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The Buried Giant (Vintage International) Paperback – January 5, 2016
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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.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateJanuary 5, 2016
- Dimensions5.15 x 0.67 x 7.98 inches
- ISBN-100307455793
- ISBN-13978-0307455796
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Editorial Reviews
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.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Lush and thrilling, rolling the gothic, fantastical, political, and philosophical into one.”—The New Republic
“Mesmerizing. . . . A provocative, multilayered mosaic. . . . Lifetimes of myth, allegory, and epic discoveries are contained within.”—The Christian Science Monitor
“A literary tour de force so unassuming that you don't realize until the last page that you're reading a masterpiece.”—USA Today
“Splendid. . . . Excellent. . . . The Buried Giant is a simple and powerful tale of love, aging and loss.”—The Wall Street Journal
“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
“Devastating . . . As emotionally ruinous an ending as any I’ve read in a very long time, and it made me circle back to the opening pages, to re-enter the strange mist of this sad and remarkable book.”—Mark O’Connell, Slate
“A profound meditation on trauma, memory, and the collective lies nations and groups create to expiate their guilt.”—The Boston Globe
“If forced at knife-point to choose my favorite Ishiguro novel, I’d opt for The Buried Giant. It uses the tropes of fantasy to set up a smoke-screen which the book then, by twists and turns, dispels. This reveal gives the book a shadow-plot, and layers of mystery . . . An ideas-enabler, a metaphor-animator.”—David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks
“Ishiguro is a deft gut-renovator of genres, bringing fresh life and feeling to hollowed-out conventions. . . . The love story at its center shimmers with a mythic and melancholy grace.”—Vulture
“A beautiful, heartbreaking book about the duty to remember and the urge to forget.”—The Guardian
“Powerful and disturbing. . . . Provokes strong emotions—and lingers long in the mind.”—The Economist
“A beautiful fable with a hard message at its core. . . . There won’t, I suspect, be a more important work of fiction published this year than The Buried Giant.”—John Sutherland, The Times (London)
“A novel of imaginative daring that, in its subtleties of tone, mood and reflection, could be the work of no other writer. . . . In the manner of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Ishiguro has created a fantastical alternate reality in which, in spite of the extremity of its setting and because of its integrity and emotional truth, you believe unhesitatingly.”—Financial Times
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
You would have searched a long time for the sort of winding lane or tranquil meadow for which England later became celebrated. There were instead miles of desolate, uncultivated land; here and there rough-hewn paths over craggy hills or bleak moorland. Most of the roads left by the Romans would by then have become broken or overgrown, often fading into wilderness. Icy fogs hung over rivers and marshes, serving all too well the ogres that were then still native to this land. The people who lived nearby—one wonders what desperation led them to settle in such gloomy spots—might well have feared these creatures, whose panting breaths could be heard long before their deformed figures emerged from the mist. But such monsters were not cause for astonishment. People then would have regarded them as everyday hazards, and in those days there was so much else to worry about. How to get food out of the hard ground; how not to run out of firewood; how to stop the sickness that could kill a dozen pigs in a single day and produce green rashes on the cheeks of children.
In any case, ogres were not so bad provided one did not provoke them. One had to accept that every so often, perhaps following some obscure dispute in their ranks, a creature would come blundering into a village in a terrible rage, and despite shouts and brandishings of weapons, rampage about injuring anyone slow to move out of its path. Or that every so often, an ogre might carry off a child into the mist. The people of the day had to be philosophical about such outrages.
In one such area on the edge of a vast bog, in the shadow of some jagged hills, lived an elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice. Perhaps these were not their exact or full names, but for ease, this is how we will refer to them. I would say this couple lived an isolated life, but in those days few were “isolated” in any sense we would understand. For warmth and protection, the villagers lived in shelters, many of them dug deep into the hillside, connecting one to the other by underground passages and covered corridors. Our elderly couple lived within one such sprawling warren—“building” would be too grand a word—with roughly sixty other villagers. If you came out of their warren and walked for twenty minutes around the hill, you would have reached the next settlement, and to your eyes, this one would have seemed identical to the first. But to the inhabitants themselves, there would have been many distinguishing details of which they would have been proud or ashamed.
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.
To return to Axl and Beatrice. As I said, this elderly couple lived on the outer fringes of the warren, where their shelter was less protected from the elements and hardly benefited from the fire in the Great Chamber where everyone congregated at night. Perhaps there had been a time when they had lived closer to the fire; a time when they had lived with their children. In fact, it was just such an idea that would drift into Axl’s mind as he lay in his bed during the empty hours before dawn, his wife soundly asleep beside him, and then a sense of some unnamed loss would gnaw at his heart, preventing him from returning to sleep.
