“It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr. Farraday’s Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days.”
Ishiguro’s Booker prize winning novel opens with the promise of an ‘expedition.’ This term seems slightly anomalous given the precise formulation of a proposed five day holiday drive through the West Country and we do question the breadth of the narrator’s experience. The formality of the tone is reflected in the convoluted and ponderous lexis and vocal rhythm. This is not a reckless narrator; rather his voice reveals a conspicuous pride in another’s possesion- the master’s car- and of course we recognise that he is literally another’s possession too. The speaker’s interest in time reveals the commodification of his daily existence and the uniqueness or singularity perhaps of this five day change from a rigid chronology.
We may also note the recieved opinion of the country side which underlines the absence of originality in the narratorial viewpoint. Who are we listening to and why should we entertain a voice whose syntax and lexis testify to such rigidity with an almost pathological composure?
The repetition of’ the word ‘expedition’ suggests the narrator’s need to revisit this projected change to his routine and we recognise the singularity of this departure from ‘home’, and the intense irony of the refrence to ‘imagination.’ And ‘home’ is also a place of debate as the title ‘Darlington Hall’ again testifies to the formality of the speaker’s daily existence. This will be a novel about class consciousness and even enslavement to such structures and hierachies, and it is the brilliance of Ishiguro’s writing style that alerts us to such themes within the first few lines of his novel.