An Artist of the Floating World

An Artist of the Floating World

3.72 of 5 stars 3.72  ·  rating details  ·  5,138 ratings  ·  400 reviews
In An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro offers readers of the English language an authentic look at postwar Japan, "a floating world" of changing cultural behaviors, shifting societal patterns and troubling questions. Ishiguro, who was born in Nagasaki in 1954 but moved to England in 1960, writes the story of Masuji Ono, a bohemian artist and purveyor of the nig...more
Paperback, 206 pages
Published March 3rd 2005 by Faber and Faber (first published 1986)
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Praj
Jun 03, 2012 Praj rated it 4 of 5 stars
Shelves: ki
Each time my eyelids bowed down to the devil of grave drowsiness, the concave depths displayed a lean, modest shadowy figure standing on the Bridge of Hesitation; the wrinkles on his forehead becoming deeper , trembling with culpability, wishing for Noriko’s miai to be an incessant success. The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow">Jerome K Jerome was accurate with his analysis of the solitude of an idle mind bringing generous thoughts. There I was, nursing an acute bronchial cough cursing the fat...more
Whitaker
Aug 17, 2009 Whitaker rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who finds this review meaningful...
In this way and that I tried to save the old pail
Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about to break
Until at last the bottom fell out.
No more water in the pail!
No more moon in the water!
selena
After reading Never Let Me Go, I swore that I would read more of Ishiguro's work. It was fate that I ran across An Artist of the Floating World at my Library. The novel isn't a particularly long one - coming in at a mere 206 pages. It was a breeze to get through.

I'm noticing that with Ishiguro's narrators so far, the tone is very conversational. Throughout this book, the protagonist Masuji Ono, a retired artist, speaks intimately to the reader

Throughout the book, Masuji Ono, the protagonist, spe...more
umberto
This was the first novel, by Kazuo Ishiguro, that I finished reading due to its seemingly familiar title. From its 206 pages, I think, most readers should find reading it quite manageable as guaranteed by its Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 1986. Reading it, as for me, was relatively enjoyable since I needed concentration in following various episodes and its key protagonist named Masuji Ono, the eminent painter, during his retiring years in the midst of his family, neighbours...more
Evan Leach
Written between Ishiguro’s first novel (A Pale View of Hills) and his most famous (The Remains of the Day), An Artist of the Floating World borrows elements from both. The setting of postwar Japan is the same one featured in his first book, while the story and style are strongly reminiscent of The Remains of the Day (in a sense, this is an adaptation of The Remains of the Day from the master’s perspective). The finished product lies somewhere between Hills and Remains of the Day , but given tha...more
matt
Steady, measured, gentle, sure-handed, slightly seductive.

Ishiguro's narrator is fooling himself for sure throughout his tale, but you almost believe him.

Some wonderfully graceful pacing, with the situations and pages melting into one another, which as one reviewer here remarked, makes a "floating world" all its own.

It sort of reminds me of the thing said about Flaubert's "Sentimental Education"- the main theme is largely heard in the background. For Flaubert it was revolutionary upheaval in mid...more
Jim
A well-written story of an aging Japanese artist who looks back on his career and his role in the "patriotic" movement toward imperialism and war. He struggles to understand the changing Japanese culture, the shunting aside of the older generation that is distrusted by pro-American factions, the attitudes of his two daughters and grandson, and his own faulty memories. There are wonderful insights into post-war Japan, the role of loyalty, the struggles between teacher and pupil. He is egotistical...more
Arne
Great story, but even better writer. His stories are seamless and he really gets at character development, but in a way that you don't think you're reading fiction, it seems completely natural and real...in terms of writing, he's fantastic.
Samadrita
Feb 16, 2013 Samadrita rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Ishiguro fans and Japan lovers/haters
Recommended to Samadrita by: Tan Twan Eng
If you've already read The Remains of the Day, chances are your enjoyment of An Artist of the Floating World will be greatly curtailed. And that is the sheer tragedy of this book.

Replace Stevens with Masuji Ono. Replace a tottering England with a war-ravaged, financially unstable Japan and insert Ishiguro's penchant for allegory. And TADA you have An Artist of the Floating World.

