The Buried Giant
by Kazuo Ishiguro
First reviewed July 2016
I heard someone on a podcast recently say that the results of Ishiguro’s attempt at fantasy writing (referring to this book) is proof that the genre is challenging. I remembered really liking this novel, but in fairness I remember almost nothing from is six years later, even after reading my review. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I still gravitate toward the Fantasy section of every Barnes & Noble I enter with the inevitability of the tides. It is a relic from my pre- and early teens, a holdover from when I was transitioning between Goosebumps books and Sonic the Hedgehog comics to The Sword of Shannara and its ancillary series—at the time there was not a Young Adult genre that offered more than Babysitter’s Club or Hardy Boys. I found the stories of “adult” standard fiction far too tedious: fantasy novels were written in a style where I was challenged in both diction and structure while being offered plotlines that I now understand to be the archetypal Hero’s Journey but at thirteen felt world-altering. The stock-standard “farmboy to lord and master of special powers”—Luke Skywalker or Garion or Jon Snow or Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries—truly fits the definition of the word “fantasy,” especially to the chubby glasses-wearing twelve year olds amongst us. The whole genre really resonated with me.
So I picked up every paperback in the fantasy section that didn’t have spaceships on the cover, sometimes spending hours figuring out which was the first book in the series based mostly on cover art. If you dare to compare the first edition cover art of, say, Game of Thrones versus its more modern post-HBO reprints, you can see that most 90s paperback fiction was pretty corny.
my copies are tattered and signed by the author :)
While I still visit the Fantasy section, it is like returning to your hometown after college—you’re happy to be there for a short while, but you won’t be taking anything with you when you leave. Looking at the covers and reading the blurbs, most of it is just doesn’t hit me in the same way; I cannot care about another teenage sorcerer or a child pirate that turns out to be an heiress or dragon in disguise. Not because I am above goblins or faeries or enchanted accoutrements, but because the writing can often be embarrassing. I still enjoy the plots, even if they do tend toward clichéd; it isn’t exactly fair to read hundreds of Fantasy paperbacks and expect to be surprised—that familiarity breeds comfort and is part of the appeal, anyway—but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to drag myself through the level of prose that felt appropriate to me two decades ago [I don’t feel this way about Fantasy novels currently, and this “take” feels like an unnecessarily harsh judgment. Much of modern fantasy is written really well! —dd, 2023]. When the characters from Wizard’s First Rule started regurgitating Economics lessons yanked straight from the mouth of Ayn Rand, I knew it was time for me to leave Fantasy behind.
The Buried Giant is my first experience with Kazuo Ishiguro. A coworker informed me that the author is what I had, as a child, derided as an “adult” standard fiction author and that there was a bit of a kerfuffle regarding his foray into the genre Fantasy. It is a great shame if there is any amount of pushback by his “standard” fiction fans, because this book gives hope that the Fantasy section might again be a worthwhile bookstore destination:
I have no wish to give the impression that this was all there was to the Britain of those days; that at a time when magnificent civilisations flourished elsewhere in the world, we were here not much beyond the Iron Age. Had you been able to roam the countryside at will, you might well have discovered castles containing music, fine food, athletic excellence; or monasteries with inhabitants steeped in learning. But there is no getting around it. Even on a strong horse, in good weather, you could have ridden for days without spotting any castle or monastery looming out of the greenery. Mostly you would have found communities like the one I have just described, and unless you had with you gifts of food or clothing, or were ferociously armed, you would not have been sure of a welcome. I am sorry to paint such a picture of our country at that time, but there you are.
The dialogue lashes out with the breathtaking cadence of a lyric poem, so vibrant and alive it begs for a stage production:
“My horse, sir? You imply I’ve no more use of my Horace? You go too far, sir! I don’t fear him, even if he’s youth on his side!”
“I imply nothing, Sir Gawain, only ask for the assistance of your excellent horse to carry my wife down to shelter…”
“My horse, sir? Do you insist his eyes be masked or watch his master’s fall? He’s a battlehorse, sir! Not some pony frolics in buttercups! A battlehorse, sir, and well ready to see me fall or triumph as God wills!”
“If my wife must travel on my own back, sir knight, so be it. Yet I thought you might spare your horse at least the distance down to the wood…”
“I’ll remain here, Axl, never mind this cruel wind, and if Master Wistan’s nearly upon us, we’ll stay and see if it’s him or the she-dragon survives this day. Or is it you’d rather not see the mist fade after all, husband?”
“I’ve see it before many times, sir! An eager young one brought down by a wise old head. Many times!”
“Sir, let me implore you again to remember your gentlemanly ways. This wind drains my wife of strength.”
“Is it not enough, husband, I swore you an oath, and only this morning, I’d not let go what I feel in my heart for you today, no matter what the mist’s fading reveals?”
“Will you not understand the acts of a great kind, sir? We can only watch and wonder. A great king, like God himself, must perform deeds mortals flinch from! Do you think there were none that caught my eye? A tender flower or two passed on the way I didn’t long to press to my bosom? Is this metal coat to by my only bedfellow? Who calls me coward, sir? Or a slaughterer of babes? Where were you that day? Were you with us? My helmet! I left it in those woods! But what need of it now? The armour too I’d take off but I fear you all laughing to see the skinned fox beneath!”
For a moment, all three of them were shouting over each other, the howl of the wind a fourth voice against theirs, but now Axl became aware that both Gawain and his wife had fallen silent and were staring past his shoulder.
It does not need assistance to lift off the page; it is already alive in my mind. It takes everything good about fantasy—the journey, the action, the magic of encountering the unexpected or expecting magical encounters—and wraps it in prose so glorious that I would often reread sections for the sheer pleasure created by the words washing over my brain. The plot is gentle, almost soothing. The characters have a fullness that is all the more shocking when you recall that they are faintly described, illuminated solely by their own words and actions; silhouettes lit against a haunting world that never has its boundaries delimited. The foreshadowing is the brilliant sort of gradient that forces the reader to acknowledge that they knew it was coming only in the moment it actually happens.
The Buried Giant is what all Fantasy aspires to be: beautiful, inspiring, haunting, and memorable. While some of the author’s fans may be wary of following him into the fetid marshland they picture as the Fantasy genre, I have no qualms leaping into standard fiction on an adventure to uncover more of this beautiful writing style.