Reminiscences of a Gentleman’s Gentleman : THE REMAINS OF THE DAY <i> by Kazuo Ishiguro (Alfred A. Knopf: $18.95; 245 pp.; 8-394-57343-9) </i>

An English butler, by name Stevens, writes his recollections in first person. He was butler to Lord Darlington of Darlington Hall, in the years following the end of World War I. Important guests came to dinner or stayed for the weekend. Stevens was young then.

When the book opens, years have passed, Lord Darlington is dead, and an American businessman called Mr. Farraday has bought Darlington Hall, where Stevens still serves as butler. Mr. Farraday, who values Stevens as part of “the real thing,” like the house, recommends that Stevens take a few days off, and offers him the Ford to drive around in, see the countryside, relax. “I’ll foot the bill for the gas,” Mr. Farraday assures Stevens.

So the rambling about the West Country serves as a framework and also background for Stevens’ thoughts, memories, judgments, which up till now he has had neither time nor leisure to contemplate.

Stevens is unmarried. His whole existence, philosophy, morals are founded on his butler’s profession and the quality of his service, which he is ever trying to improve.

He sets out in the Ford, which, though aging, is kept in spanking condition, of course. The first denomination of time and place is

Day One--Evening

Salisbury

but it must not be assumed that Stevens’ drifting thoughts, his memories of things past come to him in chronological order. His mind moves in a natural and unstrained way, meaning that he might first remember something from the late ‘30s, rather than something that happened before, in 1923, say, which makes this curious novel, Kazuo Ishiguro’s third, all the more convincing.

Not too much happens outwardly to Stevens in his six-day tour. He runs out of gas once, has to walk to the nearest village and encounters a most amiable figure of a man--after knocking at the servants’ entrance of a rather fine house--who is also a butler of sorts, but, unlike Stevens, the sole employee. Times have changed, and there is often no housekeeper, footman or cook to assist the butler. This man takes Stevens for one of the landed gentry at first, such is Stevens’ bearing and well-spokenness.

To Stevens this venture into the world beyond Darlington Hall is almost like visiting another planet: It’s still England, he has heard of Salisbury and its magnificent cathedral--but to see it, to have a brief chat with one or two people who live there--this is mind-blowing to Stevens, and causes him to see his own life in what he comes to realize is a better perspective, a more real one than he had.

Stevens recalls Darlington Hall when he was in his 20s, and serving Lord Darlington. World War I was over; Germany was repaying its war debts and going ever downhill therefore. Stevens remembers his anxiety (though things always worked out well) when he and the housekeeper had to coordinate their duties of readying rooms for the statesmen who would stay the night, making sure the silver was perfectly polished, that the wine, the meal, the port and the brandy were at hand so that all could go smoothly and with no apparent effort. Though Stevens did not eavesdrop, he overheard many bits of conversation from the gentlemen and a few ladies. The talk was often heated.

Lloyd-George is mentioned by name. Winston Churchill was also to visit, but much later. It was Lloyd-George (prime minister from 1916 to 1922), who said in effect that if the Allies did not ease their payment demands from Germany, something worse would happen. The something worse was Hitler, who rallied his people and in his own way went it alone. The French representative is called Dupont here, and Stevens implies that that was not his real name. Though adamant at first, Dupont here is won over to the more lenient attitude of Lloyd-George toward lowering the reparation money asked from Germany.

Lord Darlington himself meets with Von Ribbentrop, and like many upper middle-class English of that time sees nothing particularly bad in Hitler. When Lord Darlington learns of Hitler’s anti-Jewish attitudes, he distances himself from that facet of National Socialism. But after all, you don’t continue to hit a man when he’s down, is Lord Darlington’s English perspective on Germany. An American, Mr. Lewis, a guest at Darlington Hall, after several glasses of wine ventures to call Lord Darlington “an amateur” in politics, too much the gentleman in an age when international statesmen can no longer afford to behave like gentlemen.

Unfortunately, this argument will not convince Lord Darlington, whose standards of decency, like Stevens’, are unshakable.

One of Stevens’ colleagues at Darlington Hall is a Miss Kenton, short of temper and somewhat opinionated. She is miffed if Stevens reminds her that the bed linen for an upper floor room will have to be ready by day after tomorrow. She accuses Stevens of having “too much time” on his hands, whereas she has so much to do, she has not a moment to spare. Miss Kenton goes so far--to Stevens’ astonishment--as to say that from now on Stevens should write her a note and convey it through a messenger (presumably a footman), rather than speak to her directly.

