reviews of the buried giant by kazuo ishiguro

If I have to work hard in order to figure a book out, then it needs to deliver, otherwise the reading joy ebbs away and that's what happened here. It would seem I don't belong to the literary 'in crowd' for whom this was written, but in my opinion, there was too much expectation on the reader to pick up on the hidden meanings, subtext and literary devices that must be holding this up. Did they represent foreign powers? The mixed tense was often confusing and what was that about the black birdlike hags/women? Is the boatman death? Or does the island represent death? Or am I wrong on both counts? The mysteriously omniscient narrator who revealed themselves at the end (I think?) as part of a frustratingly ambiguous ending only served to increase my ire. I was unable to decipher the meaning of the ogres or the purpose of the pixies if indeed there was any. I might have cared for all of this - the vicious cycle of hate and violence and the hopelessness of war - but the overarching narrative was unclear. Axl and Beatrice contemplate whether it's better not to remember at all if there's a risk the traumatic memories of war and genocide could come tumbling back with the years of separation, love and loss. Intergenerational conflict is an important topic in the novel with the hatred and distrust between the Saxons and the Britons sure to resurface if the memory dampening mist is dispersed. It's not even a pain I notice till we're speaking of it.' 'Even so, princess, now we're here, why not go and see the wise woman?' Stilted dialogue aside, The Buried Giant is a post-Roman fantasy with touches of Tolkien complete with pixies, ogres and even a dragon.

I've flipped to a random page to share an example with you:

Axl calls Beatrice princess and it drove me up the wall. What I found instantly irritating and relentlessly repetitive was the overkill with regard to the characters using each other's names ALL the time. The pair set off on a quest to find their son and discuss the mist causing the memory loss with others they meet along the way. This is the story of Axl and Beatrice, an elderly couple in a fictional post-Arthurian Britain where people across the land suffer from forgetfulness and a type of collective amnesia. Australian author Ben Hobson recently shared his love for this book but wondered why so many readers didn't enjoy it. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro was published in 2015, however it was a disappointing read for me. I enjoyed The Remains of the Day, the story of an ageing butler reminiscing about serving Lord Darlington between WWI and WWII, while Klara and the Sun was an interesting science fiction novel about artificial intelligence.

Reviews of the buried giant by kazuo ishiguro