The Remains of the Riddle

For anyone who looks back at the days of King Arthur with nostalgia, Ishiguro’s eighth work of fiction will nicely complicate the heady tales bequeathed by the round table, even as it speaks to the pathos of the present day. And so, as an elderly Briton couple make their way across what appears to be seventh century England, searching to lift a fog off the past and for a long-lost son, discovering their history in part as they wander: ‘Some of you will have fine monuments by which the living may remember the evil done to you. Some of you will have only crude wooden crosses or painted rocks, while yet others of you must remain hidden in the shadows of history. You are in any case part of an ancient procession, and so it is always possible the giant’s cairn was erected to mark the site of some such tragedy long ago when young innocents were slaughtered in war.’

Thus appears the burial mound of a giant we are set up to fear. Only, like the ogres themselves, the marker of death is deceptively quiet and unremarkable. Axl and Beatrice are sidelined in their village to the extent that they are not even allowed a candle at night-time, yet what the elderly couple, still very much in love, fear most is the curtain that lies over their history. Wandering from village to village, supposedly in search of the son who may or may not want them back— the narrator is never altogether reliable, never altogether narrator, in fact—they seem to be describing circles to avoid the inevitable end, more than anything else. For there is much to be said for oblivion and much to be forgotten, at this time of truce; the Britons driven west, the Saxons control the eastern regions of England, while Saxons and Britons live together. Choosing to forget the bloody nature of the peace Arthur gave them, they survive as uneasy neighbours, making common enemies of ogres and dragons instead. Yet, rumours thrive; the most infamous dragon of them all, Querig, causes the mist of forgetfulness which plagues all of them, and thrives in a lair hidden from all, including a fierce Saxon warrior called Wistan. When he stumbles into Axl and Beatrice and asks them to help him deliver Edwin, a young lad, from the persecution of his kinsmen, the company of four begin a bleak, sometimes strangely whimsical adventure, at times accompanied by Sir Gawain, nephew of Arthur himself. He adds to the cesspool of mystery a new rumour: Lord Brennus seeks to undo the great peace by co-opting Querig, with the aid of a dragon tamer. Who will slay Querig, and how, and at what cost? Here lies the central riddle, but the journey in this spare allegory is the superior means to a rather frustrating end.

For, this is the classic wanderer’s tale, full of detours and scenic stopovers, though it is no The Canterbury’s Tale; ‘You would have searched a long time for the sort of winding lane or tranquil meadow for which England later became celebrated’, we are told, at the outset, promised ‘desolate, uncultivated land’ instead. Yet soon enough, we find that inescapably English landscape Ishiguro is so skilled at exploring and upending: ‘The view before them that morning may not have differed so greatly from one to be had from the high windows of an English country house today. The two men would have seen, to their right, the valleyside coming down in regular green ridges, while far to their left, the opposite slope, covered with pine trees, would have appeared hazier, because more distant, as it merged with the outlines of the mountains on the horizon. Directly before them was a clear view along the valley floor; of the river curving gently as it followed the corridor out of view; of the expanses of marshland broken by patches of pond and lake further in the distance. There would have been elms and willows near the water, as well as dense woodland, which in those days would have stirred a sense of foreboding.’ Things don’t look good in this land full of sudden persecution and casual violence, but there is hope yet in this idyllic scene, hope that we hold out for as it becomes increasingly uncertain where our protagonists will end up. For Axl and Beatrice may believe that ‘God himself had forgotten much from our pasts’, as other travellers tell them, but God has not forgotten England, if we are not to discount this vision, realised in the time of our present-day narrator.

Ishiguro is the author of several very disparate novels, and what unites them is his slender, elegant prose. This is most evident in his very English novel, that masterful contemporary classic around a terribly British butler and his concerns with dignity, The Remains of the Day (awarded the Man Booker in 1989). But his trademark elegance is also on display in Never Let Me Go, a dystopian novel set in a fictitious boarding school in England, which took Ishiguro into the territory of science fiction, and Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, his cycle of short stories which tempts cliché yet remains understated. If his latest is sometimes too muddled, too winding, it is only to be expected for fans of his deceptively simple prose.

Axl and Beatrice cannot remember so much of what was one day important to them, but they remember that they value each other. Yet, we sense what is slowly confirmed: Axl once had a place with the forces which rule the land. Floundering when we meet him, he is recognised by Sir Gawain and Wistan both, as someone who has had an impact on the land and on their own lives: he is so significant as to have disdained of their missions in another life, we glean. Wistan provides a nice foil to Axl, a man who from the very beginning Axl can see is ready to fight, his hair tied ‘to stop it falling across his vision during combat’, his hand resting on his sword handle in an all too familiar way. This is the man Axl was before he decided to devote himself to his life companion, which Sir Gawain will soon tell him he was right to do. Love is privileged over revenge, even over memory.

Violence and its counterpart, indifference, are a major theme of the novel, as are intimacy and love, and death and our avoidance of the boatsman, literally an objective of the novel in this case. ‘“Though today we slaughter a sea of Saxons, be they warrior or babes, there are yet many more across the land,”’ Axl tells Sir Gawain, continuing: ‘“This circle of hate is hardly broken, sir, but forged instead in iron by what’s done today.”’ He is right to suspect even the most benevolent- seeming strangers they encounter, in his lawless times, tainted with iron and the smell of old excrement and with none of the polish of today’s England. This is the confrontation that made it safe for civilisation, Ishiguro seems to suggest, when he juxtaposes the home of monks against an awful torture device Axl and Wistan discover when they take shelter at this one-time fort, seeking the advice of an old monk called Jonas: ‘the cage itself was iron, a thick wooden pillar ran down its spine, fixing it firmly to the boards underneath. This same post was festooned with chains and manacles, and at head height, what appeared to be a blackened iron mask, though with no holes for the eyes, and only a small one for the mouth’. That we soon discover the device is intended to effect self-flagellation in penance for sins, manifested in Jonas’ terribly mutilated face, is no less chilling. Humans can do this to themselves, with or without the help of religion and other men, we are being told. So, orphans and old women come to be odd beacons of hope in this simultaneously pre- and post-apocalyptic land; the theme of abandoned children and children cast off by parents repeats itself constantly.

Is this ultimately a rewarding tale? Not really, even if Ishiguro is as easily readable as ever. It bothers you and it makes you think about the story of our days in more ways than are pleasant, but it also loses sight of its own tail, by the end. Beatrice is terrified by the idea that remembering the past will make her unable to reconcile her constant love for Axl, and vice versa; just as England may not want to remember all of her past, perhaps. These seem like old ideas, even if they are beautifully described. For every reader who enjoys the riddle, is one who will be let down by it. Ishiguro always takes risks, but in this experiment with fantasy, he may have lost some of us.

booksFive Stories of Music and NightfallKazuo IshiguroThe Buried Giant