Perhaps that was why, on this particular morning, Axl had abandoned his bed altogether and slipped quietly outside to sit on the old warped bench beside the entrance to the warren in wait for the first signs of daylight. It was spring, but the air still felt bitter, even with Beatrice’s cloak, which he had taken on his way out and wrapped around himself. Yet he had become so absorbed in his thoughts that by the time he realised how cold he was, the stars had all but gone, a glow was spreading on the horizon, and the first notes of birdsong were emerging from the dimness.
He rose slowly to his feet, regretting having stayed out so long. He was in good health, but it had taken a while to shake off his last fever and he did not wish it to return. Now he could feel the damp in his legs, but as he turned to go back inside, he was well satisfied: for he had this morning succeeded in remembering a number of things that had eluded him for some time. Moreover, he now sensed he was about to come to some momentous decision—one that had been put off far too long—and felt an excitement within him which he was eager to share with his wife.
Inside, the passageways of the warren were still in complete darkness, and he was obliged to feel his way the short distance back to the door of his chamber. Many of the “doorways” within the warren were simple archways to mark the threshold to a chamber. The open nature of this arrangement would not have struck the villagers as compromising their privacy, but allowed rooms to benefit from any warmth coming down the corridors from the great fire or the smaller fires permitted within the warren. Axl and Beatrice’s room, however, being too far from any fire had something we might recognise as an actual door; a large wooden frame criss-crossed with small branches, vines and thistles which someone going in and out would each time have to lift to one side, but which shut out the chilly draughts. Axl would happily have done without this door, but it had over time become an object of considerable pride to Beatrice. He had often returned to find his wife pulling off withered pieces from the construct and replacing them with fresh cuttings she had gathered during the day.
This morning, Axl moved the barrier just enough to let himself in, taking care to make as little noise as possible. Here, the early dawn light was leaking into the room through the small chinks of their outer wall. He could see his hand dimly before him, and on the turf bed, Beatrice’s form still sound asleep under the thick blankets.
He was tempted to wake his wife. For a part of him felt sure that if, at this moment, she were awake and talking to him, whatever last barriers remained between him and his decision would finally crumble. But it was some time yet until the community roused itself and the day’s work began, so he settled himself on the low stool in the corner of the chamber, his wife’s cloak still tight around him.
He wondered how thick the mist would be that morning, and if, as the dark faded, he would see it had seeped through the cracks right into their chamber. But then his thoughts drifted away from such matters, back to what had been preoccupying him. Had they always lived like this, just the two of them, at the periphery of the community? Or had things once been quite different? Earlier, outside, some fragments of a remembrance had come back to him: a small moment when he was walking down the long central corridor of the warren, his arm around one of his own children, his gait a little crouched not on account of age as it might be now, but simply because he wished to avoid hitting his head on the beams in the murky light. Possibly the child had just been speaking to him, saying something amusing, and they were both of them laughing. But now, as earlier outside, nothing would quite settle in his mind, and the more he concentrated, the fainter the fragments seemed to grow. Perhaps these were just an elderly fool’s imaginings. Perhaps it was that God had never given them children.
You may wonder why Axl did not turn to his fellow villagers for assistance in recalling the past, but this was not as easy as you might suppose. For in this community the past was rarely discussed. I do not mean that it was taboo. I mean that it had somehow faded into a mist as dense as that which hung over the marshes. It simply did not occur to these villagers to think about the past—even the recent one.
To take an instance, one that had bothered Axl for some time: He was sure that not so long ago, there had been in their midst a woman with long red hair—a woman regarded as crucial to their village. Whenever anyone injured themselves or fell sick, it had been this red-haired woman, so skilled at healing, who was immediately sent for. Yet now this same woman was no longer to be found anywhere, and no one seemed to wonder what had occurred, or even to express regret at her absence. When one morning Axl had mentioned the matter to three neighbours while working with them to break up the frosted field, their response told him that they genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. One of them had even paused in his work in an effort to remember, but had ended by shaking his head. “Must have been a long time ago,” he had said.
