Sitting in a bay window in Fowey in Cornwall overlooking the harbour mouth last week watching the fog roll up and down like a curtain, I finished reading The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. I am a huge fan of his writing, though strangely never seem to have blogged about him before (I think as I haven’t read one of his books since starting the blog), so was delighted to get this as a birthday present from a friend. It’s very different from the renowned and brilliant The Remains of the Day, which amazed the world in its perfect depiction by a Japanese author of English class in a country house, or indeed the others I have read, including my favourite When We Were Orphans, set in Shanghai between the wars.

Reading The Buried Giant in a fog encased Cornwall was perfect, as the atmospheric, mystical writing of a west country Saxon-Briton England trapped in a magical fog seemed mirrored in the weather outside, which was dramatic, eerie and beautiful. Walking along the cliff path between Polperro and Polruan as cows in the field next to us disappeared into the fog, I could well imagine I was on the trek that the protagonists in The Buried Giant take – an elderly couple walking through a troubled, bleak and stark landscape in search of their son and their memories.

It is such a different book from any I have read before. I love historical fiction but am used to the more traditional variety. This is almost historical fiction mixed with magical realism. From the start it’s clear that something has gone wrong with this society of Saxons and Britons, as people mechanically go about their business in a mental fog, unable to remember anything important about their lives to date. As the eerie story unfolds, you are taken on a journey through a landscape of knights and dragons, boatman and mountains, to find out who or what has taken these people’s memories from them and why.

This is a book that takes a hold of you and demands being finished. I’m just glad I got to do so in such a fitting place.