Watchmen

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1987), 416 pgs. 

It's New York City in the 1980s. Nuclear war is at the top of international consciousness. Costumed heroes have mostly fallen out of the public eye since they were outlawed in 1977. Both the catalyst and the deterrent of rising nuclear tensions resides in the city in the form of Dr. Manhattan, the world's only crimefighter who possesses superhuman (and seemingly unlimited) power. When heroes from an old group of masked adventurers called the Watchmen start dying under mysterious and violent circumstances, the other former members (disjointedly) reunite to figure out what plot is afoot. Is humanity in danger? Can the Watchmen save it before it's too late? Should they? 

Watchmen is a heavy, very meta superhero story about what it means to be human and what it means to be a hero. The "heroes" in the Watchmen group are all presented as very flawed people who abuse their power, operate outside the law, and oftentimes look down upon those they are supposed to protect. At the same time, a pretty pessimistic view of humanity is presented as the cycle of violence in the story goes round and round like the hands of a clock. Fans of "The Boys" TV show on Amazon Prime, or just of dark, gritty superhero stories chock full of complex characters and symbols, will enjoy this highly acclaimed graphic novel.

The Buried Giant / Kazuo Ishiguro 317 pages

From the author of Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day, among others.  Axl and Beatrice are an affectionate couple in (I guess) late middle age in post-Arthurian England.  The vicious wars between the Saxons and the Britons have ceased and the land is peaceful, save for the occasional ogre, pixie, and dragon.  But the people of Axl and Beatrice's Briton village are afflicted by a condition they call the mist, which affects their memories such that they collectively forget recent visitors, missing family members, and their own personal histories.  In the occasional periods in which their mental fog lifts, they remember that they have a son, and that they long to see him.  And so they set off on a journey, in which, as in most stories, they will find things they never imagined possible at the beginning.

Everything I've read by Ishiguro is strange, and Buried Giant is certainly that.  Reading this I felt a clammy menace which I recall feeling throughout Never Let Me Go, too.  (That novel has a big 'reveal' at the end which I won't mention.)  It's not pleasant, this feeling, but it is compelling, and I don't know another author who evokes the sensation so well.  While an imperfect work, I appreciate Buried Giant for its strangeness, for its evocative exploration of themes like the burden of memory, and for asking questions like "What are we supposed to do with the fact that we know we're going to die?" and "How are we to get along with one another?"  Holy Grails, indeed!