The decade-long wait for a new novel from Kazuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go) ends with a dark and elegant allegory that shows the author at the top of his game.
In an England that still remembers King Arthur and whose fields and forests yet shelter pixies, ogres and dragons, an elderly married couple decide to make the journey to their son's village. Axl and Beatrice are not completely sure they remember the correct route, and they cannot recall why they have not visited sooner, or even exactly what their son looks like. Axl vaguely remembers villagers who disappeared mysteriously and were quickly forgotten by the entire community. However, they are certain that their failing memories are not symptoms of age and senility. Beatrice thinks that the constant mist hanging over their land may somehow affect the minds of those who inhabit it. They travel on foot in a time of few roads, when the lack of medical knowledge can turn a broken bone or even a simple cut into a death sentence. Their journey becomes more dangerous than anticipated when they visit a village from which ogres stole a young boy. Although a fearsome Saxon warrior named Wistan rescues the boy, his people believe the child is tainted by the ogres' evil and will not accept him. Axl and Beatrice agree to travel with the warrior and child for a time, but Wistan's hidden agenda and Beatrice's determination to regain their memories will pull them into a dangerous adventure they never imagined.
Shades of Tolkien and T.H. White enliven Ishiguro's exploration of the role memory plays in human lives and relationships and whether or not freedom lies in forgetting. Even as Beatrice and Axl yearn to remember their son and their pasts together, they realize that remembering may dredge up the bad with the good. Deeply in love and dependent upon each other, they can't imagine the past holds any unhappy surprises, but each of them still quietly worries. As simple villagers, they don't intend to involve themselves in the affairs of wizards and knights--not even one who served Arthur--but both Wistan and a knight of the Round Table they meet in their travels find Axl strangely familiar, hinting at a grander past. Ishiguro's use of fantasy elements plays perfectly with his usual subtlety and bittersweet musings on human nature, and this quest for the truth will spur readers to think deeply about the impressions our pasts leave on our futures. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads
Shelf Talker: This Arthurian fable, complete with knights, fantastic beasts and a heroic quest, is Ishiguro's first novel in 10 years.