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Ishiguro enjoys slowly revealing his characters through their recollection of events long past. The memories are often fragmented, sometimes hazy, someimes simply untrustworthy. In "An Artist of the Floating World" the situation is further complicated by the tendency of its protagonist, Masuji Ono, to misinterpret his own memories.
"An Artist of the Floating World" is a portrait as Masuji Ono saw himself, and as he believed that others saw him. It is three years after Japan's defeat and Ono is preoccupied with the negotiations around his younger daughter's proposed marriage. Last year Noriko's marriage negotiations with another young man were unexpectedly treminated by the groom's family. Almost without self-awareness, Ono begins to question whether his artistic support of the imperialistic movement in the thirties and during the war now places his daughter's prospects in jeopardy.
Although Ono sees himself as a modest man, he overstates the impact that his military and patriotic art had in conditioning the Japanese people for the impending imperialistic war effort. It is never quite clear just how popular and widespread his war posters actually were. In contrast, Ono seems incapable of recognizing the magnitude of his crime against his best student, Kuroda, whom he betrayed to the authorities. He rationalizes that Kuroda's years in prison now give him credibility in the new Japan and that he will fare well in the post-war period. He is even so naive as to believe that Kuroda might be persuaded to overlook the past and thus support, or at least not hinder, his daughter Noriko's ongoing marriage negotiations.
I highly recommend "An Artist of the Floating World" for readers either new to Kazuo Ishiguro or already familiar with his other novels. It is an intricate work of beauty.
Ishiguro writes with an excellent blend of economy and descriptive language that wastes no words or passages on tangents or irrelevance. He creates postwar Japan so vividly it is a true "you-are-there" read. Very rarely are authors capable of weaving such realism into a non-contemporary setting. It's also a very fast moving story, in spite of the fact that in terms of action there is very little. You come to know and understand the characters so completely that it simply adds to the effect of the realism.
A classic work by a very talented writer.
As with his other novels, and part of his style, a knowledge of historical events is taken for granted on the part of the reader. Allusions are made to once-famous or infamous events and people, and names are dropped with the understanding that everyone is intimately familiar with WWII and the cultures of Japan and England.
The title is a bit misleading, as the "Floating World" is usually associated with the Edo period of Japan, and not with the Fascist era of Showa. Anyone expecting Geishas and Samurai will be disappointed.
A very quick and quiet read, "An Artist of the Floating World" is something than can be read over a weekend with a cup of green tea. It contributes a viewpoint, and a necessary one, to WWII Japan and paints a human face onto a troubled period of history. Love and family and duty are on display here, along with good intentions leading down dark paths, and the righteousness of actions and re-actions.
Like "Remains of the Day," "An Artist of the Floating World" is an intimate, beautiful character sketch. Very much worth the limited time needed to enjoy the book.
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