Stevens has served as butler at Darlington Hall for more than thirty years. The house now belongs to a genial American, Mr Farraday, who lends him a car for a few days off. Stevens sets out for the West Country, ostensibly to persuade the former housekeeper, Miss Kenton, to return to work, and along the way he reminisces about his years under Lord Darlington.
His memories centre on the interwar period, when Darlington hosted unofficial conferences of diplomats and politicians and drifted into sympathy with appeasement of Nazi Germany. Stevens recalls these events through the lens of professional duty and his ideal of dignity, and in doing so he skirts his relationship with Miss Kenton, whose warmth he repeatedly deflected.
Ishiguro's achievement is the narrating voice: formal, self-justifying and quietly evasive, so the reader learns what Stevens cannot admit. The novel examines loyalty, emotional repression and the cost of devoting a life to someone else's judgment. It won the Booker Prize in 1989 and became an acclaimed film with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.
Book details
| Author | Kazuo Ishiguro |
|---|---|
| First published | 1989 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 245 |
| Setting | Darlington Hall and the English West Country, July 1956, with memories of the 1920s-30s |
| Awards | Booker Prize 1989 |
Themes
- Duty
- Emotional repression
- Regret
- Dignity
- Self-deception
Who should read it
Readers who appreciate subtle, restrained novels where what is left unsaid matters most.