Review: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

I loved “The Remains of the Day”, but I don’t entirely understand this story. At the surface, it appears to be a fantasy story of an old couple traveling through a medieval England, full of warring Britons and Saxons, ogres, dragons, knights of Arthur, and other standard fantasy tropes. The core idea of this book seems to be about memory—or, more accurately, how losing memories allows people to forget pain, betrayal, and enemies, and live in peace. All of this is clear very early in the book and, as far as I can tell, none of it develops all that much as you go on. We run across strange priests, mythological boatmen and river crossings, pixies, old women and rabbits, and other oddities, but the story doesn’t seem to advance all that much.

Is there an allegory I missed? Some underlying theme that wasn’t obvious? I’m not sure. With “The Remains of the Day,” what was said and what was unsaid was perfectly balanced, and both the overt and subtle themes came through clearly and stuck in your mind long after reading. In this book, I find myself much more confused, and much less moved.

Rating: 3 stars