The Buried Giant (Vintage International)

Is it better to remember—or to forget? Is memory a treasure that gives our lives meaning and shapes our identities—or a curse that keeps us from feeling love and acceptance in the present? The Buried Giant is an ideal example of what rich, meaningful, challenging literary fantasy can do. It's reminiscent of Ishiguro's own work (Never Let Me Go similarly exemplifies the potential of literary science fiction) but also of the philosophical, allegorical, character-driven fantasy of Mervyn Peake, Gene Wolfe, Ursula Le Guin, and Margo Lanagan (whose amazing Tender Morsels is also a must-read), among others. Imagine Wolfe's Wizard Knight series with its Arthurian setting and unpredictability but with elderly protagonists, a smaller cast, and a focus on memory (and how it can provide meaning and also create pain—for individuals and nations) and you'll have a good picture of what to expect from The Buried Giant. Literal events are comprehensible with some effort (despite shifting points of view and breaks in chronology as characters start stories and only later explain the events leading up to them), but the novel leaves open profound questions about love, war, violence, and memory. It's also consistently beautiful and engaging at the sentence level—unlike in much generic fantasy (which sometimes presents elaborate worlds and plots but falls flat in emotion, dialogue, and characterization), characters each speak and act in completely distinct ways, and there is wit and meaningful, often moving emotions in the smallest incidents. The novel is more about its characters and themes than its plot, and it isn't dependent on lots of things happening, but by the end, the lives of the characters, and the shape of their world, are indeed fundamentally changed. Unfortunately, books like this often disappoint the two groups of readers who give them a chance: readers of realistic literary fiction, who are turned off that it's fantasy, which they foolishly see as subliterary (even though most of the history of literature before the development of realism actually consists of what we'd now consider fantasy, and the kind of primarily commercial fantasy thought to define the genre is merely an invention of the last few decades), and readers of generic/commercial fantasy, whose conventional expectations (a standard quest, action, completely clear storytelling, an enormous amount of world-building, etc.) will be frustrated by the novel's literary style and focus on character and theme. But for those who can appreciate literary fantasy (my own favorite form of literature), it will be magical—the kind of book to read and reread and give to others in the hopes they will feel the same.

This is a very difficult book to review. Superficially it is a Fantasy set in Britain shortly after the death of King Arthur. But actually it is a Myth, Quest, Allegory, Fairy Story and Morality Tale, about a magical world peopled with knights, monks, dragons, ogres and pixies (more about those later). When Axl and Beatrice, an elderly couple, set out on a journey to find their son, the land of Britain is shrouded in a mist which causes the population to forget or only half-remember the events of the past. Some wish to remember and others to forget. Ishiguro poses the pertinent questions "Is it better to recall the Past, or to bury the Past in collective amnesia? Should we allow the Buried Giant to sleep or should we wake him?" These are conundrums not particular to the Dark Ages, but remain very relevant in the 21st Century. The soldier Wistan asks "What kind of God is it, sir, wishes wrongs to go forgotten and unpunished?" Gawain replies "Yet it's long past and the bones lie sheltered beneath a pleasant green carpet." There are many gems such as these in the book, which is why I took much longer than my usual 2 or 3 days to read this book. I often returned to a passage or a conversation to re-read it. There were sections in the story I found frustrating, especially the river scene of the old woman in the boat with pixies swarming over her. I thought this part irrelevant. (I had exactly the same reaction to the Little People in Murakami's 1Q84.) The story lost direction in the middle when I wanted to follow the travels of Axl and Beatrice, but the tale deviated. However I found the ending of the story moving and poignant. The Medieval dialogue is beautifully written, the descriptive prose evokes the landscape of the period and the life of the inhabitants. If you wish to read an intelligent, convoluted, deeply meaningful tale, which explores the themes of memory, deception, loneliness, love and loss, you will enjoy this book. However it is not light reading, and probably deserves several re-reads.

The buried giant is not like other ishiguro's books I have read, but it's as good as his other books. You harbour on a beautiful journey with his stories.

Spesso il vero lettore appassionato e librodipendente è avido e pretenzioso, si aspetta qualcosa dalla storia che sta leggendo, quasi il piacere di leggere gli consegnasse il diritto di sapere, capire, venir messo al corrente. Tutto e subito. Ma con Ishiguro, la questione è diversa. O tutto, o subito. E se il lettore sceglie il subito, rimarrà deluso. Molto deluso. The Buried Giant ci offre il tutto. Ma per accoglierlo, ci vuole tempo. Ci da le risposte a tutte le nostre domande, ma per sentirle bisogna fare silenzio. Ci propone uno sguardo sulla vita e sull'amore che, subito, nell'immediato non ci interessa. Ma poi...ci cambia dentro. La reazione spontanea e'questa: Ma che storia è? E quanto lento va? Insomma non succede mai nulla! Leggi, ascolta, immagina. Accade tutto, tutta la vita. La vera azione de Il Gigante Sepolto è fuori dalla carta, oltre le parole di Ishiguro. Le parole sono solo strumenti con i quali ci viene detto qualcosa di enorme, così enorme che nel subito non ci sta. La vera azione è dentro di noi. Questo libro non è un romanzo, non contiene forse nemmeno una storia. Ma tutto il resto sì.

