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Mitch Davidson asked this question about The Buried Giant:
I believe the ending can be interpreted different ways. What did it mean to you?
Spark So I think, that Axl really loved his wife, but she seemed only interested in her dead son, something long past, dead thing. I know a person who still…moreSo I think, that Axl really loved his wife, but she seemed only interested in her dead son, something long past, dead thing. I know a person who still suffers, cause of the dead of his children, although they just were 6 month old. Maybe Ishiguro hisself is suffering, cause his wife or he might have lost a baby once. Or the son is just a metaphour for all the „lost and dead things, all the past things“. Beatrices mind was living in the past and seeks for „dead“ things, but Axl was living right with his wife.
She decided to live with the dead ones, with the past and axl left her, let her leave.

Axl was still living, cause he still was living in the -here and now- that is why they could not passed the ocean together.

It really is important to leave dead and past things...if we can not leave all the past things, we might suffer, like beatrice often did. Past is past, dead is dead, no matter if it was wonderful or bad, no matter if it is a dead person or past situations. Live always takes place in the here and now, not in the future and not in the past...that is why Axl seems so peaceful and calm. He CAN remember things, but it does not influence the will, that he wants to live in the n o w. We can overcome walls and mountains, if we always try to go to the now again, like axl does.






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The Buried Giant
by Kazuo Ishiguro (Goodreads Author)
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