These, alas, are likely the cries of love from Miss Kenton, unrecognized by Stevens. Thirty or so years later, when Stevens visits her during his tour with the Ford, she drops a hint that if fate and circumstances had been just a bit different, she and Stevens might have made a congenial couple. Miss Kenton is by then Mrs. Benn, not too happily married but still married, and expecting her first grandchild soon. Ishiguro’s details are apt and memorable, Stevens stepping out from the bus stop shelter into the road and the rain to hail Mrs. Benn’s oncoming bus and make sure it stops to take her home.

Stevens then resumes his tour alone, meditating on life and destiny. It was surely wrong for any man, even the American gentleman Mr. Lewis, to have called Lord Darlington an amateur, consequently a mistake-maker, and very nearly a fool! However, Stevens does not presume to understand the depths of politics and international relations, for such is the domain of the well-educated. Twice Stevens makes minor grammatical errors, to be expected in a butler, in his prose thinking.

In Stevens’ view of things, he is part of the hub of a great wheel which it is his job to keep turning and turning smoothly. The outer rim, the spokes of the wheel, are of greater import than he--they rule the country, govern the civilized world finally--but without their well-run homes, their tea served on time, their boots polished, clothes prepared for the next event, the gentlemen could not do their jobs properly, and then where would the world be?

The title of this book comes from the final chapter:

Day Six--

Weymouth

Weymouth is a seaside town with a pier. Stevens is resting upon a bench, gazing out at the water, when a stranger sits down beside him and strikes up a conversation. It seems the stranger, now in his late 60s, was formerly a footman. Stevens discloses his profession as that of butler, and the ex-footman is suitably impressed. Stevens says his present employer is an American gentleman, and in a confession that becomes tearful, Stevens says that he feels his standards are slipping, that he cannot provide the good service that he once gave Lord Darlington. The stranger hands him a handkerchief, and Stevens apologizes for his emotion, saying that he has had a tiring day behind the wheel. The ex-footman then makes his speech: We all slow up, don’t we? Don’t look back, look forward! Enjoy what’s left of life.

Shortly after the stranger leaves, the lights come on on the pier, and a cheer goes up from the people already gathered there to enjoy the shooting gallery, the refreshments, the games. There is still too much daylight for the pier lights to be necessary, but the lights herald the evening and the evening promises fun. This is the remains of the day, and Stevens realizes the wisdom of the stranger’s words.

Stevens observes groups of people around him, couples with small children, exchanging chat and laughter, and realizes that they have met for the first time, that easy words break the ice. Banter , thinks Stevens. Useful and pleasant in life, banter. He tells himself that he should improve his bantering, which he has sadly neglected in the past. It would be a further service to Mr. Farraday, who would certainly appreciate it.

In the last lines of the book, Stevens vows to himself to practice banter with renewed effort.

“The Remains of the Day” won the Whitbread Book of the Year citation, second only to the Booker Prize, and giving an award of $27,500. Though born in Nagasaki, Ishiguro and his samurai parents moved to London when he was 6. He speaks unaccented English, studied at the University of East Anglia, and is now a British citizen. His first two novels, “A Pale View of the Hills” and “An Artist of the Floating World,” are described by critics as being full of “belly talk,” a rather inelegant way of describing Ishiguro’s understatements, oblique thoughts or observations that tactfully shed light on the problem or personage under scrutiny.

The author’s subtlety and coolness are fascinating. “The Remains of the Day” is a book to make the reader feel happy and at ease on being introduced to the world of the civilized Stevens and his social superiors. The humor is sly, unwitting, and charged with social comment. It is also a book to make one think of post-World War I politics, when intransigence ruled, and the defeated rose in the form of Nazism. It reminds us of the wisdom of the Marshall Plan and its magnanimity, which put Europe on its feet again and made allies of former enemies. The book also shows the unwisdom of some of the English Establishment after World War I, when, though intentions were good, the favoring of Hitler Germany was a mistake. Unmentioned is the fact that Hitler hated Slav and Semite equally, killed four times as many of the former as of the latter, and as he promised in Mein Kampf , followed up his hatred of the Slav with action against Communist Russia. This promise was of course of the greatest interest to capitalist countries and their heads of state.

Ishiguro has said in an interview: “I chose the figure deliberately because that’s what I think I am, and I think most of us are: We’re just butlers. It is something I felt about myself and many of my peers. . . . If you acquired certain abilities, your duty was to put them toward something useful. But for most of us the best we can hope for is to use our rather small skills in serving people and organizations that really do matter.”

Modesty? Perhaps, but of the Japanese sort. There is a pride underneath, strong as a samurai sword, no doubt, as strong as the pride in the outward modesty, which most certainly helps the great wheel turn more smoothly.

A refreshing, off-beat book. Try it.