The Buried Giant

 The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro is perhaps not the best introduction to his work. I've heard a lot about The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, his more acclaimed books, but they were out from the library. This novel, which I mistook for historical fiction, ended up being a strange foray into the fantasy genre. It blended English folk religion with Arthurian Legend and real, historical conquest. The Buried Giant had some interesting ideas--mainly about collective amnesia regarding large-scale traumas--but the execution was clunky. The characters were often one-dimensional; the plot was formulaic. The dialogue in particular was seemed false: expository and forcibly chivalric. Were it not a short read, I probably wouldn't have finished the book. This is a shame: I should have given Ishiguro a fairer shake with his more celebrated contributions. The Buried Giant felt more like an experiment, and for me, it did not pass the test.