The Remains of the Day

Summary

On a rare motoring holiday through the English West Country, an ageing butler reflects on his decades of service to a Lord whose reputation has not survived the war. Ishiguro confines the narrative to Stevens's scrupulous, evasive voice, allowing what he cannot say about loyalty, politics and a lost chance at love to accumulate into devastating effect. The book has become a touchstone for fiction about repression, dignity and the costs of self-effacement.