Literary fiction · Book club
The Buried Giant book club questions
Here are 12 book club questions for The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, ordered to open easily and end somewhere worth arguing about. Copy them, print them, or bring them up one at a time.
An elderly British couple, Axl and Beatrice, set out to visit their son in a post-Arthurian England where a strange mist has settled over the land, robbing everyone of their memories.
Kazuo Ishiguro · 2015 · 6h 0m
Full summary and key takeaways →The 12 questions
- 1.
The mist has prevented another war between Saxons and Britons by erasing memories of past atrocities. Is that a justifiable trade-off? Who gets to decide?
- 2.
Axl and Beatrice's relationship changes as they recover memories. Does the novel suggest that remembering is always better than forgetting for a couple, or is it more ambivalent?
- 3.
Sir Gawain is depicted as an old knight still bound by loyalty to Arthur. Is he a figure of honor or a figure of delusion in this novel?
- 4.
How does The Buried Giant compare to The Remains of the Day in its treatment of suppression and memory? Which novel do you find more emotionally devastating?
- 5.
The orphan Edwig and the warrior Wistan represent a coming reckoning. Do you think Ishiguro wants you to root for the violence that will follow the mist's lifting?
- 6.
The novel was criticized by some fantasy readers for not being fantasy enough and by some literary fiction readers for using fantasy at all. Where did you land on that debate?
- 7.
The prose is deliberately gentle and somewhat archaic. Did that register work for you, or did it create distance from the emotional content?
- 8.
Ishiguro has said the novel is partly about the tensions that can underlie long marriages. What is Axl and Beatrice keeping from each other, and does the novel judge them for it?
- 9.
The ending is ambiguous in one specific way. How did you read the final scene, and does the ambiguity feel earned or evasive?
- 10.
What contemporary real-world situations does the novel's central allegory about collective forgetting bring to mind?
- 11.
The dragons in this novel are functional rather than spectacular. Is that choice successful? What would change if they were more heroic or more monstrous?
- 12.
Is this a novel about a couple, a novel about a country, or both — and does one reading come at the expense of the other?
How to run the discussion
- Pick six to eight, not all of them. An hour of real discussion covers fewer questions than anyone expects, and racing the list is what makes a book club feel like homework.
- Open with what people noticed, not what they concluded. Asking for a verdict first hardens opinions before anyone has heard each other.
- Let the disagreement run. The questions below that split a room are the ones worth the time; the ones everyone answers the same way can be skipped.
- Ask the quiet person a specific question. A direct, narrow question is far easier to answer than an open invitation to contribute.
Themes worth steering toward
If the conversation stalls, these are the threads that usually restart it.
Common questions
What are good book club questions for The Buried Giant?
Here are 12 book club questions for The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, ordered to open easily and end somewhere worth arguing about. The strongest openers ask what each reader noticed rather than what they concluded, and the discussion usually turns on memory and forgetting, grief and marriage, war and reconciliation.
How long should a book club discussion of The Buried Giant last?
Most groups run 60 to 90 minutes of actual discussion. That is roughly six to eight questions, not all of them, so pick the ones that suit your group rather than working down the list in order.
What are the main themes in The Buried Giant?
Memory and forgetting, Grief and marriage, War and reconciliation, Myth and history, Aging and mortality. Those are the threads most likely to divide a room, which makes them the useful places to steer a discussion that has gone quiet.
Picking the next one? See books like The Buried Giant or questions for other book club picks.
