An Artist of the Floating World (1986) is a novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It is set in post-World War II Japan and is narrated by Masuji Ono, an ageing painter, who looks back on his life and how he has lived it. He notices how his once-great reputation has faltered since the war and how attitudes towards him and his paintings have changed. The chief conflict deals with Ono's need to accept responsibility for his past actions, rendered politically suspect in the context of post-War Japan. The novel ends with the narrator expressing good will for the young white-collar workers on the streets at lunchbreak. The novel also deals with the role of people in a rapidly changing political environment and with the assumption and denial of guilt.
The novel is considered as both historical fiction and global literature (Weltliteratur);Erich Auerbach, Maire Said, Edward Said, Philology and "Weltliteratur, Vol. 13, No.1 (Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1969), pp. 1–17, JSTOR It is considered historical fiction because of its basis in a past that predates the author's own experiences, and it draws from historical facts. It is also classified as global literature due to its broad international market and its theme of how the world today is interconnected.
Publication history Originally published in 1986, An Artist of the Floating World won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for best novel and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Published by Faber and Faber it is also printed by publishing companies such as Allen and Unwin and Penguin Vintage International. It has additionally become an eBook version and is available on most eBook websites such as kindle and iBooks, since 2012. Currently, An Artist of the Floating World, has been translated into over 40 languages around the world.
Autobiographical elements Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan in 1954, eventually moving to England at the age of five, only to return to Japan twenty-nine years later. Growing up, Ishiguro had a traditionally Japanese mother, who influenced his writing when reflecting on Japan. Furthermore, his reading of Japanese novels and comics allowed him to stay connected to his Japanese heritage as well as see the differences between Western and Japanese society, influencing his writing through developing a sense of Japanese ideals.
Ishiguro was inspired to write An Artist of the Floating World, after tangentially treating a similar theme in his first novel A Pale View of Hills, which included an old teacher character, who has to rediscover and invent his own morals. Ishiguro's childhood of moving countries and subsequently not feeling completely 'at home' led him to write in a globalised and international way, through which he explored his own background and heritage. Overall, the novel is a reflection of Ishiguro's personal feelings of Japanese heritage, and a fictional reflection of his sense of identity, as presented through a youthful reconstruction of an imagined Japan. One character, the boy Ichiro, has a cowboy obsession, which stems from Ishiguro's own fascination with cowboys during his youth.
Title The novel's title is based on the literal translation of Ukiyo-e, a word referring to the Japanese art of prints. Therefore, it can be read as "a printmaker" or "an artist living in a changing world," given both Ono's limited understanding and the dramatic changes his world, Japan in the first half of the twentieth century, has undergone in his lifetime.
The title also refers to an artistic genre. Ono's master is especially interested in depicting scenes from the pleasure district adjacent to the villa in which he and his students live. Ono mentions the ephemeral nature of the floating world that could be experienced during each night. His master experiments with innovative softer Western-style painting techniques, rejecting the hard black outlining that was considered more traditional. Under the influence of right-wing political ideas about tradition, Ono becomes estranged from his master and forges his own career. He feels gleeful at the fall of his master's paintings into disfavour during a return to the use of more traditional bold lines in the paintings used for nationalistic posters.
Structure An Artist of the Floating World, is structured through interwoven memories of the protagonist Masuji Ono. The novel is set in three distinctly different years, although Ono's memories go back to his own childhood, when his father opposed his wish to become an artist. The four different years and title sections of the novel are: October 1948, April 1949, November 1949, and June 1950.
Plot summary In the buildup to World War II, Ono, a promising artist, breaks away from the teaching of his master, whose artistic aim was to reach an aesthetic ideal in representations of the 'floating world' of night-time entertainments. Ono becomes involved in far-right politics, and begins making propagandistic art. Later, as a member of the Cultural Committee of the Interior Department and official adviser to the Committee of Unpatriotic Activities, Ono becomes a police informer, taking an active part in an ideological witch hunt against a former student, Kuroda. After the 1945 defeat and the collapse of Imperial Japan, Ono becomes a discredited figure, one of the "traitors" who "led the country astray"; meanwhile, the victims of state repression, including people Ono himself had once denounced, are reinstated and allowed to lead a normal life. Over the course of the novel Ono seems to show a growing acknowledgement of his past "errors", although this acknowledgement is never explicitly stated, and his narration is marked by declarations of uncertainty in his memory of past events and a high degree of unreliability.
The book is written in the first person and hinges on the exclusive use of a single, unreliable narrator expressing a viewpoint which the reader identifies as limited and fallible, without any other voice or point of view acting as a test. Ono often makes it clear that he is not sure of the accuracy of his narrative, but this may either make the reader cautious or, on the contrary, suggest that Ono is very honest and, therefore, trustworthy.
