I have no idea how I never read this 1989 Booker Prize winner by Nobel Prize British author Kazou Ishiguro (later made into a movie and nominated for 8 Academy Awards). It feels perfectly written, capturing the control of an aging English butler so burdened by perfection, service, and dignity, that he’s incapable of feeling anything of himself. Friendship, love, joy, sadness: they all get buried under etiquette, protocol, and decorum.

The book opens in 1956 when Stevens, once the head of household for Darlington Hall (and now the butler to an American living in the same house with 10% of its former staff), heads off on a road trip into the English countryside, and while driving, reflects on his several decades career serving a man—recently deceased in disgrace—who turned out to be a Nazi sympathizer. Stevens defends both Lord Darlington and himself, too unable or unwilling to face the obvious truths he ignored, choosing instead to focus on on his exceptional service and dignity in his role as butler to such an aristocratic and (once) distinguished house.

He also ignores his love for the housekeeper, Miss Kenton, unable to express his feelings or show any emotion. Instead, he pours more port, takes another tray to the drawing room, or writes lists for an upcoming party. While his aging father is dying two floors up, Stevens will not allow himself to shirk his duties of clearing crockery on the main floor. 

The desperation of locking away all emotion is painful to watch, but we’re forced to do so almost in slow motion as Stevens sometimes considers—for just a moment—what he might have missed out on before tamping it back down and returning to the alter of duty and sacrifice. Though he tries to “cease looking back so much” and knows he “should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of the day,” it’s clear he is hopelessly incapable of doing so.

Powerful and understated writing showing the pain in what is left unsaid. 5 ⭐️.