Author’s Information:
Kazuo Ishiguro (石黒 一雄) is a British novelist, screenwriter, and short-story writer. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan in 8 November 1954; he moved to England with his family in 1960. Ishiguro graduated from the University of Kent with a bachelor's degree in English and Philosophy in 1978 and gained his master's degree from the University of East Anglia's creative writing course in 1980. He won a high reputation of being one of the most celebrated contemporary fiction authors in the English-speaking world, and he won the Man Booker Prize in 1989 for his novel The Remains of the Day. Ishiguro's famous novel, Never Let Me Go in 2005, was named by Time as the best novel of the year, and in the magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. His writing is bound to his experience of growing up in a Japanese family in the UK, and it enables him, he says, to see things from a different perspective to that of many of his British peers. His seventh novel, The Buried Giant, was published in 2015. (Wikipedia)
Background of the Book:
Ishiguro drew inspiration for The Buried Giant from the 14th-century Arthurian chivalric romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He had planned to write about collective memory and the way societies deal with traumatic events by forgetting. He eliminated modern historic settings because they would be too realistic. The poem about Sir Gawain solved Ishiguro's problem: "this kind of barren, weird England, with no civilization ... could be quite interesting". He began to research life in England around that time, and discovered, "[t]o my delight ... nobody knows what the hell was going on. It's a blank period of British history". Ishiguro filled his novel in the blanks himself and later that becomes the novel's most fantasy setting. For the book's title, he sought for his wife's help. But they did not find a suitable title until it neared the end of the novel's text. Ishiguro explained, "The giant well buried is now beginning to stir. And when it wakes up, there's going to be mayhem". And then he chose the Buried Giant as the name of his book. (Wikipedia)
The Buried Giant
This story starts in 6th century and it happens in England, the war seems to have died down between Britons and Saxons. Everything looks so peaceful: Britons and Saxons live in proximity to each other for decades, and nobody talks about the war anymore. However, at the same time, a huge plume of smoke is enveloping this reign. The “fog of oblivion” is permeating the whole valley and swallowing people’s memories.
It is strange that people are unconscious of the loss of their memories except an elderly Briton married couple Axl and Beatrice. Axl and Beatrice discover that they have problems in recalling their shared memories among their past including their son, so they decide to travel to the village their son lives in. During their journey, they encounter a little boy Edwin nearly being killed by villagers because they think this boy has been coursed. Fortunately a passing Saxon visitor Saxon warrior Wistan comes to rescue this boy.
And then warrior Wistan and little boy Edwin join the journey for sending Edwin to couple’s son’s village. Due to Beatrice’s illness, they are going to visit a nearby monastery to seek advice from a wise monk, Jonus. Then they come across Sir Gawain, nephew of the dead King Arthur. He claims his mission is to slay the dragon Querig. Warrior Wistan’s mission is also to kill Querig under the order of Saxon King. After a period of time, the four travelers finally find out the mystery “fog of oblivion” is caused by this dragon and Sir Gawain is actually the guardian of this Querig and secret of King Arthur. If they want to recover their memory they must kill Querig and her guardian, in the end the past pain will emerge and the war will be inevitable…
Will Querig be killed? You may find answer in the book.
This story takes me to the notion of the chivalry, both Wistan and Sir Gawain are respectable cavaliers, but they are severing two hostile nations. Thus their encounter is destined for fighting for their own country. One the one hand, Sir Gawain has been protecting the secret of Querig for decades to maintain that blind peace. He is loyal to King Arthur and in order to prevent the destruction of the hard-won peace he weave a net of lies defending Querig and his belief. And the death of Querig symbols the disillusionment of his belief.
On the other hand, young warrior Wistan grows in the Briton society but has a worse memory among his childhood. He has been bullied by a noble child and then isolated by other Briton kids so when he returns his home he begins to be hostile to the Briton. This time he was sent to kill Querig for recovering the hatred of two nations. Thus the Saxon can take this opportunity to incite a war. Despite Wistan’s hatred towards Briton, he is still kind to the old couple. From this I can tell he is in a sophisticated mood, in this love and hatred intertwined process he gradually became a different person which show us the possibilities that surroundings give to us.
Moreover, I want to mention the love plot in this story. The elderly Briton couple Axl and Beatrice seems deeply in love with each other. But they have trouble to recall the same memory of their past, and they even forget their son.
There is an Island that only a peer with deep love can enter and live in. Before any couple who want to enter the Island, they must be questioned by the boatman. If their answer is different and that will prove they are not true love. When Beatrice hears this story, she feels very anxious to prove their love only to find the destruction of their memory.
From this we can see in this story love is so venerable that if you lost your shared memory you lost your love. It sounds ridiculous but when we think about it we may agree that once we lost our consensus we lost our agreement in a relationship.
Love is unknowable even the one you love is sitting behind you; you still cannot prove that he (she) loves you. Even when they recover their memory, their memory may not be always joyful. If they have betrayed each other, how could they face each other when they finally know the truth? Life still has to go on regardless all the difficulties they encountered.
Knowing the truth sometimes can destroy the existing security but also can rebuild trust.
Writen by 郭美莹
Edited by 杨慧
Disclaimer: Pictures comes from the network
