While I can appreciate the restrained artistry and masterful storytelling here, I can't say that I was satisfied by it. What on Earth could I find to relate to in the self-deluded musings of a middle-aged man finding out during the evening of his life just exactly how lonely and aimless he has become? Oh wait . . . yikes.
While the writing, characterization, imagery, etc. are all top tier, Ishiguro's real feat here is to create a narrator who knows and understands nothing. Unreliable narrators are everywhere in literature, but they are usually of the lying or dissimulating variety. I don't know of another example of a narrator that is simply deluded, trying to fit his life into a narrative that it isn't made for. What is so marvelous about this book is that, while he has convinced himself, he never for a minute convinces the reader. We see through his careful editing and justification immediately, and recognize in him all of the people in our lives, perhaps ourselves even, that are trying to do the same. It's a very real, very human thing to do, even if there is some voice in the back of our heads telling us to wake up. We find ourselves in a life that may or may not actually suit us, and we find reasons to stay in it. We don't question our narrative, for fear it will be revealed as the flimsiest of veneers. We latch onto our version of Stevens' "dignity", finding our own watchword to keep in focus, and wear like blinders. "Virtue", "Service", "Perseverenace", all convenient frames for the realities of existence, which are far less succinct and far messier.
Until, as it inevitably does, the narrative is asked to bear one final straw, and evaporates like a mist. What is left in that eponymous moment? In the Remains of the Life, so to speak? Has everything been worth it so to speak, or was it a farce all along? Something to consider, while watching the sun set over a landscape, after all hopes are dashed. When doing and having fail, is being enough?
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