Young Mungo may be cathartic but it is an unedifying book. I turned for relief to another Booker winner (in 1989).
When I read The Remains of Day about thirty years ago, I was confused. How could Kazuo Ishiguro, born in Nagasaki in 1954, write so sensitively and accurately about “upstairs, downstairs” in a novel set in an English country house before and after the Second World War? I will re-read it but yesterday evening I re-watched the film version. It is even better than I remembered with almost as many layers as a mille-feuille. You will remember the central strand is the relationship between the butler (Anthony Hopkins) and the housekeeper (Emma Thompson) at Lord Darlington’s (James Fox) seat, Darlington Hall; unrequited love.
The novel was hailed as a change of direction for Ishiguro. His first two novels are set in Japan. I’m not so sure. The butler’s unswerving loyalty to Lord Darlington, an arch appeaser before the war and a broken man after the war, is an evocation of the attitude of the Japanese towards their emperor. Darlington Hall represents Japan and Lord Darlington the emperor. Mr Stevens (the butler) has no capacity to disagree or criticise; he is entirely devoted to running the Hall and serving his employer. He enforces a strict hierarchy; subservient to his “betters” but enjoying the privileges of his place in the caste system. In the film he has a well appointed sitting room where he retires to enjoy whisky and cigars.
When Darlington Hall is bought by an American, Stevens seamlessly shifts his allegiance to his new employer. In the film there is a ping-pong table in the room where there had been a Chinese statue. It is satisfying to look beneath the epidermis of a book or film while enjoying the superficial plot lines.
Bravo Christopher. Your analysis has caused me to view this story in a different light entirely.
Peter and I re-watched this film the other night. It’s a great film telling a brilliant story with a terrific cast and certainly worth a second viewing especially in the light of your comments.
An interesting & plausible interpretation. I always imagined Lord Darlington of Darlington Hall to be inspired by Lord Brocket of Brocket Hall (not in fact a great aristocrat – his recently ennobled family took their title from the 18th century house they had bought – but a friend of Neville Chamberlain & a ‘useful idiot’ of the Nazis).