Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Buried Giant' receives mixed early reviews
Reviews have been mixed so far for Kazuo Ishiguro鈥檚 upcoming book 鈥淭he Buried Giant.鈥�
Ishiguro is the author of such acclaimed works as 鈥淣ever Let Me Go鈥� and 鈥淭he Remains of the Day.鈥� His upcoming work is set in a long-ago England in which pixies and dragons live, and he noted in an interview with that it鈥檚 a departure for him.聽
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know what鈥檚 going to happen,鈥� he said. 鈥淲ill readers follow me into this? Will they understand what I鈥檓 trying to do, or will they be prejudiced against the surface elements? Are they going to say this is fantasy?鈥� (He said that when he showed his wife an early draft, she said, 鈥淣one of this can be seen by anybody,鈥� according to the NYT.)
鈥淕iant鈥� won鈥檛 be released until March 3 and reviews so far have been mixed. and were two publications whose staff were won over by the book, with both giving 鈥淕iant鈥� starred reviews.
鈥淐onversations are formal and stilted, but their carefully crafted formality lends an austere rigor to the proceedings,鈥� said PW writer Lydia Millet. 鈥淭he Buried Giant is a slow, patient novel, decidedly unshowy but deliberate and precise 鈥� easy to read but difficult to forget.鈥澛�
And KR staff wrote that the book is 鈥渁 lyrical, allusive (and elusive) voyage into the mists of British folklore鈥�. The premise of a nation made up of amnesiac people longing for meaning is beguiling鈥�. Ishiguro is a master of subtlety鈥�. Lovely: a fairy tale for grown-ups, both partaking in and departing from a rich literary tradition.鈥�
However, writer Sally Bissell of Florida鈥檚 Fort Myers Lee City Library System found that 鈥淚shiguro's reliance on a tedious, repetitive back-and-forth conversation between the [central] couple detracts from the story鈥�. [T]his quasifantasy falls short as the medium to deliver the author's lofty message.鈥�
And writer Michiko Kakutani called it 鈥渉am-handed", saying that "Ishiguro seems to have renounced the qualities 鈥� precision, elliptical understatement and indirection 鈥� that lent his two masterworks, 鈥楾he Remains of the Day鈥� and 鈥楴ever Let Me Go,鈥� a tensile strength, and he鈥檚 instead embraced a fablelike primitivism that hobbles his instinctive talents. Worse, he has failed here to create a persuasive or fully imagined fictional world鈥�. [H]is prose remains flat-footed throughout 鈥� vaguely inflected with a forced old-timeyness that鈥檚 more mannered than convincing. The symbolism is also obvious and strained.鈥�
