The Remains of the Day
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: June 1993
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 245
ISBN-13: 9780394251349
Subjects: General; Fiction - General; Fiction
First sentence: Tonight, I find myself here in a guest house in the city of Salisbury.
Description: The novel's narrator, Stevens, is a perfect English butler who tries to give his narrow existence form and meaning through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession. In a career that spans the second World War, Stevens is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him -- oblivious, for instance, of the fact that his aristocrat employer is a Nazi sympathizer. Still, there are even larger matters at stake in this heartbreaking, pitch-perfect novel -- namely, Stevens' own ability to allow some bit of life-affirming love into his tightly repressed existence.