by Kazuo Ishiguro
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Product Description
This is the story of an artist as an aging man, struggling through the wreckage of Japan's World War II experience. Ishiguro's first novel.
Amazon.com Review
In An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro offers readers of the English language an authentic look at postwar Japan, "a floating world" of changing cultural behaviors, shifting societal patterns and troubling questions. Ishiguro, who was born in Nagasaki in 1954 but moved to England in 1960, writes the story of Masuji Ono, a bohemian artist and purveyor of the night life who became a propagandist for Japanese imperialism during the war. But the war is over. Japan lost, Ono's wife and son have been killed, and many young people blame the imperialists for leading the country to disaster. What's left for Ono? Ishiguro's treatment of this story earned a 1986 Whitbread Prize.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Excellent, 2008-09-28
Kazuo Ishiguro's 1986 novel, An Artist Of The Floating World, which won that year's Whitbread Prize, may be a great novel, but it just misses out on that elite company. Of course, the fact one can make arguments pro and con means the book is worlds above the tripe one would read were the author's surname Oates, Boyle, or Eggers. The reason for the miss, in my mind, is that the novel never fully sores- it never takes that Keatsian leap into the subconscious, to wrench the reader into an experience he or she can get nowhere else. It is consummately written, and its lead character and narrator is very interesting. There really is no fat to trim, yet....there simply are no indelible scenes nor moments that one will recall years later.
As example, I still recall the scents of the Williamsburg neighborhood that Francie Nolan describe sin Betty Smith's A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, even though its been several years since I read that book; I still can recall the final metaphoric scene in Charles Johnson's Oxherding Tale, even though a decade or more has passed since I first read it; and I can still envision the final moments of Captain Ahab in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, despite over two decades' passage since I first scanned those words.
Nothing like that occurs in Ishiguro's novel, although his proponents for greatness could claim it's simply not that sort of novel. In a sense, that's true. It is a complex psychological novel that slips easily in and out of the past, even as its first person narrator- a painter named Masuji Ono, is never not the speaker. Of course, the three aforementioned books are also complex novels with psychological heft, which would seem to invalidate the argument pro-Ishiguro readers make, but claimants might also argue that this book is an old man's recitation of his claims to existence, and not a book that reveals the road one travels to get to a certain place, for the artist Ono is already there. In that sense, it strikes commonalities with films such as Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries, Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, and Theo Angelopoulos's Eternity And A Day.
The book's biggest weakness: it simply never takes off into a higher plane. An Artist Of The Floating World is immaculately wrought, but its very understated nature undermines its claims to greatness, for by its end it recapitulates one thing that is troubling: not only has Ono not gotten any greater insight into himself, but neither has the reader. Yes, we know more of his externals, but his interior landscape is still a mystery. And there are ways, in fiction, that one can give a reader insight that still eludes a character. Ishiguro's choice to not follow such a path may have been deliberate, but it also may be the slight Achilles' Heel of the book.
However, this novel is well worth a read, and the passage of time, and the sticktoitiveness of some of Ishiguro's subtle scenes and intricate words may prove my initial assessment wrong, even to myself. It may indeed have a staying power as long as the adventures of Captain Ahab and the White Whale. Here's hoping.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Post-War Japan as Viewed by a Member of "New Japan", 2008-04-20
The narrator of the story was a member of the "New Japan" group that led the Japanese Empire into World War II. They were going to creating the Eastern Pacific Cooperative Sphere under the guidance of Japan and in the namer of the Emperor. What it really mean was that they were going to turn China into a colony and the rest of east asia into client states.
For Korea and Manchuria it would have meant total cultural genocide as both would be turned into integral parts of the Japanese Empire. Ono-San was an important member of the propaganda team that popularized the "New Japan" in words (music) and art. They not only created a new style of art but popularized the War, just as did Goebels in Germany.
We meet him just after the war as he recalls his time as an apprentice and his early life. He has just buried his son (who was killed in Manchuria) and is in the process of negotiating the marriage of his younger daughter. He reflexes on the suicide of one of his comrades from the propaganda group. The suicide was due to remorse over having been the cause of the death of so many young men in a bad cause.
