The Buried Giant
Kazuo Ishiguro
[Faber]
Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels are characterised by their extraordinary politeness. The Remains of the Day finds butler Stevens obsessed with ‘dignity’, continuing to serve a guest at the very moment his father dies. Never Let Me Go follows a group of clones scared of kicking up a fuss when their organs are harvested. What better setting for Ishiguro’s next book than Arthurian Britain, where the chivalric code seems to affect everyone, even the narrator? The considerate tone of The Buried Giant’s narrator is either an attempt to excuse the fantasy elements to the book, or to thoughtfully anticipate the culture shock modern readers might experience at encountering pixies and ogres – far more commonplace back then. This courtesy sits at odds with the violence running through the novel. In Arthurian times, it seems, it was customary to engage in civil conversation with your opponent before you slew them.
The Buried Giant is Ishiguro’s first novel in ten years, and while its simple style shows no sign of its long gestation, the complex narrative reveals the time invested. The main plot – ostensibly told in third person – follows two elderly Britons named Axl and Beatrice as they journey to the village of their son. Here, the prose is so pared back that characters are rendered almost entirely in dialogue, and the couple’s pet names are cleverly used to differentiate them. The pair are joined by a young Saxon boy cast out of his village, who subsequently narrates several sections, recollecting tales of how his mother went missing, and a run-in he had with two ogres. Finally, Sir Gawain narrates two reveries, in the doddery, aggrandising speech in the doddery, aggrandising speech you’d expect coming from King Arthur’s last surviving knight. Gawain has been tasked with killing the dragon Querig and releasing the land from a mist that induces forgetfulness, but still hasn’t got around to it. Like Ishiguro’s other novels, the front of respectability hides weightier issues like betrayal and xenophobia, and builds to a crushing emotional climax.
Words: Eoin Tierney
