The Buried Giant
UK first-edition cover
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| Author | Kazuo Ishiguro |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Set in | Sub-Roman Britain |
| Published |
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| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 352 |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | Nocturnes |
The Buried Giant is a fantasy novel by British writer Kazuo Ishiguro, published in March 2015.
A third person omniscient narrator introduces the story and makes introductory comments throughout the novel, clearly addressing a more modern (if not modern) audience, for example by describing the differences between roads and houses in the story's time and ones the reader is familiar with. Several characters provide the perspective for the action of the novel.
The novel is set immediately after Arthurian Britain, with "Britons" living alongside Saxons. From the start, the novel introduces fantasy creatures, such as ogres. These are accepted as fact although they are seldom directly described or observed by the protagonists.
The story begins with Axl and Beatrice, an elderly (Christian) Briton married couple living in a communal agrarian village somewhat like a warren (partially carved into the hillside). Their love is obvious and Axl always addresses Beatrice as "princess". Although Axl and Beatrice are tolerated within the community and state they are still able to complete the tasks assigned them, there is evidence that they are of low social status (children taunt them, and the community takes away and forbids the couple's candle, forcing them to spend their nights in the dark). Axl observes that people seem to have a general problem with memory: he is unable to recall a kindly red-haired woman who has disappeared from the community, and observes the townsfolk forget about a missing child, Marta, they had been frantically searching for.
Beatrice, after an enigmatic encounter with a vagrant Saxon woman, agitates for the couple to visit their son in a nearby community (although at first, neither of the couple is sure they even have a son). Permission is granted and the couple start on the way to visit their son, whom they describe to third parties as an important man in his village who is eager to see them (despite a vague memory of a quarrel).
On the first night of travel, the couple stay at a Saxon village which has come under attack by two "fiends" (ogres). Men have been killed (or rendered senseless by fear), and a boy, Edwin, has been abducted. A visiting Saxon warrior from the East ("fenlands"), Wistan, successfully rescues Edwin and kills the attackers, although Edwin receives a wound, believed by the Saxons to be an ogre bite. The community wants to kill Edwin, but he is taken away by Wistan and Axl and Beatrice, with whom Wistan states he intends to leave Edwin (for them to take to their son's village). Axl and Beatrice have decided (after Beatrice seeing a medicine woman at the village) to journey to a nearby monastery so Beatrice can be assessed by the wise monk Jonus for a pain in her side. Wistan is curious about Axl to the point of staring at him, and questions Axl with questions suggesting he has met Axl before, although Axl denies this.
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