The bottom-line for him is that he feels that he could have worked for a better cause or one that would have been better for the Japanese people in the end. His last thoughts for us, is that in 1950, it appears that Japan is on the right road at last and that the future will take care of itself.
**Comment on the Audiotape: The speaker has a distinctive English accent very much like Ronald Coleman. I found it to be distracting as he only seemed to have two voices, one for men and one for woman/children. He also had a very deliberate way of speaking Japanese names as opposed to the fluid way they should be pronounced. ***
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man, 2007-09-01
This narrative of Japanese artist Ono explores the change of a nation and its culture. Ono's tale is set in post-World War II Japan, but he often reflects on the ways of life prior to the war. Living a peaceful retired life, he is engaged in marriage negotiations for his youngest daughter. Having failed to marry her off once, he is forced to evaluate his past. His role as a propaganda artist during the war has come back to haunt him in the new, progressive nation. He must learn to accept the new democratic sentiments and Americanism that the younger generation venerates (including his two adult daughters and grandson). He must put behind him his life in "the floating world," or the world of nightly pleasures he was taught to emulate during his youth.
As a young apprentice, Ono grew accustomed to painting geishas, but as he grows as an artist, so does his sense of nationalism and pride. He becomes a highly regarded teacher and a celebrated national artist. But once Japan is defeated, war criminals are sent to the gallows and other contributors to the war effort are committing suicide. Ono is forced to recognize his mistakes and to accept a modern Japan for the sake of his remaining family.
This is a poignant novel, and much like The Remains of the Day, focuses on coming to terms with the past. It is a self-evaluation life as Ono reinterprets his actions as a young man while maintaining his pride.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
"We, at least, acted on what we believed and did our utmost", 2007-05-31
Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. He was awarded the OBE in 1995 and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1998. "An Artist of the Floating World" is his second novel, was first published in 1986 and won that year's Whitbread Prize.
"An Artist of the Floating World" opens in October 1948, and is set in post-World War II Japan. The story is told by Masuji Ono, a retired artist and - once - a man of some influence and renown. His wife and son died during the war, though both his daughters survived - one is married, with a son, while Ono is conducting negotiations for his other's marraige. Over the course of the book, Ono looks back over his life and tries to deal with how his home city and the attitudes of the people around him are changing. His own career began on the workshop of Mister Moriyama, before he moved to the studio of Master Takeda - one who favoured painting the 'floating world', as the pleasure districts were known. Finally, Ono worked with Chishu Matsuda in producing artistic propoganda - which led to his position of influence leading up to and during the war. Now, in the post-war years, he notices how his own once great reputation has faltered and how attitudes towards him and his paintings have changed. There are many, for example, from the younger generations who hold him at least partly responsible for Japan's misguided foreign policy.These changes in attitude are being mirrored by the physical changes of the city. With the post-war rebuilding, whole districts are now becoming unrecognizable - Ono's own favourite 'pleasure district' is changing in this way. These changes in attitude and in the city lead Ono to look back over his life and try to come to terms with how he has lived it.
"An Artist of the Floating World" was an excellent book, though a little sad in places. Ono himself seems a somewhat sad at how his home city is changing - partly due to the damage caused by the war, partly in the name of 'progress'. In fact, I couldn't help feeling a little sad at the loss of Ono's 'pleasure district' myself. Ono, on the other hand, doesn't quite change enough : he acknowledges his role to a point, though doesn't show any real sorrow for how things turned out. There were one or two points I'd have liked more information on - particularly his relationship with an ex-pupil called Kuroda. I'm not too surprised, however, that Ono avoided this topic as much as possible, though. For Ono to have dwelt on that topic may have caused him to discover something about himself he didn't like.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 worth reading, 2007-01-06
One of my favorite writers. This book was full of digressions so sometimes hard to know where it was going but it is worth the read. It touches on Japan history (WWII) and insights the culture and art.
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