Excerpted from THE BURIED GIANT by Kazuo Ishiguro. Copyright © 2015 by Kazuo Ishiguro. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; Reprint edition (January 5, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307455793
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307455796
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.15 x 0.67 x 7.98 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #11,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #127 in Historical Fantasy (Books)
- #291 in Action & Adventure Fantasy (Books)
- #1,239 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
KAZUO ISHIGURO was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His eight previous works of fiction have earned him many honors around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. His work has been translated into over fifty languages, and The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both made into acclaimed films, have each sold more than 2 million copies. He was given a knighthood in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the story engaging and well-written with a dreamlike quality. They appreciate the superb prose and masterful writing style. The characters are described as engaging and human-like. Readers praise the book's style as delightful, elegant, and flowing smoothly. They find the memory themes profound and rich. Overall, customers consider it an excellent work by an amazing author.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers appreciate the book's pacing. They find the story interesting and engaging, with symbolism that makes it unusual. The writing is described as beautiful and engaging at the sentence level, providing a deeper insight into the book. Overall, readers praise the book for its uniqueness and suspenseful storytelling.
"...author who can create tension and suspense, and then sustain it consistently through a novel. That was certainly true with The Buried Giant...." Read more
"...in spite of all the shortcomings of The Buried Giant, this is a book that is unusual, it's not like any other novel you've read and it certainly is..." Read more
"...or the group level, as between the Saxons and Britons, is powerfully rendered. The prose is lovely and elegant...." Read more
"...and all individuals, you will be richly rewarded by reading this excellent novel...." Read more
Customers praise the writing quality of the book. They find the prose superb, personal, and well-written. The author does not pander to readers, but rather reveals secrets in an imaginative tale told through a fantasy world of knights and mythical creatures. The narrative is written in third person with a few first-person passages in an old English style. Readers describe the story as slow-paced and dreamy.
"...Don't get me wrong. It's beautifully written, yes, he's a master writer, no doubt about that...." Read more
"...Ishiguro loves a slow-paced, dreamy sort of narrative that reveals its secrets slowly, but there's an unfocused quality to this book that undermines..." Read more
"...The writing is outstanding, and the story is philosophical, like most of his work...." Read more
"...This is the best fantasy novel I've ever read. It is incredibly well written, the plot is tight and compelling, and the characters are very well..." Read more
Customers find the characters engaging and human-like. The writing is superb, with a shift between several character perspectives.
"...The narrative shifts between several characters' perspectives, rather than being a first-person retelling, as he used in the novels I read before...." Read more
"...well written, the plot is tight and compelling, and the characters are very well crafted. The book tackles some important themes...." Read more
"...the plot is boring and as noted by many reviewers here, characters are one-dimensional, it's hard to get emotionally involved in this book......" Read more
"...The characters have clear agendas and there are certainly plenty of strange folk met along the way or unexpected twists that the story takes, but..." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's style. They find it engaging and easy to read, with a flowing narrative that makes it easy to understand the deeper meanings of the story.
"...The prose is lovely and elegant. I get what Ishiguro was going for here, but the reality is that it just didn't really work...." Read more
"...But all the characters were consistent, beautifully drawn, each an important member of the ensemble, each so sympathetic the reader had great..." Read more
"...The idea is quite clever and once again attractive, but the resulting story sounds too artificial and contrived to involve me into the devenir of..." Read more
"...The dark, ugly world view that emerges is in stark contrast to the gentle image of the old couple throughout the book...." Read more
Customers find the book a profound experience about memory, love, and death. They appreciate the complexity and contradictions of memory in an Arthurian fantasy. The story is rich in its consistent meditation on memory and how it defines and constrains us.
"...an intelligent, convoluted, deeply meaningful tale, which explores the themes of memory, deception, loneliness, love and loss, you will enjoy this..." Read more
"...pondering about the meaning of love, the ability to let go, the power of memories, and perhaps the unspoken quality and necessity of forgetfulness." Read more
"...The novel centres on the themes of love, memories, forgetfulness, loss, morals, ethics, honour and revenge...." Read more
"...as a "luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory"...." Read more
Customers enjoy the author's writing style. They say he is one of the best living authors in the UK. The book contains fantastic elements but does not read like a fantasy novel. Readers appreciate the author's ability to blend genres and praise the new side of his writing.
"Ishiguro's novel contains fantastic elements, but it does not read like a fantasy novel, and as such, it has the potential to turn off readers..." Read more
"...He is one of the UK's best living authors. I enjoy when authors blend genre. A story of quests and themes of identity and chivalry...." Read more
"...Ishiguro has got to be one of the absolute best authors of our times...." Read more
"...the end I fell in love with the story and look for more from this brilliant author." Read more
Customers have different views on the book. Some find it profound and magical, with intense scenes and a bewitching historical backdrop. Others feel the fantasy aspects are flat and boring, and the plot is boring.
