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The Buried Giant cover art

The Buried Giant

Written by: Kazuo Ishiguro
Narrated by: David Horovitch
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Publisher's Summary

The extraordinary novel from the author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize­–winning The Remains of the Day.

The Romans have long since departed, and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. But at least the wars that once ravaged the country have ceased.

The Buried Giant
begins as a couple, Axl and Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen for years. They expect to face many hazards—some strange and other-worldly—but they cannot yet foresee how their journey will reveal to them dark and forgotten corners of their love for one another.

Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel since Never Let Me Go is about lost memories, love, revenge and war.

©2015 Kazuo Ishiguro (P)2017 Vintage Canada

What the critics say

Longlisted for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award

Longlisted for the 2017 Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award

Finalist for the 2016 World Fantasy Award - Novels

Shortlisted for the 2016 British Book Industry Award for Fiction

Longlisted for the 2015 Kirkus Prize

The Buried Giant is remarkably different from anything he’s written before, a ‘western-cum-samurai-cum-fantasy novel,’ as he puts it, that is at once an exploration of memory and the way it deceives, a comment on religion and the way it divides, and a study of how personal and societal resentment is passed down from one generation to the next—a topic with modern-day resonance.” (Mark Medley, The Globe and Mail)

“Kazuo Ishiguro is a remarkable novelist, both for the quality of his work—because his novels share a careful, precise approach to language and to character—and because he does not ever write the same novel, or even the same type of novel, twice. . . . Fantasy and historical fiction and myth here run together with the Matter of Britain, in a novel that’s easy to admire, to respect and to enjoy. . . . The Buried Giant does what important books do: It remains in the mind long after it has been read, refusing to leave, forcing one to turn it over and over. . . . Ishiguro is not afraid to tackle huge, personal themes, nor to use myths, history and the fantastic as the tools to do it. The Buried Giant is an exceptional novel.” (Neil Gaiman, The New York Times Book Review)

What listeners say about The Buried Giant

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One Big Meh

I have loved everything I’ve read of Ishiguro, but I would not recommend this book to anyone but the absolute die-hard fan. Unless you have a soft spot for the Arthurian legends and intend on a deep-dive of literary criticism, you won’t find much here. It is undoubtedly well written, and perhaps even well crafted. Nonetheless, I found it exceedingly tiresome. It even finds a way to make the slaying of a dragon tedious. Sorry, Mr. Ishiguro.

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An Adventure In Post Arthurian Briton

January 2022 | 4/5
We open with a lovely married couple, Axle and Beatrice, they live in a communal hovel, in the back room, far from the fire and not allowed a candle. The community all seem to have lost their memories, but Axel thinks he remembers a time when they had a fire, and a candle, and a son.

So, Axel, and his princess, set out to go find their child. This is a post Arthur Briton with ogres, and monsters, and dragons, and faeries, and they encounter even more peril in the journey. But they also make some friends, such as Sir Gwaine, Arthur's nephew, and a noble Knight at that.

The story is beautiful, with twists and turns, and an ending completely upto the reader to decide.

If you enjoyed The Last Unicorn, or The Hobbit, or Disney's Sword in the Stone, you will find comfort here.

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no more

After 4 hours of listening I gave up. What a boring boring boring book. Sorry for the 5 star ratings.

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Not the standard one would expect from kazuo ishig

Struggled throughout. Not the standard one come to expect from kazuo ishiguro. It was an audio book for me. Maybe it's the narration that didn't impress

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