The Buried Giant in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 19, 2015 Tony rated it did not like it

Shelves: setting-europe, novels, speculative-fiction

I'd always been under the impression that Ishigiro wrote highly mannered period pieces that were all tone and mood, rather than character and plot. So I avoided him until forced to read Never Let Me Go for a bookclub. That book was a revelation and remains one of my most memorable reading experiences as an adult. So it was with great anticipation that I picked up this long awaited book that was reputed to have fantastical overtones (I like some subgenres of fantasy every now and then). I was som I'd always been under the impression that Ishigiro wrote highly mannered period pieces that were all tone and mood, rather than character and plot. So I avoided him until forced to read Never Let Me Go for a bookclub. That book was a revelation and remains one of my most memorable reading experiences as an adult. So it was with great anticipation that I picked up this long awaited book that was reputed to have fantastical overtones (I like some subgenres of fantasy every now and then). I was somewhat devastated, therefore, to find myself aching to put this down and never return after the first fifty pages (I didn't, I plowed on to the end, hoping for better to come). Perhaps I am too thick, or perhaps too unaware of early British history and myth, but I found this meandering take on memory to be less the "mediation" of the book cover copy, and more just plain tedious. Indeed, it's almost exactly the kind of highly stylized and fussy period piece I'd originally feared Ishigiro trafficked in.

The book appears to take place in England soon after the time of King Arthur. We meet an elderly rural couple, who live in a tiny village of burrows (presumably based on some kind of real structures -- probably the same ones that inspired Tolkein's cozy hobbit houses). They've decided to go visit their son after years of not seeing him, but it becomes evident that there's some kind of something that's affecting people's memories, because they can't really remember him, or indeed, why he left.

Off they go on a kind of picaresque countryside-roaming quest that marries Knights of the Round Table quests with Don Quixote. Speaking of the former, they actually encounter Sir Gwain, who in the specifics of what he's up to, seems to be modeled on Quixote. There are others, such as a sinister ferryman, pixies, some odd monks and an odder monastery, a Grendel-like dragon, soldiers guarding a bridge, and more. These all sound like interesting elements, but seem to exist as pawns in the larger allegory Ishigiro is intent on weaving -- the ultimate meaning of which was lost on me. I think the book is seeking to say something about historical amnesia and the dangers that lurk when we do end up recalling the past. However, the pace is slow, the dialogue is very stilted, and the overall theme so muddy and obscure that I can't recommend that anyone pick it up and work out the allegorical details for themselves. ...more

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