Stevens, an English butler, drives through the countryside remembering his years of service at Darlington Hall and the housekeeper he might have loved. Ishiguro writes in Stevens's voice, repressed and dignified, revealing more than Stevens himself can acknowledge. The prose is perfectly controlled, the emotion all the stronger for being held back. Lord Darlington's Nazi sympathies; Miss Kenton's departure; the missed opportunities that cannot be recalled: everything is understated. The novel won the Booker Prize. Stevens believes dignity requires never knowing oneself. The cost of that belief is the book's subject.