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. 

The Naked and the Dead

 The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer is an exhausting, brutal war novel, written just after his own deployment. It takes place in the Pacific Theater of World War Two, on a large fictional island, and it follows a platoon charged with increasingly difficult missions. Throughout, Mailer includes flashbacks to each platoon member's pre-war life, and during the course of the action, the ultra-omniscient narrator enters the head of multiple characters in every scene. Each character's motivation is clear, and their inability to communicate provides much of the conflict. The perspectives are often interesting, but vary in quality. A Mexican-American private is clumsily rendered; the Jewish characters (mirroring the author) feel more authentic. Perhaps the most layered portrayal is outside the platoon: the repressed, cruel, sensitive, and brilliant  general. Mailer's overall commitment to interiority prolongs the novel's page length, and contributes to its larger effect.

While I often found the soldiers sexist and brutish (again, like the author), the writing works in aggregate. Aside from sporadic violence, the plot is believably dull for long stretches. Mailer's war is a grinding slog, a daily hell. Its a study in exhaustion. The sheer physical cost of jungle warfare, during this era with this technology, was felt in every page. Long marches, sleep-deprived guard posts, heavy packs, wet-hot terrain, insects, sunburns, sores, cramps . . . it all came through. The bleary-eyed mood was more evocative than any other literary element. Mailer wrote this at 25--it's his first novel--and the strongest impression of the book was the fresh retelling of a veteran experience, as though he still had sweat stains and jungle rot when he crumpled down at the typewriter and cranked the novel out.