The Remains of the Day

Stevens drives across England and constructs a perfect defense of every choice he ever made. By the end you understand exactly why he needed to build it. The restraint is almost unbearable — every scene where he almost says the thing and doesn't. Ishiguro's greatest book, I think. And that's saying something.

a passage

“It is, as I say, a matter of some regret to me that I should have spent so many hours of my life pondering over such questions as the nature of dignity.”