The region is also held in the thrall of a female dragon named Querig, and the atmosphere of menace and destruction is described vividly: "As Beatrice beside him started, Axl realized that the dark patches beneath their feet, and elsewhere all over the ruined floor, were old bloodstains, and that mingled with the smell of ivy and damp mouldering stone was another faint but lingering one of old slaughter." There is, in fact, strong writing throughout this book, but often it comes shrouded in its own mist within pages, I could sometimes only half-remember parts of what I'd already read.
When a child goes missing, for instance, a whole village is consumed with worry, but by the time she actually turns up unharmed, everyone has already forgotten she has been gone. The problem is that the entire region is shrouded in what they call "the mist," which gives people a kind of amnesia. It is the story of an old man and woman, Axl and Beatrice, living in England shortly after the time of King Arthur, who decide to go off to see their son who lives in another village. I reminded myself of one of John Updike's very helpful rules for book reviewing: "Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast."Īnd so I submitted, undertaking my own journey, wandering the bleak, flickering landscape of The Buried Giant –– its stretches of flatness and its occasional moments of great lyricism and mystery. When I began to read it, and discovered it was a kind of medieval journey-story, I was surprised –– this was certainly a departure for Ishiguro, though in truth he is the master of the departure. I fully expected to have a similar experience with The Buried Giant. Sometimes it can be a slow, meandering climb, but you hang on, and eventually all is beautifully revealed, and you finally understand the nature of that climb. In both instances, you have to read and read and read in order to get to the true heart of the book. This was true of the devastating novel The Remains of the Day, narrated by a proper English butler, and it was also true of the very different but equally devastating Never Let Me Go. His previous novels have been strange, beautiful, and, in some way. Whenever I hear he has a new novel coming out, I start to imagine what it will be about, knowing that, with Ishiguro, I can't possibly have any idea. For me, Kazuo Ishiguro is one of those writers. There are some writers whose books you anticipate for months before they're published. Kazuo Ishiguro is also the author of The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.
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