The artist, floating in his world, must come to terms with the real world and accept that there is a real world out there. One can only wish these young people well. The concluding sentences of the book are Our nation, it seems, whatever mistakes it may have made in the past, has now another chance to make a better go of things.

It is only when his daughter is planning on getting married and worried that her father’s past may hinder her prospects, that he realizes that he must, as all Ishiguro heroes, try to come to terms with his memories. It is something more complex – part of which (but not all) is his role as an artist and as a teacher. As he wanders the city, it is not so much his wife (killed in a bombing raid) or his son (killed fighting the Chinese) that he regrets. Now, as the mature Ono struggles through the aftermath of that war. Instead, he put his work in the service of the imperialist movement that led Japan into World War II. After the war, however, he and others who supported the government are criticized for the sufferings that people suffered and continued to suffer for some time after the war. In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. He supports the government, so much so that he turns his best pupil into the police. Before the war, he is very much in favour of Japanese imperialism. And, like other key Ishiguro characters, Ono is a survivor. Ono and most of the other characters, like other Ishiguro characters, show the reserve for which both the English and Japanese are known. Indeed, the story starts with how the hero (if that is the right word), Masuji Ono, purchases a house from two sisters who are more concerned with the quality of the purchaser than the money they receive and who then continue to take an interest in the house long after they have sold it. And, of course, as it is Ishiguro, it is about memory. It’s only his second work but here is a writer clearly in control of his medium, facing the perennial question of the responsibility of the artist and his role in the political events of the day. Home » England » Kazuo Ishiguro » An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro: An Artist of the Floating World

An artist of the floating world book