Discussing The Buried Giant
After reading The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro, Jill said, “I finished it, but I’m still not sure what it’s about. I mean, I know what happens. But I have this niggling feeling there’s a dimension that’s eluding me.”
I said, “Isn’t it just about memory? About the costs and convenience of forgetting?”
“Maybe,” said Jill. “But maybe not.”
Reading THE BURIED GIANT, 
the latest novel by Kazua Ishiguro (author of NEVER LET ME GO and Booker Prize-winning THE REMAINS OF THE DAY), I felt I was underwater, watching shadows waver back and forth on the surface above me. Bits of the story expand, dreamlike, as the light of remembering plays across the long lives of its main characters, aging husband and wife Axl and Beatrice—illuminating a corner of the legendary Matter of Britain, in the process.
The Buried Giant: Kazuo Ishiguro
Memory, Forgetting, and the Stories We Tell
What makes The Buried Giant so intriguing is that Ishiguro doesn’t simply tell a story about people who have forgotten their past. He invites us to wonder whether remembering is always a blessing.
Axl and Beatrice live in a world where a mysterious mist has clouded people’s memories. As they journey through a landscape haunted by the remnants of Arthurian legend, questions about what has been forgotten—and why—begin to take on greater significance.
What happens to a marriage when painful memories disappear? Is forgiveness possible without remembering the injury? And what happens to an entire society when its people lose sight of the conflicts and grievances that shaped their history?
Enormous questions
These are enormous questions, but Ishiguro approaches them through an intimate human story.
For writers, The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro, offers a fascinating example of how a novel can explore its themes without necessarily explaining them. Ishiguro creates a strange atmosphere, gaps in memory, and his characters’ uncertainty. All of this contributes to the reader’s own experience of searching for meaning.
And perhaps that’s why Jill’s observation is so interesting. Sometimes a novel leaves us feeling that we’ve understood something important. And sometimes we can quite articulate what it is.
Maybe that’s not a failure of understanding at all. Maybe it’s part of what the writer intended.
Enter the dream yourself, or listen to Ishiguro discuss THE BURIED GIANT on the Guardian Books podcast.
Some novels stay with us precisely because they leave us with more questions than answers. Are you working on a novel and wondering how to develop its deeper themes? (Without spelling everything out for your readers.) If so, I’d love to help. Let’s connect. You might also be interested in my books: Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock and Jamie Helps Mel Write a Novel.