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!
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