--- product_id: 22190476 title: "The Buried Giant (Vintage International)" brand: "kazuo ishiguro" price: "€ 25.83" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.gr/products/22190476-the-buried-giant-vintage-international store_origin: GR region: Greece --- # The Buried Giant (Vintage International) **Brand:** kazuo ishiguro **Price:** € 25.83 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Buried Giant (Vintage International) by kazuo ishiguro - **How much does it cost?** € 25.83 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.gr](https://www.desertcart.gr/products/22190476-the-buried-giant-vintage-international) ## Best For - kazuo ishiguro enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted kazuo ishiguro brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory. In post-Arthurian Britain, the wars that once raged between the Saxons and the Britons have finally ceased. Axl and Beatrice, an elderly British couple, set off to visit their son, whom they haven't seen in years. And, because a strange mist has caused mass amnesia throughout the land, they can scarcely remember anything about him. As they are joined on their journey by a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and an illustrious knight, Axl and Beatrice slowly begin to remember the dark and troubled past they all share. By turns savage, suspenseful, and intensely moving, The Buried Giant is a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Dimensions | 5.15 x 0.7 x 8 inches | | Edition | Reprint | | Isbn 10 | 0307455793 | | Isbn 13 | 978-0307455796 | | Item Weight | 2.31 pounds | | Language | English | | Print Length | 336 pages | | Publication Date | January 5, 2016 | | Publisher | Vintage | ## Images ![The Buried Giant (Vintage International) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81gsnUA4ofL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I enjoyed this novel very much *by on Reviewed in the United States July 15, 2026* Memory allows us to retain identity, learn from experiences, and plan for the future. At the same time, forgetfulness acts as a vital mental filter that reduces cognitive overload and helps us adapt to new information. Psychologists view memory as the foundation of personal history and skill acquisition. In contrast, they see forgetfulness not as a system failure, but as an active, functional mechanism necessary for emotional health and efficient brain processing.Autobiographical memory forms the core of who we are, linking our past experiences to our present self-concept. It allows us to accumulate knowledge, master complex skills, and avoid repeating past mistakes. The ability to remember past events allows the human brain to simulate future scenarios and make informed decisions. Remembering shared experiences, names, and personal details about others is foundational to building and maintaining deep human relationships.But forgetfulness also has benefits. Although often viewed negatively, psychologists consider it a crucial evolutionary adaptation. It reduces Cognitive Overload: The brain is bombarded with millions of sensory inputs daily; forgetting clears out trivia (like where you parked three weeks ago) so you can focus on vital data. Forgetting outdated information allows the brain to update its schema and adapt to changing environments. Forgetting or fading the emotional intensity of painful, embarrassing, or traumatic events helps prevent chronic anxiety and supports psychological resilience.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle addresses the issue of memory in his first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, in Part I, Chapter 2: "The Science of Deduction." When Dr. John Watson discovers that Holmes is completely ignorant of the Copernican Theory and does not know that the Earth revolves around the Sun, he is utterly astonished. Holmes notes that now that he knows this fact, he will do his best to forget it completely.Holmes explains his lack of general knowledge using his "Brain-Attic" analogy. He compares a human brain to a small, empty attic with finite space. A fool stacks their attic with all kinds of useless information, crowding out the knowledge they actually need. A skillful worker chooses their brain's contents carefully, keeping only the specific tools necessary for their work. Holmes argues that knowing about the solar system is completely irrelevant to his work as a detective, stating that it makes no difference to him or his cases whether the Earth goes around the Sun or the Moon goes around the Earth.Kazuo Ishiguro’s very interesting and enjoyable novel The Buried Giant examines the benefits and disadvantages of memory, as well as other important subjects.He was born on November 8, 1954, in Nagasaki, Japan. In 1960, when he was five years old, his family moved to Guildford, England, after his father, an oceanographer, accepted a research position there. Although Ishiguro grew up in Britain and later became a British citizen, his Japanese heritage has continued to shape his imagination and sensitivity to themes of memory, identity, and