"...tale out of the mists of British legend, one with a deliciously steady build of suspense and a satisfying, but unmerciful and melancholy, sense of..." Read more
"...Ishiguro loves a slow-paced, dreamy sort of narrative that reveals its secrets slowly, but there's an unfocused quality to this book that undermines..." Read more
"...On one level, it works, on another it doesn't, largely because the plot is boring and as noted by many reviewers here, characters are one-dimensional..." Read more
"...This is a unique and interesting way to depict combat, in many ways preferable to drawn out fight scenes that seem to go nowhere...." Read more
Customers have different views on the book's readability. Some find it simple and engaging, with consistent explanations that make the story comprehensible. Others find it tedious with excessive verbiage that makes it difficult to understand.
"...to move along at a compelling pace, but it instead gets bogged down for pages at a time. Adding to the lackluster pacing is the ending...." Read more
"...be at first and although there are indeed extraordinary and consistent explanations for all that has occurred, the author goes out of his way to..." Read more
"...I just don't get it I suppose. I found it tedious, dragging, apparently working some metaphor that I just didn't give two hoots about...." Read more
"...and experience various trials. The summary is intentionally vague since the gradual reveal is part of what makes it compelling...." Read more
Reviews with images
Mildly dissatisfied
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2015I come to this book as a relatively new Ishiguro reader. I read Never Let Me Go last year and just finished We Were Orphans (both of which I liked very much). Then I splurged and ordered this new one as soon as it was available. Comparing my reaction to some of the other reviews, this lack of "history" with the author may color my assessment.
As you can see from my five star rating, I enjoyed this book a great deal. Ishiguro has woven a mysterious and introspective tale out of the mists of British legend, one with a deliciously steady build of suspense and a satisfying, but unmerciful and melancholy, sense of revelation at the end. The setting and plot seem uncharacteristic of him based on my other reading, but still offered the same probing exploration of the human capacity for love, evil, alienation, and self-deception.
I really appreciate an author who can create tension and suspense, and then sustain it consistently through a novel. That was certainly true with The Buried Giant. As with those other two novels, this narrative meanders and drops hints and jumbles timelines in a way that I truly enjoyed. If you like a directly linear chronology this is probably not the book (or author) for you. I appreciated Ishiguro's method of moving forward slowly, then doubling back and doubling back again to refract the story in new ways, tease out allegiances and suspicions between the characters, and keep the reader guessing. The narrative shifts between several characters' perspectives, rather than being a first-person retelling, as he used in the novels I read before. These shifts can make the thread hard to follow at times, but I liked the challenge of that. It added to the feeling of disorientation that the story seemed to be designed to create, forcing me to constantly re-asses each character.
In this case, the reason for the opacity of the story line is a more explicit plot device, rather than a function of any of the narrators' personalities, as in Never Let Me Go or When We Were Orphans. However, I felt the elements of fantasy and magic in the story were judiciously used and served the story well. I found the connections to Arthurian legend fascinating. They added to the atmosphere of mystery and foreboding (in a good way) as I tried to tie my memories of that myth to what was going on in this story. Ishiguro twists those connections to great effect, using them to disrupt my expectations and to shine a (not always flattering) spotlight on the characters' motivations in their dealings with each other.
In the end, I felt like enough of my questions and guesses about the characters' pasts and outcomes were answered, without the conclusion feeling at all pat or contrived.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2017I confess this is the first Ishiguro novel I read and I came to it because he won this year's Nobel. So I was curious. I'm always curious when a writer wins a Nobel, sometimes it's helped me discover a new author I like, most of the time it's been a disappointment (for example, I can't stand Orhan Pamuk). So I wanted to find out about Ishiguro and try to figure out whether I liked him or not. And I picked this novel because it was his latest, though I'd seen Remains of the Day (the film) and loved it. I probably should have read that one because I was rather disappointed with the Buried Giant.
Don't get me wrong. It's beautifully written, yes, he's a master writer, no doubt about that. But the book is a bit of a bore, largely because it is slow-paced and so full of clichés. It's an allegory, it's a fable, yes, but I'm very tired of dragons and pixies and mysterious illnesses and mists that bring memory loss. Terribly banal descriptions of post-Arthurian Britain, a dark, muddy medieval time that is tiresomely predictable. As to the dialogues, well, totally unrealistic, stilted, uninspired. Old Axl calls his wife "princess" every single time he addresses her, and by the end of the book, you feel like screaming STOP!
