Finn’s Rating    

Kazuo Ishiguro weaves together, from scraps of myth and legend, a tale of memory, purpose and belonging as twisty and form-defying as the misty land it sets itself in. Rather than defying genre conventions, it adapts them, modifies them to tell a story that should feel familiar to readers of T.H. White, Tolkien or maybe even Joe Abercrombie, but instead the reader finds themself in quite a different place. I cannot recommend highly enough to any fan of esoteric fantasy or literary fiction.

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory.

In post-Arthurian Britain, the wars that once raged between the Saxons and the Britons have finally ceased. Axl and Beatrice, an elderly British couple, set off to visit their son, whom they haven't seen in years. And, because a strange mist has caused mass amnesia throughout the land, they can scarcely remember anything about him. As they are joined on their journey by a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and an illustrious knight, Axl and Beatrice slowly begin to remember the dark and troubled past they all share. By turns savage, suspenseful, and intensely moving, The Buried Giant is a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory.

Ishiguro's new novel is a work of wonder, transport, and beauty. A recurrent theme in his earlier books, always shown with great originality, is the matter of what happens after we have lost our way. In The Buried Giant, Ishiguro explores losing direction, memory, and certainty, as the primary characters cling to remnants of codes of behavior and belief. Which is the way through the forest? Where might our son be? And where is the dragon, and who shall seek to slay her? Set in the time just after King Arthur's reign, Ishiguro's tale, with striking, fable-like rhythm and narrative, shows how losing and finding our way runs long, deep, and to the core of things.

     -Rick Simonson, The Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

Kazuo Ishiguro is thw author of four previous novels, including TheRemains of the Day, which won the Booker Prize, and An Artist of the Floating World, which won the Whitbread Award. He lives in London.