Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

2 reviews

spookfish's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective sad medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

Man, this book. I feel I'm going to have this settling in my mind a while. I'm just going to share the lines I underlined in my copy, as I can't think of how to discuss it.

'I wonder if what we feel in our hearts today isn't like these raindrops still falling on us from the soaked leaves above, even though the sky itself long stopped raining. I'm wondering if without our memories, there's nothing for it but for our love to fade and die.'

'Yet are you so certain, good mistress, you wish to be free of this mist? Is it not better some things remain hidden from our minds?'
  (...) 'We'll have the bad ones come back too, even if they make us weep or shake with anger. For isn't it the life we've shared?'

'I'll never , never give her up.'
  (...) 'You've known a long time now there's no cure to save her. How will you bear it, what now lies in wait for her? Do you long for that day you watch your dearest love twist in agony and with nothing to offer but kind words for her ear?'

'How can old wounds heal while maggots linger so richly? Or a peace hold for ever built on slaughter (...)? I see how devoutly you wish it, for your old horrors to crumble as dust. Yet they await in the soil as white bones for men to uncover.'
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armaget's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Interesting book- Read for school and not something I would have picked up myself, not being much into fantasy. However, I was very surprised how much this book grew on me. Should have known- before we started reading it, the teacher told us this was a book she read that stuck with her a long time after she read it. Now, she's passed it on to me and now I have to be thinking about old British couples with fantasy-dementia, shitty knights not doing their jobs, manipulated children with hatred in their hearts, (hey, that's a trope from The Violent Bear it Away) and metaphors for memory.

Metaphors for memory this book is absolutely steeped in. Anymore discussion on memory is gonna kill me. But it was very well done. There are so many angles that the thing is attacked at that you could pick any chapter of the book and have a differing take, which leads to me my other take-

It is very much a sum of it's parts thing, I'd say. Again, I'm not very into fantasy and there is some classic fantasy adventuring here that was actually extremely dull. Lots of sitting around and visiting random villages- Someone in my class said it would have been better as a short story, but I definitely disagree on that. 

Like I said before, every chapter has it's important input. It may not be the funnest book to read but once you get to the end it is so so worth it to just piece together your own interpretation with what you've been provided.

So, lots of takes, lots of cool shit you can think about. 
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