New Ishiguro!
Allegory! Fable!
And soon, a few chapters down, it was an `Eh what?`
Allegory, fable or an olde worlde tale, Kazuo Ishiguro`s
The Buried Giant (Faber & Faber) has an old British couple embarking on a
personal voyage, falling in with a mysterious Saxon warrior, a young boy carrying on him the
mark of a dragon, even one of King Arthur`s knights, Sir Gawain, more Don Quixote
than gallant knight of Camelot. They encounter pixies, ogres, sinister men and women and above
this disquieting lot, Querig the dreaded she-dragon who has covered all the British isles
with her foggy breath, lifting away memories from the people.
It is a quest indeed, fraught with danger, mystery, faith,
sorrow and amnesia, and an apocalypse at the end of it: the giant once well
buried now stirs. `When soon he rises, as surely he will, the friendly bonds
between us will prove as knots young girls make with the stems of small
flowers. Men will burn their neighbouirs` houses by night. Hang children from
trees at dawn. The rivers will stink with corpses bloated from their days of
voyaging. And even as they move on, our armies will grow larger, swollen by
anger and thirst for vengeance.`
Take what you will from the tale. If I may offer a word of
advice, let all thoughts of fables and allegories disappear into the mist. Read `The Buried Giant` as a story Ishiguro wishes to tell us.