Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day (1989), Never Let Me Go (2005) and Klara and the Sun (2021)
Kazuo Ishiguro (b.1954) needs no introduction. A Nobel prize winner whose key works have been turned into acclaimed films. Yet on reading his novels, the question presents itself as to whether his work is more imbued by a Japanese or English sensibility? The sensibility of Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) and Junichiro Tanizake (1886–1965) or the sensibility of Graham Swift (b. 1949) and Martin Amis (b.1949)? Studying his biography, Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki and moved to Britain in 1960, may provide clues but is hardly determining. Joseph Conrad (1895–1923) and Antal Szerb (1901–1945) come to mind as authors whose national sensibility is hard to determine, or at least fluctuates. In Ishiguro’s case, the Japanese predominates, not least because modern English novelists tend to lack such a refined sensitivity to the human condition, although, strangely given his general neglect, the character Philip Carey in Of Human Bondage (1915) by Somerset Maughan (1874–1965), and, more recently, Nicholas Urfe in The Magus (1965) by John Fowles (1926–2005), approach Ishiguro’s characterisation of repressed Englishness, most tragically crystallised in a generation’s willingness to volunteer for slaughter in the First World War.
The Remains of the Day (1989), Never Let Me Go (2005) and Klara and the Sun (2021) are the three novels I wish to examine briefly. In The Remains of the Day, Mr. Stevens, a butler to the Earl of Darlington in the 1930s, is witness to the attempts by the Earl to mediate at Darlington Hall a rapprochement between Nazi Germany and the British Government. In this period, Steven’s loyalty to the Earl, and perhaps more poignantly to his profession as a butler, crushes a potential romance with the housekeeper Miss Kenton. While on a car trip to visit Miss Kenton, since married and living in Cornwall, to persuade her to return to assist Stevens as housekeeper under the new American owner, Stevens is forced to reflect on the Earl’s conduct leading to his downfall and his forsaking of a relationship with Miss Kenton. In Never Let Me Go, the story is narrated by Kathy H, a pupil at Hailsham, a boarding school for cloned children who are being prepared for a life as donors, donating their organs to “possible,” adults to whom they had been genetically matched, in a series of “donations” which inevitably end in their “completion,” namely death. Kathy becomes a “carer,” looking after the donors during their series of donations, one of whom is Tommy, a friend from Hailsham. The couple pursue a rumoured path leading to “deferrals,” an escape from donations, for couples who are truly in love, by visiting two former staff at Hailsham. After this hope is crushed, the rumour exposed by the teachers as a fantasy, Tommy in preparation for his fourth and probably final donation changes carer and Kathy decides to end her role as carer and commence donations. In Klara and the Sun, the novel is narrated by Klara, an Artificial Friend (AF), commencing with her time on display in a store where she is selected, partly due to her own efforts, as AF by a young teenager named Josie, who is suffering from an unspecified illness resulting from her mother’s decision to “lift” her, an upgrade to a child’s genetic capabilities and a prerequisite to entry into the prestigious colleges. A central theme of Klara’s time in the store is her fascination and belief in the power of the sun, partly explained by the fact AFs are solar powered, and notably by her conviction that the sun’s rays had resurrected a beggar man and his dog while lying outside the store. Once Klara moves in with Josie and her mother, she learns that Josie’s older sister had died and meets Rick, Josie’s neighbour and closest childhood friend, who has not been “lifted,” but with whom Josie has made a pact of lifelong love. Josie learns of a plan, concealed from Josie, that if Josie dies Klara will replace her by inhabiting a 3D sculpture of Josie that has been commissioned by her parents. Aided by Rick and Josie’s father, and by her sacrifice of her own vital fluid to destroy a polluting “Cootings” machine that blocks out the sun’s rays, Klara successfully entreats the sun to cure Josie on account of her and Rick’s lifelong love. Following Josie’s cure, Klara becomes redundant as Josie prepares to enter an elite college during which time Rick and Josie drift apart. Klara is consigned to a rubbish dump, where she is visited by the store manager, and reveals she is proud of her dutiful and successful completion of her mission to protect Josie and is content to live out her time alone, processing her memories.
