When I was watching CNN, Fareed Zakaria raved about him, saying
that the book The Remains of the Day was far better than its movie. When he was
a columnist for the Newsweek magazine, I used to edit Japanese translation of
his articles as associate editor and knew that he was quite an articulate
writer, although my lefty colleagues sometimes criticized that Zakaria was a
bit too right wing. Therefore, I suddenly got interested in Ishiguro,
too.
I found a video in which he discussed with young people about
novels. Ishiguro stated that a butler was the perfect persona to represent
two typical aspects of humans. That is, more or less we suppress our feelings;
and try to serve best for our boss and hope for the best. I agree that I do try
to control my feelings to make sure everything goes well, and I certainly
recognize my role in the relationship with my boss.
He then argued that as opposed to journalism that conveys facts,
novels are a more appropriate vehicle to communicate emotions. And a novelist can
choose the best person and time to convey certain sentiments. Even though
novels are made up, they contain truths that could never been delivered
otherwise.
I think that is an interesting idea. I also found an audio book of
The Remains of the Day in YouTube, but apparently it was rewritten in simpler language
as an English education material for intermediate level learners. I felt this version used “however” too often sometimes in an awkward way.
Amazon Japan has sold out copies of The Remains of the Day
unfortunately, but I’ll see if I can get one sometime.
