From Powells.com
Our favorite books of the year.
Staff Pick
This book lives among my top 10 favorite books of all time. The story entails the journeys of an aging couple, two warriors, and Sir Gawain, the chivalrous knight from Arthurian legends. Their fates all meet as they make their way across Britain, at a time when ogres and other mythical creatures were said to still walk among us. We come to learn that what they think they are seeking is not quite what is drawing them, and that memories are really just our own personal mythologies. But it is the telling of the fable that makes it feel very much like a folktale you’ve been told your whole life, passed down generation after generation. That is the magic of Ishiguro, and why you must read this book. Recommended By Aubrey W., Powells.com
A sometimes quiet, sometimes tense quest novel, The Buried Giant weaves the pastoral with the magical. An elderly couple start a journey to visit the son they haven't seen in years. Anticipating an easy trip, they soon become entangled with a warrior, a knight, and a sleeping dragon, not to mention pixies and slightly sinister boatmen. Not just a fantasy story, Ishiguro's novel has much to say about marriage, trust, memory, and love. With a nod to Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Ishiguro asks whether or not, if possible, we would choose to keep our painful memories. Do they make us who we are? Do they change us into other people? Before they know it, the elderly couple realizes the choice they make about memory will affect their entire world. Sweet, and bittersweet as well, The Buried Giant is an unexpected story from a literary giant. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
This profound fairy tale set in Arthurian England follows an elderly couple on a quest to find their son. Both a dreamy invocation of a mythic England and a poignant examination of the trauma of memory, The Buried Giant is a gorgeous, current, and deeply satisfying novel. Recommended By Rhianna W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
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, an extraordinary tale of love, vengeance, and war.
Review
“A profound meditation on trauma, memory, and the collective lies nations and groups create to expiate their guilt.” The Boston Globe
Review
“Ishiguro is a master of the uncanny....Few write about the mysteries of the human experience with such grace as Ishiguro, and his prodigious gifts are evident throughout the novel.” San Francisco Chronicle
Review
“Lush and thrilling, rolling the gothic, fantastical, political, and philosophical into one.” The New Republic
Review
“An exceptional novel....The Buried Giant does what important books do: It remains in the mind long after it has been read, refusing to leave.” Neil Gaiman, The New York Times Book Review
Review
“Spectacular....The Buried Giant has the clear ring of legend, as graceful, original and humane as anything Ishiguro has written.” The Washington Post
About the Author
Kazuo Ishiguro’s seven previous books have won him wide renown and
numerous honors. His work has been translated into more than forty
languages. Both The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go have sold more than one million copies, and both were adapted into highly acclaimed films.