As to the deep "message"the author is out to convey, in a way, he doesn't do such a bad job of it. First he clearly confuses his readers and I think that is rather interesting (I wonder whether he does it on purpose). I've been looking at reviews here, and some are quite intriguing, seeing it as a tale of love between two octogenarians afflicted with Alzheimer's, others seeing it as a philosophical reflection on the roots of violence and war. The principle that Ishiguro is out to illustrate is clear enough: People live in an uneasy peace with each other largely because they don't think about (or don't remember) the wrongs they've endured in the past. The "buried giant" is made up of past hatred, and when the "mist" that makes people forget about such dark and terrible things starts to lift, the giant rises again, expect war and death to return!
It makes for an interesting political theory. Certainly Hitler came to power because Germany felt wronged by the outcome of World War I, in "Mein Kampf" he stirred up memories and called for revenge. So, yes, I can certainly "buy" this idea. But is a long fantasy novel the best way to convey this theory? I'm not sure. On one level, it works, on another it doesn't, largely because the plot is boring and as noted by many reviewers here, characters are one-dimensional, it's hard to get emotionally involved in this book...
Will I read another Ishiguro book? Yes, I will. I'm still undecided whether this is an author who deserves the Nobel, maybe he does after all...Because, in spite of all the shortcomings of The Buried Giant, this is a book that is unusual, it's not like any other novel you've read and it certainly isn't a "normal" fantasy, it doesn't fit into the genre. And, when you've finished reading, it stays with you, it forces you to ask yourself questions, to try and understand it - particularly the end, which is totally unexpected.
Top reviews from other countries
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helena pereiraReviewed in Brazil on May 14, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Muito bom.
Gostei muito.
O inglês não é muito difícil.
- PlaceholderReviewed in India on August 16, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Profound
The buried giant is not like other ishiguro's books I have read, but it's as good as his other books. You harbour on a beautiful journey with his stories.
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Cliente de AmazonReviewed in Mexico on May 5, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Una bella obra literaria
Una bella obra literaria que se desenvuelve al paso del amor que se trabaja atentamente. Hacía mucho tiempo que una lectura no me envolvía entre sus palabras y misterios de la forma en que lo hizo El gigante enterrado. Es una tierna historia sobre una pareja de bretones, ya con el pelo encanecido, que vive sin memoria de aquello que los unió en primer lugar, entre la bruma de la memoria recuerdan que tal vez tuvieron un hijo, nombre y rostro no recuerdan, pero la mujer está segura de que si marcha en su búsqueda éste se encargará de ellos en sus últimos días. La travesía que emprenden para buscar al retoño de su amor, adentrará al lector en un mundo rodeado de fantasmas y misterios dejados atrás por los romanos y los caballeros de Arturo, donde le costará dilucidar si en efecto hay seres mitológicos orbitando alrededor de la realidad que viven los personajes o si esos seres solo forman parte de las cabezas de los habitantes de estos personajes literarios.
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💐Reviewed in Italy on November 21, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Incantevole
Spesso il vero lettore appassionato e librodipendente è avido e pretenzioso, si aspetta qualcosa dalla storia che sta leggendo, quasi il piacere di leggere gli consegnasse il diritto di sapere, capire, venir messo al corrente. Tutto e subito.
Ma con Ishiguro, la questione è diversa. O tutto, o subito.
E se il lettore sceglie il subito, rimarrà deluso. Molto deluso.
The Buried Giant ci offre il tutto.
Ma per accoglierlo, ci vuole tempo.
Ci da le risposte a tutte le nostre domande, ma per sentirle bisogna fare silenzio.
Ci propone uno sguardo sulla vita e sull'amore che, subito, nell'immediato non ci interessa. Ma poi...ci cambia dentro.
La reazione spontanea e'questa:
Ma che storia è?
E quanto lento va? Insomma non succede mai nulla!
Leggi, ascolta, immagina. Accade tutto, tutta la vita.
La vera azione de Il Gigante Sepolto è fuori dalla carta, oltre le parole di Ishiguro. Le parole sono solo strumenti con i quali ci viene detto qualcosa di enorme, così enorme che nel subito non ci sta.
La vera azione è dentro di noi.
Questo libro non è un romanzo, non contiene forse nemmeno una storia.
Ma tutto il resto sì.
- A_studentReviewed in Singapore on September 26, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars A prize-winning novel about the importance of memories to people.
Is it more important to forget in order to have peace, or more important to remember in order to have justice? Is your love true if you have been made to forget the unhappy parts of your relationship? The Buried Giant explores these questions beautifully.