The Remains of the Day

Előszó

It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr Farraday's Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days. The idea of such a journey came about, I should point out, from a most kind suggestion put to me by Mr Farraday himself one afternoon almost a fortnight ago, when I had been dusting the portraits in the library. In fact, as I recall, I was up on the step-ladder dusting the portrait of Viscount Wetherby when my employer had entered carrying a few volumes which he presumably wished returned to the shelves. On seeing my person, he took the opportunity to inform me that he had just that moment finalized plans to return to the United States for a period of five weeks between August and September. Having made this announcement, my employer put his volumes down on a table, seated himself on the chaise-longue, and stretched out his legs. It was then, gazing up at me, that he said:
'You realize, Stevens, I don't expect you to be locked up here in this house all the time I'm away. Why don't you take the car and drive off somewhere for a few days? You look like you could make good use of a break.'
Coming out of the blue as it did, I did not quite know how to reply to such a suggestion. I recall thanking him for his
3 Vissza

Fülszöveg

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
FICTION / LITER ATURE
o
ne
ne of the best books of the year."
— The New York Times Book Review
"One of the best books of the decade."—Boston Globe
The Remains of the Day is a profoundly compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his fading, insular world in postwar England . At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving "a great gentleman." But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness" and graver doubts about his own faith in the man he served.
"An intricate and dazzling novel." — The New York Times
"Brilliant and quietly devastating."—Newsweek
"A virtuoso performance put on with dazzling daring and aplomb." — The New York Review of Books
"A perfect novel. I couldn't put it down."—Ann Beattie
"Brilliant a story both beautiful and cruel." —Salman Rushdie
The novel rests firmly on the narrative sophistication and flawless control of tone of a most impressive novelist." —Julian Barnes Vissza