I am not generally a “Fantasy Fiction Fan” but I am a huge Ishiguro fan-scenes from Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day have stayed with me years after their initial reading so I decided to add The Buried Giant to the read column.  Ishiguro is the type of writer that with each endeavor never travels the same road and I love that about his work.

The Buried Giant is a tale of a seemingly straight forward quest-although the exact time frame is somewhat ambiguous-post King Arthur?  There are Britons and Saxons, ogres and dragons, knights and travelers, good and evil. Beatrice and Axl are an elderly Briton couple who decide to leave their village to visit their son.  The world they live in is shrouded in mist (literally)  and they can’t remember their past-did something terrible happen? Should they remember?

Along the way they meet Wistan a Saxon knight on a secret quest-he saves a young Saxon boy ,Edwin, from an ogre.  Edwin is ostracized from his community because he has been bitten by the Ogre(? ).  Wistan asks Axl and Beatrice to help him find a new village for Edwin fearing that his family will murder him a result of their fear and prejudice concerning the boy’s bite.  While traveling all four meet Sir Gawain from Arthurian legend and continue on as a group-we learn about Wistan’s real quest and a bit of his past, the source of the mist, Beatrice and Axl’s trouble, and Gawain’s real role post Arthur.  We encounter Knights and Monks, mythical dogs and dragons as obstacles are placed and overcome.

As in any good quest nothing is exactly what it seems and Ishiguro poses interesting questions along the way-at what price peace? Can hurts be overcome in a relationship?  Is knowledge of the past really all that important?  Can prejudice be overcome?  I am still pondering the exact meaning of the ending and probably will be for some time.