An Artist of the Floating World

Kazuo Ishiguro

I read Sandy's review of A Pale View of Hills and now know exactly how she felt. About needing to have Ishiguro explained.

The setting is Japan, 1948. Masuji Ono, a moderately famous painter looks back upon his life and takes stock. He has known personal sadness, it's true, but he doesn't dwell on the deaths of his son and wife in the war but on his career, the years as a successful artist in the 1930s, the years of living it up in Japan's "pleasure districts" and then, before and during the war, helping the regime with militaristic posters and paintings.

With defeat in the war and the arrival of the Americans he has, of course, had to retire from painting. His one present day concern is the marriage negotiations for his younger daughter Noriko. In the new post-war climate, association with the war-time regime is a handicap and it's of some concern that Ono's past may come back to haunt his daughter.

Ishiguro, who came to Britain when he was six, I believe, is a difficult writer to categorise. Is he a British writer or a Japanese one? His precise, mannered prose works very well in this book, depicting beautifully the painful politeness of Japanese society, especially in formal settings such as the "miai", a sort of high tea designed to help the two families in a marriage contract get to know each other. The words are carefully chosen and ooze respect, but the atmosphere crackles with tension.

And so is the book hard to categorise. Is it an attack on complacency, on those, like artists, who in war are able to sup with the devil and then come out the other side unscathed? Or is it a plea for forgiveness? Is Ono supposed to be a pompous old twit, naive beyond belief, or is he supposed to be a thoughtful old man, bullied and mistreated in a new and uglier and less respectful Japan? Was his artwork crucial to the regime or is Ono pathetically deluded? I haven't got a clue.