i love the format of this narrative, it reads like a journal or a letter but it’s unclear what audience either possibility might have been written for. the narrator is an old butler in a distinguished house which is now owned by a younger american. he reminisces about the days past while driving out to the country for a rare vacation, pausing now and then to collect his thoughts on paper. he philosophizes on the essence of being a great butler and pulls out old memories which he tends to feel are disconnected from his thoughts, even though they rarely are. a picture emerges of how much he suppressed in order to attain this sense of dignity he deems integral to being a great butler and how unable he is to realize it.

laura sent me this book saying that she had read another book by this author but not this one. Funny Boy, probably? another friend told me that one is “really good” and this one is just “okay,” so it took some effort to get into it with that context. but last night i read the last half of it in one sitting. the story is compelling, set in 1920’s Ceylon (Sri Lanka), concerning mostly a young schoolteacher who is uncertain if she wants to continue her career or get married and her uncle who is the son of a prominent man and puts his privileged life into context when his boyfriend from his college days shows up in town. the characters are given convincing dimension, but i had to keep reminding myself that it was supposed to take place in the 1920’s—aside from occasional descriptive elements, it was easy to slip into the modern voice and feel that it was taking place in a timeless “no time.” at the end the pacing suddenly went out of control and everything just stopped, resolved but only somewhat. it seemed like this book could have gone through another round or two of editing. but a nice read.