There's a strangely alluring blandness to the prose of British writer Kazuo Ishiguro—a flat, tepid quality that lends itself neatly to the themes of his novels: self-deception, regret, lost love, faded youth.
Ishiguro's latest, The Buried Giant, is written as blandly as the best of his books, but in failing to achieve any sustained charm or allure, it ultimately disappoints. Set in post-Arthurian Britain at the onset of the Dark Ages, The Buried Giant follows an old married couple, Axl and Beatrice, who have been rendered amnesiac by a mist that "covers all memories, the bad as well as the good." They're desperate to remember some "unnamed loss" at the center of their lives, which they think may have to do with a son they can barely remember. "I'm wondering if without our memories," Beatrice says, "there's nothing for it but for our love to fade and die."
Axl and Beatrice embark on a journey to reclaim their past and find their long-lost son. They're joined by a young boy with a mysterious wound, an enigmatic Saxon warrior, and an elderly, punch-drunk Sir Gawain on a never-ending quest to slay a she-dragon plaguing the land. The ruined world they travel through, far removed from the glory of the Romans and Arthur, is haunted with murderous pixies, ogres, and other "everyday hazards."
