A GUIDE TO AN ARTIST OF THE FLOATING WORLD
Born in Nagasaki, Japan in 1954, Kazuo Ishiguro later moves to England at the age of five are returned to Japan twenty-nine years later. Ishiguro grows up under the care of a traditionally Japanese mother; hence she influences his writing when reflecting on Japan. Kazuo read a number of Japanese novels and comics that connect him to the Japanese heritage. He sees the differences between Western and Japanese society.
Ishiguro was inspired to write An Artist of the Floating World, after writing his novel A Pale View of Hills, and The Remains of the Day. Since Ishiguro moves out of his country in childhood and lacked connection to his country, he wrote in a globalized and international way, while exploring his own background and heritage. Generally, the novel reflects 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. Ichiro, a boy character in this novel has a cowboy obsession, which emerges from the writer’s own fascination with cowboys during his youth.
An Artist of the Floating World Guide
Synopsis
An Artist of the Floating World (1986) as a novel is authored by Kazuo Ishiguro, a British. The book was published in 1986 by Faber and Faber Publisher. Its setting revolves around post-World War II Japan. The story takes the four different times namely; October 1948, April 1949, November 1949, and June 1950.
The novel centers around the elderly Masuji Ono, is an ageing painter, who reflects on his life and how he spend it. He remembers his once great reputation that has faltered since the war and the change in the attitude towards him and his paintings.
The main conflict is the need of Ono to accept responsibility for his past actions, rendered politically suspect in the situation of post-War Japan. The novel ends with the narrator expressing good will for the young white-collar workers on the streets at lunch break. The novel too covers the role of people in a rapidly changing political situation and with the assumption and denial of guilt.
An Artist of the Floating World Guide
The novel is global literature and a historical fiction in whose past preludes personal experiences of the author, and it draws from historical facts An Artist of the Floating World distinctly looks at different years, with the memories of the narrator going back to his own childhood, when his father opposed his wish to become an artist.
In the buildup to World War II, Ono, a promising artist, breaks away from the teaching of his master, whose artistic goal was to acquire an ultimate 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 condemned figure, one of the “traitors” who “led the country astray”. In the meantime, the victims of state subjugation, including individuals Ono himself had once deplored, are restored and allowed to lead a normal life. In the whole story, Ono appears to be progressively acknowledging his past “errors”, as he declares the uncertainties in his memory of past events and a high degree of unreliability.
The novel is written in the first person perspective and pivots on the limited use of a single, unreliable narrator, articulating a viewpoint which the reader identifies as limited and fallible. Ono clearly says he is uncertain of the accuracy of his narrative, but that might either make the reader vigilant or, on prove that Ono is very honest and, hence, trustworthy.
The self-image Ono expresses in his narrative is immensely different from what the reader builds of him while reading the narrative. Ono indicates how others admire and are indebted to him. He seems to be in a state of denial so that his interests and hierarchy of values are at odds with the reader’s. Ono describes pictures by focusing on pictorial technique, mentioning the subjects with less significance, as they help bring out the propagandistic nature of Ono’s work.
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 recognize the abusive treatment as a direct and foreseeable consequence of those actions.
An Artist of the Floating World Guide
Relevance of the title
The title the Artist of the Floating world is a reference to the Japanese art of prints. It could simply be considered “a printmaker” or “an artist living in a changing world,” because of the narrow understanding of Ono and the drastic global changes that affect the first half of 20th C.
The title focuses on Ono an artist who used to be popular, but he no longer has his art standing art after taking part in the imperialist propaganda.
The title also refers to an artistic genre hence bringing out both the plot and themes. Ono’s master is especially interested in portraying scenes from the pleasure district adjacent to the villa in which he and his students live. Ono mentions the momentary nature of the floating world that could be experienced every night. His master experiments with innovative softer Western-style painting practices, eliminating the hard black outlining that was considered more traditional. He says he cannot remain an artist of the floating world. Under the influence of right-wing political ideas about tradition, Ono becomes alienated from his master and forges his own career. He is delighted when the paintings of his master lose the favor of people during a return to the use of more prehistoric bold lines in the paintings used for nationalistic posters.
An Artist of the Floating World Guide
Characters and their personalities
a.    Masuji Ono
Masuji Ono is the narrator and protagonist in the novel. He is an elderly artist, father and grandfather at the time he narrates the events in the novel. The story sets when his main concern is the marriage negotiations of his daughter, Noriko.
He is portrayed as a:
1.     Hardworking, Zealous and industrious
He works so hard in art until his earning enable him to buy Sugimura’s house (P. 2).
He renovates his house after the war when he notes it has been ruined. He says he had make progress in restoring its early appearance (P. 8).
He testifies before Matsuda that he had enough wealth.
He had worked hard in the villa and at Takeda’s even when they needed many paintings. He says he commanded considerable respect for his output was unchallengeable in terms of both quality and quantity (P. 76).
Even at old age, Ono has to make sure his trees and compound is clean and well-trimmed (P.122).
An Artist of the Floating World Guide
2.     Patronizing and a male chauvinist
He tells Ichiro he is tired to talking to women all the time and wants to talk to Ichiro (P. 10).
He tries to force Ichiro to take to his art, but fails
From what Noriko comments, Ono was tyrannical and used to order them around (P. 8).
When talking to Ichiro about the film, he insinuates that if Setsuko and Noriko watch they will be scared because they are women.
Setsuko seems shrewd in her father’s presence (P.9).
He quits from Takedas, indicating that with his ambition he must look for his livelihood elsewhere instead of toiling under his teacher (P. 80).
Noriko asks him whether he is an authority on cutting shrubs (P. 121). Ono responds that women including his wife have no artistic eye.
He refers to his daughters as women most of the times. Even when he wants Ichiro to taste sake, he says women never understand about men drinking (P. 173 and P. 178).
An Artist of the Floating World Guide
3.     Focused, ambitious, and responsible
He reveals that his father denied him his interest in the painting career which he still pursued regardless.  He shares how his father rejects his early studies with Mori-San, but later Ono works with the nationalist government in the creation of wartime paintings and become the applauded subject of prizes.
He also reveals that although his teacher Mori-san destroyed some of his paintings and told him to bring the two last ones or leave the villa, his urge to explore the new world of art makes him leave and try his luck elsewhere.
He reveals that he acquired Akira Sugimura’s house so that the marriage prospects of his children be good.
He also takes it as his responsibility to renovate his house after the war (P. 8).
He quits from Takedas, indicating that with his ambition he must look for his livelihood elsewhere instead of toiling under his teacher (P. 80).
He does not see how he should work and not earn loyalty (P. 80).
He comments that in the light of Noriko’s marriage negotiations, his duty as a father made him press on with matters, however, unpleasant he thought they were. He goes to visit Kuroda and even writes a letter to him so that he corrects past mistakes (P. 129).
4.     Kind
He sees it as his responsibility to defend Tortoise when everyone else is against him. Ono himself says it is rare to find such kindness amongst colleagues (P. 78).
He recommends tortoise to Mori-san as a unique artist and Tortoise considers such as an extreme kindness (P. 78).
He recommends for Shintaro’s brother even though he hardly knows him.
An Artist of the Floating World Guide
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