The Buried Giant

♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

Briton couple Axl and Beatrice lose their memories because of a mysterious mist that has been enveloping their lands. Their neighbors as well as the town council have forbidden them to use candles, without knowing why. The two eventually decide to head out and seek their son, of whom all they remember is that he left long ago and settled in a village two days away from where they reside. As they pass through a Saxon village, they notice that they have arrived at a bad time given how a teenager by the name of Edwin has been abducted by what the townsfolk believe to be ogres. Luckily, a wandering Saxon warrior named Wistan is also spending the night and rescues the boy who now bears an ogre bite that the villagers believe will turn him into an ogre himself. Concerned for the boy’s safety among a rabidly superstitious populace, Wistan opts to tag along with Axl and Beatrice, Edwin in tow, to find him a new home.

This book is hard to read. If Ishiguro’s plan was to make us feel the haziness of memory loss that the protagonists are suffering from, then kudos to him because it has been quite effective. There were many times that I wanted to put the book down because the storytelling wasn’t just vague, but also slow. The plot just moves at a glacial pace and the only incentive for you to go on reading is to finally crack the mystery and discover what is causing this damage to memory. Eventually, you will get there, but you will definitely get bored many times along the way. The payoff is worth it, though, that I can guarantee.

Ishiguro toys with the concept of memory before fully submerging his reader into a full analysis of the idea. Memories are past moments lived that define a person and give him/her a unique identity. Collective memory is a bevy of communal experiences a group of people identify with that serves as a uniting factor for them. This is known to us as History. Rob a person of his memories and who would s/he be? Deprive a nation of history and where would it end up? In harmonious coexistence, if we follow Ishiguro’s line of thinking, at least based on the friendly relations between Britons and Saxons in this book only made possible through forced amnesia.

Somehow, it makes sense. Without the loyalty to symbols that define us as a group and without the personal belief systems that we adhere to, we might be able to live in peace indeed, because each and every decision or interaction with everybody else would then just focus on the present, what needs to be done now without any prejudice or whatever baggage from the past affecting our judgment. In short, all that matters is the present. In a way, despite the boredom I had to endure, the real thrill in reading The Buried Giant is the rumination that happens after you read it, when you decide to dissect the pros and cons of memory and history.

The history of the British Isles is that of invasion and replacement. The Britons fighting among themselves hired Saxons from mainland Europe as mercenary forces, unaware that they’d end up outnumbering them. That’s the reason why the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants have been pushed to the edges: Scotland to the north; Wales and Cornwall to the west. In the end we find out that a dying she-dragon’s breath is the source of memory loss, enchanted by Merlin so the two peoples could live together in harmony without any knowledge of their past. Could this dragon symbolize Welsh identity; its death necessary for unification?

This is one aspect in which The Buried Giant succeeds, not just in tackling the history of Britain but also in applying it to the history of mankind in general. The theme of death is also explored, albeit not heavily. Axl and Beatrice’s interaction with boatmen, who are supposed to ferry them to an island paradise where they can be reunited with their son, is an obvious allusion to the journey of death as evident in various ancient civilizations. I just wish this was explored more. In the end, I have no idea what Edwin and the poisoned goat are supposed to symbolize. And this is one thing you’ll surely love in this novel. The symbolisms!