In this book, we follow a slow and lovely story of a journey of an elderly couple through magical post-Arthurian Britain. Besides the Briton couple in a search for their son, the cast also includes a young Saxon warrior traveling on behalf of his king, a boy kidnapped by ogres and King Arthur's knight on a quest to slay a dragon. The setting is unexpected for Ishiguro, but otherwise the book has his usual marks: superb prose, emotional mood, personal and somewhat unreliable narrator and a touch of surreality.
Although I am not usually a fan of books that are somewhat "dreamlike" as I initially like my stories more plausible and grounded. However Ishiguro's language, unnaturally formal though beautiful, appealed primarily to me. I have to admit honestly that it was not a quick read for me and there were points up until midway when I thought about giving up on it, but his precisely stilted writing style rescued the book for me.
If we're waiting for Ishiguro to return to something like 'The Remains of the Day', we'll just have to keep waiting.