Whilst Ishiguro has written books with science fiction-fantasy elements before, most notably in Never Let Me Go , The Buried Giant caused something of a stir when it was first published, as it is out and out fantasy. There are no blurred lines. You can't call it magic realism. It's not speculative. It's fantasy. Whilst the labeling of novels can be helpful, particularly if you own a bookstore, they can also be misleading and used as a way to pigeonhole, denigrate, or ignore a novel's worth. Define a novel as "genre," and it is all too easy to dismiss. Conversely, labels can over-inflate opinion. Calling a novel "literary fiction" adds gravitas. Critics will often line up to sing a novel's praises even if it's dry and boring. The Buried Giant destroys the myth of labels. It contains many tropes associated with the fantasy genre--a quest, knights, ogres, and dragons--but it is also a work of rare beauty. A novel where every word has been weighed before use. The result is a story filled with layers and multiple meanings that might just be a work of genius. The Buried Giant feels like a work of early fiction. A fairy tale filled with allegory, one shade away from oral storytelling. It recalls The Canterbury Tales, Don Quixote, and above all, The Death of King Arthur. (Arthur is named-checked a couple of times and Sir Gawain is a principal character--a nod to Professor Tolkien, perhaps?). The setting is Dark Ages Britain. A time of myth and superstition. Even moving from town to town brings a sense of mystery and foreboding. Villages of "Britons" lie close to newly forged Saxon settlements. Distrust exists between the indigenous (my word) population and the new arrivals. Mistrust is in the air. The real-world parallels here are obvious. This is not a traditional fantasy setting, which tends to feel like heroic quests in agricultural northern Europe. Instead, Ishiguro's Britain feels like an agoraphobic's worst nightmare. Above all, though, The Buried Giant is a quest story. Axl and Beatrice set out to visit their son, who left many years ago, and now lives in a settlement several days away. The couple are old, their usefulness to their community on the wane. One senses this is to be their final journey. Much like the Wizard of Oz, they meet people on the way, travelling the same road, who join their quest. They journey with a young boy cast out from his village, a formidable Saxon warrior, and the ageing Sir Gawain, one of the few remaining Knights of the Round Table. As the journey unfolds, a sense that all is not right gradually seeps into the tale. Most notably that memories are hard to keep a hold of. Nobody can remember very much other than shadows of the past. The prose is spare but beautifully constructed and, unlike most genre fantasy novels, there is little embellishment of the details. Like many fables and legends, The Buried Giant is laden with allegory. There are myriad interpretations and real-world parallels. Themes of loss, acceptance, and the dangers of ignorance bubble to the surface again and again. The Buried Giant examines human nature, most particularly our inability to learn from the past. Closed-minded attitudes, superstition, and fealty to outmoded, incorrect assumptions seem reasonable when placed in the Dark Ages. Yet, transpose these attitudes to the 21st Century, which I believe Ishiguro intends us to do, and they begin to look like willful ignorance. There were places where I worried that The Buried Giant's delicate confection was going to fade away into nothing. The middle section left me restless, but as the novel moved into the final third, towards its devastating conclusion, I was gripped. On finishing, I was left wrung-out and overawed. The Buried Giant is no swords and sorcery epic, but a novel of rare and delicate beauty. Fantasy in setting, mythic in tone, but relevant to today, with a deep emotional resonance, I doubt I'll read a better novel this year.

It came really fast and it looks better than expected ! Thank you ❤️

Historia en la que se mezclan los esfuerzos por recordar de una pareja mayor que ha salido en busca de su hijo, con sucesos fantásticos en las décadas posteriores al fin del reinado de Arturo y con las relaciones político-sociales entre bretones y sajones tiempo después de que los romanos abandonasen Gran Bretaña. La forma de narrar se adecua perfectamente a la atmósfera olvidadiza y poco concreta de buena parte de la historia, los elementos mitológicos se entremezclan en las experiencias de los personajes y los diferentes caminos concluyen en un emotivo final. Es la primera novela de Ishiguro que leo; me ha resultado muy interesante, tanto por las aventuras medievales que tienen lugar, como por la forma de tratar el tema principal de la historia: los recuerdos y cómo su presencia o ausencia afecta a nuestras vidas.