The self-image Ono expresses in his narrative is vastly different from the image of him the reader builds from reading the same narrative. Ono often quotes others as expressing admiration and indebtedness to him. Ono's narrative is characterised by denial, so that his interests and his hierarchy of values are at odds with the reader's. Readers, therefore, find that what they are interested in is not the focus of Ono's narrative but at its fringes, presented in an oblique rather than direct fashion. For example, Ono's descriptions of his pictures focus on pictorial technique, mentioning the subjects as if they were unimportant, although they reveal the propagandistic nature of his work. It is not entirely clear whether this focus on style rather than substance should be ascribed to Ono as narrator (showing his retrospective, unconscious embarrassment), or if it was already present in him at the time he was making the pictures (showing that totalitarianism exploits people's capacity to restrain their awareness to limited aspects of their actions). Similarly, when Ono narrates an episode in which he was confronted with the results of his activities as a police informer, it is debatable whether his attempt to mitigate the brutality of the police is a retrospective fabrication devised to avoid his own responsibility, or whether he actually did disapprove of the treatment of the person he had denounced, distancing himself from his actions and refusing to recognise the abusive treatment as a direct and foreseeable consequence of those actions.
Characters
Masuji Ono Masuji Ono ( Ono Masuji) is the narrator and protagonist of the novel. He is presented as an elderly artist, father and grandfather to his family. Throughout the novel he is concerned with his younger daughter's marriage negotiations. As a child his father was opposed to him becoming a painter, although this is the career he eventually pursues. After rejecting his early studies with Mori-San, Ono works with the nationalist government in the creation of wartime paintings and become the lauded subject of prizes. In the present of the novel his involvement in propaganda has fallen into disrepute, which results in Ono living a conflicting life.
Noriko Noriko is Ono's younger daughter. She lives with him in his house and is portrayed by the narrator as sometimes indignant and bad-mannered. She is somewhat bitter to Ono at the beginning of the novel as she suspects her father's past has led to her original marriage arrangement being cancelled. However, she soon becomes enamoured with her second marriage arrangement and is happy when she eventually marries. Noriko views her father, Ono, as someone she must care for forming a small resentment and anger towards him. Noriko is outspoken and boisterous throughout the novel, in contrast with her elder sister Setsuko.
Setsuko Setsuko is Ono's elder daughter. She is a quiet and traditional woman, who is married to Suichi and has a son named Ichiro. She and Ono have a solid relationship and she helps him throughout the marriage arrangement proceedings and dealing with his guilt post-war; she acts as his listener. Setsuko and Noriko have a strong, sisterly relationship, despite being quite different temperamentally.
Ichiro Ichiro is Ono's grandson, Setsuko's child and Noriko's nephew. In the present of the novel, he is a young boy with an active imagination. To Ono, Ichiro can be confusing and alienating owing to his adoption of Western culture, including some English words and an obsession with cowboys, the movie Godzilla, and eating spinach for strength (a reference to Popeye). Ichiro and Ono nonetheless have a good relationship, and frequently bond over their masculinity.
Suichi Suichi is Setsuko's husband and son-in-law to Ono. He represents the new and changing ideals of Japan and is quite outspoken regarding Ono's role in the war. He frequently speaks out about his opinions regarding the war. Before the war he was seen as a well-mannered and happy man, but post-war he has changed into a relatively angry and bitter man as a result of his experiences as a soldier.
Kuroda Kuroda was Ono's protégé and student. They initially had a strong relationship, but after Ono disapproved of the direction of Kuroda's art he reported Kuroda to the Committee of Unpatriotic Activities. This results in Kuroda being punished and his paintings burned. Kuroda therefore develops a strong dislike for Ono, and, in the present of the novel, refuses to see Ono again.
Shintaro Shintaro is a former student of Ono's who later distances himself from Ono after the war, downplaying or denying Ono’s influence on his career in order to protect his own reputation.
Chishu Matsuda Matsuda is a nationalist who encourages Ono to create politicised paintings. He disparages artists who do not deal with social and political issues through their art, considering them to be naïve. After the war, Matsuda becomes a sick and elderly individual who Ono visits. He is quite regretful of remaining unmarried and having no heirs to succeed him but seems not to regret the political aspects of his past.
Seiji Moriyama Seiji Moriyama, also known as Mori-san in the novel, is Ono's art teacher during his younger years. He is a strong believer in painting the 'floating world' and teaches students in his villa. His main artistic technique is the abandonment of traditional Japanese techniques such as using dark lines in favour of shading.
Dr. Saito