Dignity, practiced until it was a blindfold
Stevens is a butler who talks about dignity the way other people talk about a craft. He is proud of the nights he kept the silver right and the guests comfortable at Darlington Hall. He is also, page by page, a man who will not let himself notice what those guests were doing, or what his own father needed while he was pouring the wine, or what Miss Kenton was offering him in plain language.
The motor trip in 1956 is supposed to be a holiday. It is really Stevens driving toward a woman he lost and a judgment on his employer that he has postponed for twenty years. I liked that the book never makes him stupid. His voice is careful, and the carefulness is the whole problem. When he finally says, near the end, that he gave his best years to Lord Darlington and Lord Darlington may not have been worthy of them, it is not a confession scene. It is a man trying out a sentence he has avoided since he was young.
I finished it on a wet afternoon and kept thinking about the banter he wants to learn, because the new American owner likes banter. A whole life spent being correct, and the skill he is missing is how to talk to someone for no reason. That is a colder ending than a broken heart, and I think it is the right one.