Tasha Alexander)

How I would like to die:
As Shadows Fade (Colleen Gleason)

My soul’s present condition:
Blue Latitudes (Tony Horwitz)

Some resources on the Firebombing of Dresden

My recent reading of Slaughterhouse-Five brought back to me the memory of a piece of music I had the opportunity to play in high school symphony (our director was an amazing educator who always sought to broaden his students' horizons.)

Daniel Bukvich's "Symphony No. 1 In Memoriam Dresden" in a unique modern symphony which attempts to depict the firebombing of Dresden by Allied forces, through the medium of music. It is a chilling, haunting, even terrifying piece of music, with many atonal elements, and changes in key and tempo. It is discordant on purpose - the musical equivalent of modern art.

This YouTube video is NOT of our group, but it is a very moving performance done very professionally. I know that I did not appreciate the gravity of the piece fully when I was younger.

Video and Composer's Notes

Wikipedia entry on Firebombing of Dresden

BBC Archives of reports

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - my impressions

“Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time.”

I used to shy away from this book because it sounded like science fiction, and I wasn't into science fiction. While I realize that it can be read that way (an apparently many people do), I did not see the time travel as a literal fact, but instead as a metaphor or literary device. Billy's bouts of becoming “unstuck in time” seemed to represent of either PTSD, dementia/Alzheimer's, or a combination of them all. The recurring themes, phrases and events serve to underline certain patterns in Billy's life. The rearrangement of chronology makes these patterns more evident.

The novel, though very short, raises a lot of questions and refuses to provide pat, clear answers. A number of human characters (and some alien beings) question whether war inevitable. If so, isn't acceptance the best logical response. Shouldn't we, like the Serenity prayer advises, seek the wisdom to accept what we can not change? Or is it impossible for human nature not to react viscerally to the brutality of war. Is the schism in Billy's life a temporal divide, or a division between reason and emotion which have been violently separated from one another by the events he has witnessed?

The firebombing of Dresden, which is ostensibly the major event around which the novel centers, is only seen obliquely, and mostly through its after-effects (immediate and long term). That being said, the chapter that dealt with it more or less directly was the most compelling to me. Since the actual event is not seem by the narrator, it is only through the aftermath that he realizes even a glimpse of the enormity of the attack. His sense of happiness and pleasure at being alive, lying in a donkey cart in the sun so happy to be alive even though he is a prisoner, is a powerful juxtaposition to the horrors around him.

The novel is very short, and the pace is quick. Add in the shifts in time, and the effect is jarring, but in a useful way. The staccato beat of the book seems to me almost like the rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire. The sense of constant disruption seems to fit the subject matter well. I was, however, frustrated that some basic plot points were not resolved – how did Billy return from outer space? What happened to his (unnamed) son by Montana Wildhack? More importantly, is Billy the would-be author who is narrating the story, or is that character a stand-in for Vonnegut. If the novel is so closely based on Vonnegut's personal experiences in the war, then why does he add an extra layer on top of the narration? Is it a framing device, or a way of distancing himself, or both?

In the first line of the novel the narrator states “All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true.” That line sets the tone for a novel that blurs fact and fiction, reality and memory. Vonnegut was in fact a German prisoner of war, and was held in an underground slaughterhouse (meat locker) in Dresden during the firebombing and forced to find and bury bodies afterward. While this is the first Vonnegut novel I've read, I understand that his experience in Dresden is a recurring theme throughout his works. I imagine that writing about it is therapeutic in a way and helps him explore the complicated ethics of the situation from a variety of viewpoints.

Is the Trafalmadorian aliens' point of view best? If we could see life in four dimensions, and stars looked like strings of spaghetti as they moved through time, would we also accept every calamity with a fatalistic sigh of “so it goes”? Or is the anti-war message, the idea that the soldiers were mere children, and the war a “children's crusade” (the subtitle of the novel) what we are supposed to take away?

Review of Pemberley Manor

Mags at AustenBlog has been kind enough to let me review Kathryn L. Nelson's Pride and Prejudice sequel, Pemberley Manor. My review is here.