While two of these novels are “science fiction,” a device adopted by many writers to escape the narrative constraints of modern life, this attribute is insignificant in comparison to the novels’ thematic unity. In The Remains of the Day, it is the loyalty and self-sacrifice of the perfect butler, Stevens, in Never Let Me Go that of the clone, Kathy H, and in Klara and the Sun, that of the Artificial Friend, Klara. In each case the protagonist dedicates themself to a cause which is hard-wired into their sense of being, loyal service to the Earl of Darlington in the case of Stevens, caring for donors in the case of Kathy, and ensuring Josie’s well-being in the case of Klara. In each novel, love is presented as the opportunity for escape from pre-destined fate — the love between Rick and Josie to overcome the chasm between “lifted” and “unlifted,” the love between Tommy and Kathy to enable their escape from donating, the love between Stevens and Miss Kenton to form a relationship that transcends their duties as domestic servants — but in in each case it proved to be ephemeral or defeated by social constraints. Rick is not “lifted,” Tommy and Kathy’s relationship do not escape from donating, and Stevens’ romantic engagement with Miss Kenton is defeated by his conception of his duties as butler.
The poignancy and sadness that permeates all three novels is centered around the sacrifice each protagonist makes to fulfill their fixed purpose in life. While in the case of Kathy and Klara, their destiny is artificially programmed, Stevens’ sacrifice of his love for Miss Kenton is also presented as inevitable given his upbringing in the forbidding shadow of his father’s relentless dedication to his profession as butler. Was Stevens’ misguided loyalty made any less tragic because he was fully human? Did he have any greater choice than Kathy or Klara? Ishiguro certainly does not present Stevens as contemplating any alternative option in the scenes where he abruptly rejects the advances of Miss Kenton. Is Ishiguro telling us that those who sacrifice themselves, display unalloyed loyalty, for their superiors or their betters, are misguided? But what alternative choices did they have? No realistic escape presented itself to Kathy as she and Tommy discovered on their visit to their teachers, Klara sought no escape and indeed her willingness to sacrifice herself for Josie seemed almost boundless, and Stevens’s trip to visit Miss Kenton demonstrated to him that alternatives to continued loyal service had by then vanished.
This naturally leads to the question, what about the “superiors,” the privileged, the Earls of Darlington, the “possibles,” those who might benefit from a donation, and the “lifted,” those like Josie who had been genetically upgraded and sustained by an AF. Ishiguro has little directly to say about them. We see the world through the eyes of their sacrificial servants. That is not to say a more positive outcome for the beneficiaries is guaranteed. It is simply not the focus of Ishiguro’s inquiry. We are not told of the lives they led at the expense of their benefactors except indirectly, through the narration of Stevens on his trip to visit Miss Kenton of the disgraced old age of Earl of Darlington, through Josie’s preparations for her privileged college life, and, fleetingly, through a possible sighting on a visit to Cromer on the North Norfolk coast of a “possible,” working in a pleasant office. We are not asked by Ishiguro to care about them, because they have in a sense disqualified themselves through their negligent or amoral behaviour or perhaps, more generously, the lack of any societal requirement for them to care. Too preoccupied by their own interests, they bestow at best only a fleeting and superficial concern for their benefactors.
In conclusion, Ishiguro’s message is the fundamental sadness of the human condition, at least for those who are at the bottom of the social pyramid, those who sacrifice themselves for the benefit of their superiors. There is no obvious pay off for their loyalty, for their self-sacrifice. Karla is discarded onto the rubbish tip once she has served her purpose, Stevens must continue as butler to a master who only offers him the façade of service, and Kathy will fulfill her duty and be “completed.” The fundamental question Ishiguro addresses is how they face this inevitability of redundancy, of rejection, and of death. Stevens, Kathy and Klara surprisingly face that uncompromising truth with optimism and dignity. And this outlook is, surely, quintessentially Japanese.
