![]() ![]() A strange fog hovers over the dreary countryside where an uneasy peace has balanced on a knife edge since the end of the most recent wars robbing the populace of its memories. ![]() ![]() Here British peasants eke out a hardscrabble existence from caves dug into hillsides, while the recent Saxon invaders live in more-advanced villages of rudimentary huts. But its magic remains in the background, an earthy fact of life rather than a dazzle of sparkling make believe. Candles are preciously hoarded, and simple folk cluster together for safety amid vast stretches of untamed and fear-inspiring wilderness.The grim-textured, circa-sixth-century landscape is also a country haunted by magic, where ogres loom in the dark and steal children, and dragons are hunted by faded warriors like Sir Gawain. ![]() This is a gray and superstitious place, rather than a battlefield alive with the color and movement of steeds and fluttering banners it's sparsely inhabited and scarcely advanced. Reviewed by Lydia Millet, Ishiguro's new novel is set in Arthurian England not the mythic land of knights, castles, and pageants most of us are familiar with, but a primitive and rural country likely far closer to historical reality. ![]()
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