Opening Passage:
You would have searched a long time for the sort of winding lane or tranquil meadow for which England later became celebrated. There were instead miles of desolate, uncultivated land; here and there rough-hewn paths over craggy hills or bleak moorland. Most of the roads left by the Romans would by then have become broken or overgrown, often fading into wilderness. Icy fogs hung over rivers and marshes, serving all too well the ogres that were then still native to this land. The people who lived nearby -- one wonders what desperation led them to settle in such gloomy spots -- might well have feared these creatures, whose panting breaths could be heard long before their deformed figures emerged from the mist. But such monsters were not cause for astonishment. People then would have regarded them as everyday hazards, and in those days there was so much else to worry about. How to get food out of the hard ground; how not to run out of firewood; how to stop the sickness that could kill a dozen pigs in a single day and produce green rashes on the cheeks of children. (p. 3)
Summary: Axl and Beatrice are an elderly Briton couple living in the days of peace imposed long before by King Arthur on Britons and Saxons. I say, "days of peace", but it's an unsettled time as well; the land is covered by a mist, there are ogres in the mist, and people seem often to be on edge and suspicious of strangers. More than this, however, there is a general forgetfulness lying on the land, which comes and goes, mist-like, across people's memories, and this imperfect oblivion leads to entire people being forgotten. Axl and Beatrice set off on a journey to visit their son's village after a series of events leads them to remember that they had a son and had been discussing whether to visit them. It's a dangerous journey, but in a Saxon village they fall in with Witan, who rescues a boy, Edwin, from ogres. Edwin, when recovered turns out to have a wound, which people assume to have been inflicted by the ogres in the mist; this leads the perpetually suspicious villagers to try to kill him, so Witan and Edwin join Axl and Beatrice on their journey, heading to a monastery. The monastery they find divided over how to treat strangers, but they are helped by a monk named Jonus. They also meet an aging knight of King Arthur, no less than Sir Gawain himself. Sir Gawain informs them that he is on a mission from King Arthur, given long ago, to kill the dragon, Querig, who is the source of the mist and the forgetfulness on the land; there is some tension in the company when it turns out that Witan is on a mission from Lord Brennus, the primary Saxon leader, to kill Querig also, which offends Sir Gawain. Nonetheless, there is something odd about Sir Gawain; his approach to finding and killing the dragon seems rather leisurely and even aimless, and he makes a number of comments suggesting a pacifist view in which massive bloodshed is to be avoided at all cost. There are also some hints (which turn out to be true) that both Witan and Sir Gawain have met Axl before, in a time that Axl doesn't remember at all and Witan only dimly remembers. Sir Gawain knows more about matters than he is letting on.
Some of the monks in the monastery conspire with Lord Brennus to murder the travelers, who escape with Jonus's help due to Witan's skill as a warrior. Witan turns out to be using Edwin to find the dragon -- the supposed ogre's bite is actually a dragon's bite, and gives Edwin a connection with Querig, and Axl and Beatrice become involved in a scheme to kill the dragon Querig by poison, which Sir Gawain grudgingly aids. And then all comes to a head.
King Arthur had imposed peace on Saxon and Briton alike; he had aimed at doing so by the Law of Innocents, in which treaties were established that women and children on both the Saxon and Briton side were not to be harmed. These treaties had been brokered by Axl in his youth, when he had been an ambassador for King Arthur. But the difficulties of keeping the peace had grown great and King Arthur had eventually broken his own treaties himself, massacring a number of Saxon villages. Then, with the help of Merlin, he had captured the dragon and placed it under an enchantment to make its breath the source of the mist and the forgetfulness. Thus the massacres were suppressed into oblivion, and Saxons and Britons no longer fought because they could no longer remember any reason for fighting. Sir Gawain's approach to killing the dragon was so odd because his mission was not to kill the dragon at all, but to keep it alive as long as possible. Sir Gawain, trying to preserve the dragon and the forgetfulness so as to maintain the peace of the land, fights Witan, trying to slay the dragon and end the forgetfulness so that the Saxons will rise up in vengeance and massacre the Britons. The dragon is slain and the mist and oblivion begin to lift; memory and vengeance have won. The forgetfulness begins to clear from Axl and Beatrice, as well, and they remember that their son has died; they also begin to remember things that will test their love for each other.
The book is often said to be about the problems of collective remembering and forgetting, but I'm not sure its conception of these is sufficiently coherent for it to be effective on that ground. The essential dilemma, however, is interesting: is it better to remember wrongs so that they may be dealt with, even if horribly, or to forget them and have a sort of peace, although with nothing ever resolved. We know that the Saxons will, in fact, massacre the Britons; but the oblivion of the dragon's breath had not actually eliminated the tensions, but just generalized them (thus the general suspicion of strangers throughout the land). And in Axl and Beatrice we see an analogous problem. They approach their death, and wish to do so assured of their true love for each other. But how can you know that you have true love without memories? On the other hand, if you remember, you will remember reasons not to love just as easily as you will remember reasons to love. Memory and oblivion are both indiscriminate; they bring the bad as well as the good, and sometimes the bad is quite terrible.
The book is written well, and the story overall is interesting, but I don't think it is an entire success. Part of the problem, I think, lies with Axl and Beatrice, who have to carry a significant portion of the story, but who on their own are dull as dishwater. There is, I suppose, something realistic about them, but the result is that portions of the story are like being stuck in a car on a road trip with an elderly couple with memory problems commenting to each other on everything that is happening. The story, including that of Axl and Beatrice, picks up considerably with the entrance of Witan and Sir Gawain, both of whom are considerably more interesting. The narrative (as opposed to thematic) link between the story lines -- the love of Axl and Beatrice on their quest to find their son and the mystery of the dragon -- is also weaker than it might be; Axl is the essential bridge, but Axl doesn't actually remember anything about his connection to the latter until very late, and even then it doesn't play much of a direct role. But again, the story surrounding Sir Gawain and Witan is itself quite interesting. The Arthurian background plays a fairly minimal role in the actual story, however; the primary narrative element it really contributes that could not easily be replaced is our knowledge that King Arthur quelled the Saxons for a time but only for a time, with the Saxons eventually overruning the Britons.
A number of reviews have said that the book is a 'fairy tale for grown-ups'; but this does not, I think, do justice to the book. The real fairy tales for grown-ups are just fairy tales. Things marketed as 'fairy tales for grown-ups' are usually quite stupid and gimmicky, and this book is very definitely neither stupid nor gimmicky. It also does sometimes have a real fairy-tale quality, down to its brutally unhappy and melancholic ending. Where it differs is not in being 'for grown-ups'but primarily in the way novels often differ from other kinds of tale, with a much weaker emphasis on objective meaning and a much stronger emphasis on the psychological. Some of this is very interesting -- but despite its many excellences, I do at times wish that the book were more fairy tale and less novel.
Favorite Passage:
"What is it you ask, Axl?"
"It's simply this, princess. Should Querig really die and the mist begin to clear. Should memories return, and among them of times I disappointed you. Or yet of dark deeds I may once have done to make you look at me and see no longer the man you do now. Promise me this at least. Promise, princess, you'll not forget what you feel in your heart for me at this moment. For what good's a memory's returning from the mist if it's only to push away another? Will you promise me, princess? Promise to keep what you feel for me this moment always in your heart, no matter what you see once the mist's gone." (p. 258)
Recommendation: Recommended; it develops slowly, but by the end is quite interesting.
***
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant, Vintage Books (New York: 2015).
