The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


In the days when Britons were menaced by ogres, dragons, pixies and Saxons, a mysterious malady descends across the land robbing all of their memories. An elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice, cudgel their besotted brains to remember things that happened only a short time ago. On a morning when Beatrice slumbered late, Axl forces the memory of their estranged son to the forefront of his mind. He recalls that they intended to make a journey to visit him in the village where he took refuge after some familial conflict. Along the way, they acquire the company of an ogre slaying Saxon warrior, a geriatric dragon slaying knight of King Arthur’s court and a Saxon boy with a dragon’s bite on his belly. Beatrice has a mysterious pain and is advised to seek the counsel of a wise monk. En route to the mountaintop monastery, they encounter a bereaved woman who is sworn to torment a duplicitous boatman for separating her from her beloved husband. The couple should be advised to be wary of taking boat rides from strangers. In the end, no one will be found to be as they seem, and no one lives happily ever after.

The reader should be advised that this is a very dense book. Why then did I read it? Well, it was required reading for the La Verne Writers’ Group. My problem is primarily the pace, which is glacial, and is made so mainly by the dialogue. No character can open his mouth without embarking on a Hamlet-like soliloquy. On they drone, and repeat themselves to infinity. My other problem is the multitudinous viewpoints and tenses. We are treated to storytelling by a first person narrator, third person viewpoints from various characters’ heads and first person ‘reveries’ by characters, particularly the knight who rambles garrulously for way too many pages, and he spends a great deal of time talking to his horse. I’ve told all this in the foul light of my opinion. If you like that kind of thing, Buried Giant is for you. Apparently, somebody likes it, because Kazuo Ishiguro is a bestselling author. As I age, I am forced to say more frequently, “I just don’t get it.”

It may seem mean spirited, but I'm not going to link to this book. After what I said, do you really want to buy a copy?


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