Ms. Hen reviews An Artist of the Floating World

 

An Artist of the Floating World

Kazuo Ishiguro

Vintage International

1986

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she read another novel by this author this year, KLARA AND THE SUN, and she really enjoyed that one. This book was nothing like the science fiction novel about a robot. This is a realistic novel about an artist in Japan around the time of World War II.

This novel is about an artist, Masuji Ono, his life, work, and family. In the present time, it is right after World War II, and he lives in a big house that used to be beautiful before the war, but is now shabby. His daughter Setsuko comes to visit with her son, and his other daughter Noriko, lives with him, and wants to get married.

In his working life, he had been an artist, and he worked with different teachers. One of his teachers taught him he should only depict art of the "floating world," the night life, and geishas, and men having fun. Ono didn't want to just create art like that, he wanted to do works that had political implication. He paid the price for this after the war when he was blamed for partly bringing the country to ruins.

This novel is written in a slow and quiet style. When it came to the part about the mentor telling of the need to paint the "floating world," Ms. Hen paid attention. She thinks this is interesting because not all artists think in the same way. Some people want to create work that is politically important, but others want to show the fun side of the world. There's no right or wrong answer, but Ono wanted to create art that's important, even though people he knew might have thought he should not have.

One aspect of this novel that Ms. Hen thinks is well-written is the depiction of Ono's grandson, Ichiro. The child is just like a real child, squirmy and indecisive, erratic and unpredictable. Children are not easy to write, possibly because they are so strange, but the author does an excellent job.

Ms. Hen liked this novel. She thinks that these characters are unique to this time period, and Japan in the past is a fascinating place. The country was on the verge of change, and anything that's changing fast is worth learning about. The Japanese might not have like the way the country was changing, but they couldn't stop it. Change can be beautiful, but terrifying at the same time.