(There’s a lot to go with here, from the modern twist on Arthurian England to the added tension caused by the forgetfulness: so many questions!) Thus they set off, encounter a couple of characters that give us foreshadowing and a couple that become their travel companions. Amidst their secret suspicions that there is a curse of forgetfulness on the land, they decide to seek out their son, who they can hardly remember. We pick up in what feels like a historical science fiction Hobbit-town, where a couple is aging, thanks to their neighbors, ungracefully. The novel had enough of this and of other things to make me want to like it, but in the end, I never got there. I would have preferred that it was overdone so that it was more of an experimental novel. But I found that since this aspect wasn’t all in, it felt undone, half-hearted, or like Ishiguro couldn’t quite figure out how to handle it. And in some way we feel this forgetfulness, as readers. Despite its being Arthurian (I am a fan), it was groggy in some of the wrong ways.īecause it’s supposed to be a little groggy, right? We’re witnessing a fog of forgetfulness. Despite its reputation, it’s flat and flagging. (I’m about to say “despite” a lot.) Despite its cleaness, it felt unengaging and unemotional. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro-which won a Nobel Prize and is a national bestseller-is not bad, exactly, but it’s also not so good. I hate to be redundant, but once again I find myself having just finished a book, mourning its potential.
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