The story is being told by Stevens himself. As a narrator he
is clearly unreliable, his memory distorted not only by the passage of time,
but also by his need to think good of himself, to see his past actions as justified
and his life as meaningful. However, he is not entirely blind to the fact that
some of his choices (though as a reader one never quite feels that he ever does
have a real choice) eventually led to consequences that, if he had been aware
of them, he would have rather wished to avoid. But the trouble is, and that is
a problem not only for Stevens, but for all of us, that we don’t always know
which of all the many things that we do will turn our lives in a direction that
we might later find impossible to reverse. Only in retrospect do we realise
that an action or event that at the time seemed rather insignificant, just a
little thing really, actually had huge repercussions and markedly shaped our
fate. In the novel, Stevens comes to the conclusion that one of the major
turning points in his life came when he, yet again, rebuked the housekeeper Miss
Kent for a minor oversight. He doesn’t really understand what exactly happened that
day and why it should have had the consequence it did have, but he is acutely
aware that it was the point when she slipped out of his reach for good. He
wonders briefly what would have happened if he had acted differently, but then quickly
shies away from dwelling too much on the matter:
“But what is the sense in forever speculating what might
have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could
presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is
all very well to talk of ‘turning points’, one can surely only recognize such
moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today,
they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one’s
life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather,
it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years
in which to sort out the vagaries of one’s relationship with Miss Kenton; an
infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this
or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that
such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.”
Stevens may well be right that we often overlook the
significance of events and actions, but we may still draw a lesson from his
failure to secure happiness for himself, or at least the chance to find
happiness. Things done cannot be undone, but it is equally true that things
undone often cannot be done at a later time. Especially in human relationships
small things have a tendency to add up until eventually a breaking point is
reached. You fail to make a phone call to acknowledge a friend’s birthday, and
that, without being obvious at the time, effectively brings an end to that
friendship. Or you have one argument too many with your spouse, or you say
something, in the heat of the moment, that you don’t really mean, and the other
never forgets it, and never forgives, and everything is suddenly very different
from what it used to be. So what is there to be learned? I guess it is
something very simple, very banal really, a truism: we should try to figure out
what is really important to us and then work hard to make sure that we get it,
and, once we have got it, not to lose it. Don’t take things, and especially
relationships, for granted. Not ever. They are fragile and need to be
cultivated. What’s undone cannot be redone. What is lost can never be
retrieved. So let’s try not to lose, or make it impossible for ourselves to
reach, what gives, or would give, meaning and light to our lives.
This story is classified as fiction. But it is not science fiction like H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. But it does go back in time.
ReplyDeleteEven though The Remains Of The Day and The Time Machine are both fiction the former is based more on a reality. Nevertheless science fiction too is based on a reality. I mean, there is nothing that can be written without some basis in reality.
Why I am writing this I am not quite sure. I guess I am curious about the proximity of the two subject matters. Is there a connecting philosophy or moral behind the two? I guess the connection again has something to do with the human condition. Is it about anxiety, death or taxes (sorry)? Or perhaps it is like Freud once famously said, Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!
Sure there is a connection, as there is a connection between all good novels. They all pose, in one way or another, the question what it means to be human, what makes a life good, and how we can cope with the passing of time and the death in which it culminates.
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