loss.He studied English and Philosophy at the University of Kent. He later earned a master's degree in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where he studied under the celebrated novelist Malcolm Bradbury. Before becoming a full-time novelist, Ishiguro worked with homeless people in London. This experience deepened his understanding of human vulnerability and compassion, qualities that permeate his fiction.His first novel, A Pale View of Hills (1982), immediately attracted attention. Since then, he has become one of the world's most admired contemporary novelists. Although he has written only a relatively small number of novels, nearly every one has received major literary acclaim.His works have been translated into more than fifty languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Several have been adapted into acclaimed films, including The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.Among Ishiguro's best-known novels are: A Pale View of Hills (1982), An Artist of the Floating World (1986), The Remains of the Day (1989), The Unconsoled (1995), When We Were Orphans (2000), Never Let Me Go (2005), The Buried Giant (2015), and Klara and the Sun (2021). His most popular book is The Remains of the Day. It won the Booker Prize in 1989 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest English-language novels of the twentieth century.Kazuo Ishiguro received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017. The Swedish Academy awarded Ishiguro the Nobel Prize: "Who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world." The Academy also observed that his novels blend realism with fantasy; his narrators often conceal truths even from themselves; memory is unreliable; people construct comforting stories to survive emotionally; and beneath ordinary lives lie profound moral and emotional questions. The committee also praised his remarkable ability to reveal hidden emotional worlds through restrained, elegant prose.Published in 2015, The Buried Giant is unlike almost any modern novel.Set in a mythical Britain shortly after King Arthur's time, the novel follows an elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice, who journey across the countryside in search of their long-lost son. However, the journey is only the surface story.A strange mist has settled over Britain, causing nearly everyone to lose their memories. Villages have forgotten old wars. Husbands and wives have forgotten parts of their marriages. Entire peoples have forgotten terrible atrocities committed against one another.As the elderly couple travels, they encounter knights, monks, Saxon warriors, dragons, ogres, and mysterious ferrymen. Each symbolizes larger philosophical questions about forgiveness, justice, and history.Readers begin to realize that the novel asks a significant, haunting question: Is peace possible only when people forget the terrible things they have done to one another? They frequently read characters discussing moral and philosophical questions in ordinary conversations. They discover that nearly everything in the book symbolizes something larger: the mist represents forgotten history; the dragon represents suppressed collective memory; the journey represents the search for truth; and even the landscape reflects the characters' emotional lives. The result is a novel that is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally moving.Readers discover that memory is both a gift and a burden. Remembering painful events helps preserve truth and justice, yet forgetting can sometimes make peaceful coexistence possible. Ishiguro encourages readers to investigate where the balance should lie in their own lives and in society. The aged couple, Axl and Beatrice, show that enduring love is sustained by loyalty, patience, and forgiveness rather than romantic passion alone. The novel asks whether love becomes stronger or weaker when every painful memory is recovered. The story questions whether revenge ever truly heals. Communities that cling to ancient grievances often become trapped in endless cycles of retaliation, while forgiveness—though difficult—may open the possibility of a different future.Readers discover that wars do not end simply because the fighting stops. Hatred, trauma, and memory continue to shape later generations. The book suggests that lasting peace requires both historical honesty and the difficult work of reconciliation. Ishiguro explores how identity is intertwined with what we remember and what we choose to forget. The novel invites readers to judge others less quickly. Many characters act from fear, grief, or inherited trauma rather than simple malice, encouraging empathy even amid conflict.The Buried Giant is a thoughtful and beautifully crafted 317-page novel that blends myth, philosophy, and emotional realism. I enjoyed it immensely. It is less an adventure story than a meditation on history, memory, forgiveness, and enduring love. Readers willing to embrace its quiet pace and symbolic richness are rewarded with a work that lingers long after the final page. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Thought-provoking read. *by on Reviewed in the United States May 18, 2015* This is a very difficult book to review. Superficially it is a Fantasy set in Britain shortly after the death of King Arthur. But actually it is a Myth, Quest, Allegory, Fairy Story and Morality Tale, about a magical world peopled with knights, monks, dragons, ogres and pixies (more about those later).When Axl and Beatrice, an elderly couple, set out on a journey to find their son, the land of Britain is shrouded in a mist which causes the population to forget or only half-remember the events of the past. Some wish to remember and others to forget.Ishiguro poses the pertinent questions "Is it better to recall the Past, or to bury the Past in collective amnesia? Should we allow the Buried Giant to sleep or should we wake him?" These are conundrums not particular to the Dark Ages, but remain very relevant in the 21st Century. The soldier Wistan asks "What kind of God is it, sir, wishes wrongs to go forgotten and unpunished?" Gawain replies "Yet it's long past and the bones lie sheltered beneath a pleasant green carpet." There are many gems such as these in the book, which is why I took much longer than my usual 2 or 3 days to read this book. I often returned to a passage or a conversation to re-read it.There were sections in the story I found frustrating, especially the river scene of the old woman in the boat with pixies swarming over her. I thought this part irrelevant. (I had exactly the same reaction to the Little People in Murakami's 1Q84.)The story lost direction in the middle when I wanted to follow the travels of Axl and Beatrice, but the tale deviated. However I found the ending of the story moving and poignant. The Medieval dialogue is beautifully written, the descriptive prose evokes the landscape of the period and the life of the inhabitants.If you wish to read an intelligent, convoluted, deeply meaningful tale, which explores the themes of memory, deception, loneliness, love and loss, you will enjoy this book. However it is not light reading, and probably deserves several re-reads. ### ⭐⭐⭐ Great potential, but falls short of a masterpiece *by on Reviewed in the United States June 7, 2015* I’m a fan of Ishiguro, and thought Never Let Me Go was a masterpiece of understated emotions and hidden themes, wrapped in a mystery not fully revealed until near the end. The Buried Giant strives to do the same, but comes up short.The Buried Giant uses the device of the dragon’s breath (a Merlin spell to preserve the peace) as the cause of mass forgetfulness, a brooding sense that pervades the story. This magically induced amnesia provides the framework for an allegory on two levels:- The societal level, where social forgetfulness lets wounds heal and warring sides suppress the never-ending cycle of violence and revenge- The personal level, where the main characters, the elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice, recall only their long years of love rather the bitter events of the past that might separate them.Both of these are embedded in a weak Arthurian fantasy, complete with the stilted dialog used so often in such tales, a style that has become a parody of itself.Ishiguro’s prose is as restrained, understated and well written as always, and deep emotions simmer below the surface. The surprises at the end, as is so often the case with this writer, are all the more devastating for being so low key throughout.But themes and prose remain wrapped in an Arthurian quest (complete with an aging Sir Gawain, Merlin, a warrior and his apprentice, a dragon , Saxons, Britons and monks. Like it or not, such stories come with their own set of expectations. Such tales require complex world building—we the reader want to understand what kind of place this is, even if it’s imagined. Too often, the author explains this world not through vivid detail, but through bland omniscient narration or characters constantly harping on the way things are, making the world seem, not only less real, but less relatable.I was left feeling that there is a wonderful story here, and if it had been written in a different setting, it might have been a masterpiece. The love story of the old couple in itself is remarkable and touching. But for better or worse, an Arthurian quest is a strongly ingrained trope that comes with its own set expectations. The author didn’t quite pull it off in a believable way, perhaps because hidden themes and an understated style run counter to such a familiar and grandiose legend.Thankfully, the final scene, told in the perspective of the boatman, focuses on the dilemma of the couple, and the dichotomy between their love and their past. It’s a touching scene and partially redeems the story. But too many distractions lie in between. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.gr/products/22190476-the-buried-giant-vintage-international](https://www.desertcart.gr/products/22190476-the-buried-giant-vintage-international) --- *Product available on Desertcart Greece* *Store origin: GR* *Last updated: 2026-08-22*