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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I dont know what captivated me about this book so much! The writing was gorgeous, albeit with a bit of a slow building plot. But it made me sad, and the ending has left me staring at a wall for a few minutes!
slow-paced
Enjoyed it, but felt it was a little slow at points. I would have liked more background on the world and characters.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I couldn't do it. Part of me wonders if it's because I was reading the hardcover from the library and I HATE hardcovers, but everyone and everything was just so flat and boring it was like pulling teeth. Sorry! I'll have to give his other novels a shot sometime though. The ones that aren't fantasy.
While the plot never fully drew me in, the story still shines with Kazuo's signature melancholy
I enjoyed the book while it was in my hands, but I felt no desire to get back to the book when I put it down.
“But then again 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.”
So once again Kazuo Ishiguro, this time with The Buried Giant, has left me a bit bamboozled and wondering whether I know simple things like what day it is. With his track record, I guess I shouldn't be particularly surprised.
What I will say is I enjoyed it, if not in a that blew me away sense. It's a novel of subtlety and restraint, concerned once more with familiar Ishiguro themes: the importance of memory, love and loss. It kept me interested and turning the pages, content to be drip-fed information and answers though us as readers ourselves are suffering the foggy mists of forgetfulness.
I didn't know what to expect - and indeed Ishiguro rarely gives serves up something straightforward. His prose may be simple and unadorned, but it is always deceptively so: you know that something deeper lies beneath the narrative voice.
Ishiguro, not content with exploring sci-fi, the detective fiction and historical 'romance' in his previous novels, has this time turned to fantasy, and indeed there is a Tolkien-esque roll-call here: conniving, mischievous pixies, fierce - if elderly knights - warriors, giant supernatural dogs, and indeed, a she-dragon that, it transpires, is central to the plot.
Yet make no mistake, The Buried Giant is a slow-burner, and that will be enough to put a lot of people off. In the traditional sense, nothing much happens, and the pay-off, which was - at least in this reader's eyes - affecting, if not all a bit vague and ambiguous, will probably not be enough to reward some readers' curiosities.
It just... well, never hits the heights I expect from Ishiguro's very high standards. That being said, it's well worth a read and as ever, the recent Nobel Prize for Literature winner beguiles and intrigues. I eagerly await whatever he has hidden up his sleeves for us next.
So once again Kazuo Ishiguro, this time with The Buried Giant, has left me a bit bamboozled and wondering whether I know simple things like what day it is. With his track record, I guess I shouldn't be particularly surprised.
What I will say is I enjoyed it, if not in a that blew me away sense. It's a novel of subtlety and restraint, concerned once more with familiar Ishiguro themes: the importance of memory, love and loss. It kept me interested and turning the pages, content to be drip-fed information and answers though us as readers ourselves are suffering the foggy mists of forgetfulness.
I didn't know what to expect - and indeed Ishiguro rarely gives serves up something straightforward. His prose may be simple and unadorned, but it is always deceptively so: you know that something deeper lies beneath the narrative voice.
Ishiguro, not content with exploring sci-fi, the detective fiction and historical 'romance' in his previous novels, has this time turned to fantasy, and indeed there is a Tolkien-esque roll-call here: conniving, mischievous pixies, fierce - if elderly knights - warriors, giant supernatural dogs, and indeed, a she-dragon that, it transpires, is central to the plot.
Yet make no mistake, The Buried Giant is a slow-burner, and that will be enough to put a lot of people off. In the traditional sense, nothing much happens, and the pay-off, which was - at least in this reader's eyes - affecting, if not all a bit vague and ambiguous, will probably not be enough to reward some readers' curiosities.
It just... well, never hits the heights I expect from Ishiguro's very high standards. That being said, it's well worth a read and as ever, the recent Nobel Prize for Literature winner beguiles and intrigues. I eagerly await whatever he has hidden up his sleeves for us next.
I really wanted to like this book, but something held me back. The style was disjointed (random chapters of first person narration were utterly unnecessary), and too much of the action was revealed through dialogue rather than the author's own writing. I liked the old couple for the most part, but once you have a warrior, a knight, and a boy with a mysterious bite, it veers from the original path. I found my memory of the plot dissolving like the characters', and I had to skim to finish.