Book Review: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

This story is set in a Britain before the Norman Conquest but after King Arthur. It has swordfights, ancient knights, ogres, and magical dragons, but its real point is the relationship between an old couple on a journey to visit their son. Part of the point is the way the mists of forgetfulness swirl through the story, so I won't say much about the plot, except to say that you don't get tired of exploring the world, and yet the point is the relationships more than the world itself. Because of the setting and formal language, it evokes Tolkien and Beowulf, but it analyzes a marriage in a way Tolkien himself never approached. This is not epic, it is intimate. Though it's a slow build, it earns an intense, even devastating emotion as it nears the end. This is unlike any other book I've ever read, and its quiet elegance along with its natural groundedness won me over.