For the first hundred pages or so I thought I was going to love this book. The idea of the old couple setting off on what amounted to a pilgrimage, the mist and the way people were losing memories and the beautifully executed writing style all added up to a possible five star read. Then just around the half way point I suddenly realised I was a little bored and was starting to skim the longer paragraphs. Part of this was that I had developed an attachment to Axl and Beatrice and did not want to

Does 'The Buried Giant' Bury Our Own Literary One? This being Ishiguro's last novel before receiving the Nobel Award (one assumes for 'Remains' & 'Never')--the answer is a loud resounding NO!!But--It vascillates between charming & unnerving, two polar opposite Ishiguro juggles well. It's an existential apocalyptic fairytale; a Shrek-world suddenly gone earl-grey and maudlin. Colourless...It is One Wondrous Misfire. Not one to announce AT ALL what the master is actually capable of doing. Some gen...

(B) 72% | More than SatisfactoryNotes: There’s meaning to be taken from its final few chapters, though the journey there is tiresome, plodding and colorless.

1 star - I don't often feel guilty at not being able to finish a book, but I do this time. It's not like I didn't try. I made three attempts to read it. 1. I got the book. I read a few chapters. The characters didn't have any personalities, the descriptions of them didn't bring them to life at all and I wasn't enamoured of the setting either. So I gave it up.2. Tried the audio book. Was it going to be any better listening to the story paper-dry protagonists and their fantasy quest. No. My mind k...

Is it better to remember? Or can we only live with ourselves and one another through ignorance?Kazuo Ishiguro writes a spellbinding fable of one elderly couple's quest for memory. Their journey takes us deep into a nostalgically rendered Dark Age. A post-Arthurian Britain inhabited by the myths and heroes of those isles, and a few more mythic traditions as well. Yet it is a fragile Britain where everything balances on the knife edge: social mores, the civilizational veneer, lifelong marital love...

Oh boy, this is the book that caused such uproar among Ishiguro fans! Before you pick up this novel, please believe me when I say this is going to be nothing like any of his previous work. So if you are resistant to change, you might want to skip this one. Don’t expect it to be The Remains of the Day, and definitely don’t think this is going to be the next Never Let Me Go. In fact this book won’t even be set in our own time or even plane of reality. On the surface of it all, The Buried Giant is

The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro The Buried Giant is a fantasy novel by Nobel Prize-winning British writer Kazuo Ishiguro, published in March 2015. The book has been translated into French, German, Spanish and Italian.Following the death of King Arthur, Saxons and Britons live in harmony. Along with everyone else in their village, Axl and Beatrice, an elderly Briton couple, suffer from severe selective amnesia that they call the 'mist'. Although barely able to remember, they feel sure that they

It was a curious experience to read this novel about memory and loss so soon after reading Piranesi, a novel interested in precisely the same thing. Both novels were dreamy, withholding, patient, dreadful (in the sense of full of dread, not dreadful novels!). I found Piranesi warmer and sadder, but I expect some readers might find this one more accessible, depending on your own personal baggage with loss, trauma, and forgiveness.

Foolishness, sir. How can old wounds heal while maggots linger so richly? Or a peace hold for ever built on slaughter and a magician's trickery? I see how devoutly you wish it, for your old horrors to crumble as dust. Yet they await in the soil as white bones for men to uncover (p327)Uncanny, haunting, I must have read this novel at the right time for me as it found a sure spot under my skin and disturbed my normally peaceful sleep.It seems to me that Ishiguro is one of those writers who is alwa...

Updated 4/30/2015: For context, you should know that I’ve read three previous Ishiguro novels: The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and We Were Orphans. I disliked We Were Orphans pretty strongly, and liked Never Let Me Go (probably not as much as I would have if I hadn’t been spoiled for it, and I’d probably like it better on re-read). But Remains of the Day is one of my favorite books of all time. Like, if I had a top ten list of books that represent me and my inner life, this would be on

I am an Ishiguro enthusiast if ever there was one. I have read his oeuvre. That's why it pains me a little to say that I found The Buried Giant disappointing. I say this not because I think Ishiguro's skills as a novelist are one whit duller than usual. But because I did not care for the story or its characters. They did not engage me. He's going after a new readership with this book. He's going after the vast fantasy market. That's fine. A writer must write what he must write. Just don't expect...

What you do is, you take King Arthur, The Canterbury Tales, Asterix and Obelix, Don Quixote, Shrek, Brother Cadfael, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Lord of the Rings and stir them all together in Kazuo Ishiguro's brain. Then you sit him down in front of a typewriter, or a notebook, a computer, and if you're lucky something like The Buried Giant will emerge. It read a bit like a bedtime story (in the magical, evocative, maybe even the story-teller doesn't know what's going to happen next sen...

'Don’t worry, princess.''Everything is going to be okay, princess.' 'We will go soon, princess.''I promise, princess.''It will work, princess. ' 'There’s one problem though, princess.' 'I can’t stop saying princess, princess.''It’s fine, princess.' 'It won’t annoy him, princess.' 'My constant use of princess, princess.''It won’t annoy him, princess.''I’ve repeated myself, princess.' 'And again, princess.''It won’t annoy him, princess.''To the point he throws the book at the wall, princess.''And

As someone who has read all of Ishiguro's previous works I was of course more than excited to finally get my hands on a copy of The Buried Giant. Oh boy, if only that excitement hadn't been sourly crushed by the actual contents of this novel. The Buried Giant is very different from all of Ishiguro's other novels. In fact it's so different that I can't even compare it to any of his previous novels. The main difference is of course that this is essentially a fantasy novel. Now I'll be the first to...

I need to think about this book. Changed my mind from 3 stars to 3.5 rounded off to 4. Mainly because Ishiguro's style of writing is beautiful to me. And the story telling too, although this story had its highs and lows. Not his best, but still... Ishiguro style. So, I thought about it, and this book did make an impression on me. Therefore, changed my view.... And this link: Neil Gaiman reviewing the book, I like his observations. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/boo...