The Remains of the Day (1989)

Stevens has built an identity around doing a butler's job perfectly. Recalling his service at Darlington Hall, he makes professional restraint sound reasonable even when it conceals a painful failure of judgement. The work has its own hierarchies and satisfactions; the employer's political choices also enter it. Best for patient readers who enjoy listening closely to a controlled voice, and who want service treated as a moral relationship as well as a livelihood.