The Alchemist

The Buried Giant

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light" is what I was thinking when finished reading The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I think Axl saw through the boatman's deception and he knew he was not going to see Beatrice again. And this is his rage against the god of death:

He wades on past me, not glancing back. Wait for me on the shore, friend, I say quietly, but he does not hear and he wades on.

Similarly, the rabbit lady they met early was not going to forgive the boatman as well.

I think forgiveness is one of this book's topics - it reflected in several key relationships: Axl towards Beatrice, the rabbit lady towards the boatman, Wistan towards Arthur or Britons, Edwin towards Britons, Axl towards the boatman. Even the first scene of the book is a forgiveness:

the dawn brought with it the first signs of this spring, and I watched my wife still asleep though the sun already lit our chamber. And I knew the last of the darkness had left me.

As Alx grew older, he actually developed a kind of contempt towards the "old hatreds" rooted in the "desire for land and conquest" - the burried giant. While Wistan clung to these hatreds as his purpose of life, and wanted Edwin to do the same, Alx in his old age, saw only one enemy - god of death, who will seperate him and Beatrice.

Ishiguro was 61 years old when he wrote this book. Interestingly, in the works of another Japanese author, Haruki Murakami, several main characters are also affected by cuckold. Is this just a coincidence, or could these stories reflect personal experiences shared by the authors? We should always separate the writer from their work, but I genuinely wonder about the connection.