THE BURIED GIANT (2016)
By Kazuo Ishiguro
Penguin Random House, 317 pages.
★★★★
I adore Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro, in part because the man seldom repeats himself. The Buried Giant is a new spin on Arthurian legends. Several fellow authors complained that Ishiguro was disrespectful of the fantasy genre, as if there’s such a thing as a fantasy standard.
Ishiguro takes us to late 6th century Britain. I emphasize the last word because by the 6th century, much of modern-day Britain was under the control of Anglo and Saxon tribes that filled the vacuum as Roman Empire control collapsed. Without getting into too much detail, “England” is a vulgarization of “Angle-Land,” a nod for one of the dominant Germanic tribes that migrated across the Channel during the 4th-6th centuries. The “Britons” were Celtic peoples who battled both Roman and Germanic invaders. If you want to identify the true “British” peoples, they are Scots, Welsh, and various tribes that inhabited the Cornish peninsula. King Arthur, if he existed at all, was likely a 6th century Welsh Briton who temporarily stymied Saxon advances into the region.
Ishiguro riffs off the post-Arthurian period, mixes in a Greek legend, and fashions a fable of identity, memory, and the fragility of peace. Buried memory is the “giant” of the book’s title. Though Ishiguro has never said so directly, he was probably also inspired by a mysterious landmark of a giant figure carved into a chalky Dorset hillside near Cerne Abbas.
Cerne Abbas
The central protagonists are an elderly Briton couple, Axl and Beatrice–her name a possible Dante homage–who live in a village of joined homes and passages that evoke a thatched-roof version of ancient Skara Brae. They have long been devoted to each other, insofar as they can recall. That’s a problem; a strange mist hangs over the land and no one has clear long-term memory. They have just suffered the indignity of having their candle taken away by the villagers, ostensibly because locals fear Axl and Beatrice are too elderly to be trusted with a candle. They decide to visit their son, who left many years ago. Beatrice only thinks she knows the way to his village and neither of them can recall his face. Call it a strange pilgrimage.
Along their route they are warned to avoid the ferryman, whose unanswered questions have dire consequences. If you conjure images from the Greek myth of Charon who ferries souls down the River Styx, you’re on the right track. Axl and Beatrice encounter other figures whose roles and loyalties are uncertain. One is Sir Gawain, the last knight of Arthur’s Roundtable, now aged and more like a rusty-armored Don Quixote than the courteous and gallant Grail-seeker of medieval romance. They also encounter Wistan, a Saxon warrior raised among Britons, and Edwin, an orphan Saxon boy whom Wistan identifies as a future warrior–if Edwin can avoid being killed by zealots. The Buried Giant is also an allegory of the struggle between Briton Christianity and Saxon paganism, though both peoples inhabit a world inhabited by faeries and ogres. Edwin has a wound interpreted as an ogre bite, which both Christians and pagans associated with black magic.
Quite a lot happens on the various journeys of each character, including a very strange stayover at a monastery. Axl has no idea about his own past, but he and Beatrice suspect that the mist that robs people of their memory is the breath of a she-dragon named Querig. Perhaps if Gawain or Wistan can kill the Merlin-enchanted beast, memory can be restored. But what if the same mist also obscures old hatreds between Britons and Saxons and has kept the peace? Is it desirable to slay the aging dragon or let her live out her fading life? Ishiguro writes via Wistan, “The giant, once well buried, now stirs. When he rises … the friendly bonds between us will prove as knots young girls make with the stems of small flowers.” Allegorically, the candle is memory, the mist is collective forgetfulness, and the giant is a painful past.
Ishiguro’s enigmatic ending has been criticized with some validity. He also took hits for taking liberties with legends, though that’s another strange critique as doing so is pretty much par for Arthurian tales. I found it a fascinating novel chockful with provocative dilemmas. A Guardian writer called it “Game of Thrones with a conscience.” Indeed!
Rob Weir
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