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An Artist of the Floating World

By Kazuo Ishiguro

(53)

| Paperback | 9780571225361

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Book Description

In the face of the misery he saw in his homeland, the bohemian artist Masuji Ono envisioned a strong and powerful Japan of the future and put his work in the service of the imperialist movement that led Japan into World War II. Now, as the mature Ono struggles through the devastation of that war, mContinue

Critics

Manly Scowls

Now that the three-volume novel and the circulating library are dead,’ I imagine someone as saying around the year 1900, ‘novels will have to be shorter, sharper, more up to date. The future lies with an Associated Press dispatch, not with the slow u ... (read full critics)

lrb published on Sun, 5 Sep 2010

2 Reviews

When I read a book I try to refrain from reading the blurb on the back of it beforehand, so this book was a little different than I had expected from the title.
While it does deal with the life of an artist of the floating world, it focuses on the artist's reevaluation of his life in postwar Japan, ... (continue)

When I read a book I try to refrain from reading the blurb on the back of it beforehand, so this book was a little different than I had expected from the title.
While it does deal with the life of an artist of the floating world, it focuses on the artist's reevaluation of his life in postwar Japan, when Japanese society is questioning itself.
The artist is struggling with his own feelings of guilt for the part he played in Japan's imperialist propaganda before and during the war, and he compares himself to the heads of companies who committed suicide in shame afterwards. He suspects his daughters blame him for bringing dishonour to the family, and causing the end to his youngest daughter's engagement. When she is engaged again, he takes the hint and visits his old acquaintances, in case they should be approached by the fiancé's family as character reference. In doing so he reconsiders his life, and at a dinner between the two families, he apologises for the part he played. He feels relief in this, but afterwards, his daughters express surprise at his outburst and you get the feeling that his guilt is something personal, as in the grand scheme of things, he played a minor part as an artist. The typically vague remarks of his daughters could have been entirely innocent, and it was merely the artist who, because of his own sense of guilt, exaggerated his importance in Japanese society.
It is a short book and it is best read in one go, especially as the story jumps around a lot through the artist's life, so it's easy to get confused if you leave it down for a while.

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Conrodette said on Sep 4, 2011 | Add your feedback

For English Philology entrance exam. Gah, I never thought a book of only 200 pages could bore me to tears. The narrative didn't impress me and the plot was pointless. I'm interested to see how I'm going to make up something reasonable for the essay I have to write.

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s u v i said on May 19, 2008 | 1 feedback