This book had potential to be a very emotionally charged commentary on a nation rebuilding itself from its charred (at...more
William
Second reading. The gist of this novel is the narrator's culpability for his patriotic actions during the war with the U.S. Set in a suburb of Tokyo during the American occupation, the narrator, Masuji Ono, is now surrounded by those who blame him and those like him for Japan's disastrous gamble on war. Ono's generation was that of the old men cheerleading for war. And there can be no question about his complicity. In his youth he trained as an artist of the demimonde or "floating world," but tu...more
Rea
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Bettie
F:\bookies\not essential\registered\Ishiguro, Kazuo\An Artist of the Floating World

Home audio - don't know what to expect!

Unabridged and read by David Case. Lordy but how these narrators do not fit Ishiguro's work... did he not get a choice?

This is a novella in four parts:

October 1948
April 1949
November 1949
June 1950

The narrator is Masuji Ono who is out of step with the changing times of Japan's defeat. He reminds me strongly of those colonialist elders that used to populate many a family reunion...more
Arun
This is a novel that clearly expresses its views on nationalistic sentiments - the so-called patriotism - through the life of a painter. The concept of war and reforms were being discussed so sensibly and delicately.

It is about the story of an elderly Japanese painter named Ono who had married off his 1st daughter and struggling to get his 2nd daughter to get married off. His wife had passed away five years ago and his son was killed in war. The plot was set in the pre- and post-World War II.
The...more
Michelle
Kazuo Ishiguro creates worlds and characters that come alive on the page even if you are from a vastly different culture and time period.
Ishiguro doesn't describe the streets, buildings and homes in this section of Japan at this time, but the reader knows how they look.
Masuji Ono isn't a very sympathetic character. He repeats several times in the novel that "we have nothing to hide". This novel concerns the subject of personal and political responsibility. Does it matter if one believes they are...more
Naomi Kaskela
Another delightful, yet difficult, read courtesy of Ishiguro. As with Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day, this novel was filled with despair at points. The main character, an aging Japanese gentleman with a past that doesn't fit well with Japan after the war, is trying to come to terms with his involvement during the war, and the less than kind ways in which his own children interact with him. At times, Ono-san, the artist, is irritating and it is difficult to feel any kind of sympathy f...more
Ann
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Martin
One reviewer described this novel as "tragicomic," which I think is apt, but both tragic and comic elements are very subtle here. It is a very well-executed portrait of an emotionally-cloistered old Japanese man, uncompromising in his professional habits, deluded about his own importance. Take out the word Japanese and you have "Remains of the Day," to which this book appears to be a companion piece, or more likely a warm-up, since the later book is superior.

The personal failure and pain of the...more
Louise
The victors write the history. How do the defeated respond? This novel, Ishiguro's second, attempts to show a personal reconciliation of events though the introspection of a Japanese artist, Masuji Ono. In his first novel, A Pale View of Hills, (1982) Ishiguro uses post-war Japan as a background for a different kind of haunting story. In this novel (1986), he makes it as central as the main character.

Ono's first person narrative goes back and forth in time giving the reader an interesting glimps...more
Philip
Superficially, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel An Artist Of The Floating World seems to present a gentle observation of manners. There’s a daughter to marry and thus associated contracts to be nurtured and negotiated. There’s a relationship with an eight-year-old grandson who in the late 1940s is growing up with American cartoons and comic book heroes as his cultural icons. And, above all, there’s the artist himself, bound up with concerns of style and expression, keen to re-examine his influences, espec...more
Patrick McCoy
Kazuo Ishigura's An Artist of the Floating World is a really impressive and subtle look at a man reflecting on his life in repose. I also found that his prose was able to capture the nuances of the Japanese language and it's vagueness. Masuji Ono is a retired artist of some fame who has retired and tries to live simply gardening, seeing to it that his youngest daughter gets married, seeing old friends, and entertaining his grandson. Slowly it is revealed that he feels some guilt toward the imper...more
Mommalibrarian
Mr Ono is a retired artist. As the book begins, he feels that his career was very successful and that he work had a significant influence in Japanese art. The second world war has ended and the Americans are occupying Japan. Different people adjust to this occupation in different ways. The book, in a meandering fashion, covers the changes in Mr Ono's personal interpretation of his place in history as he interacts with family and friends.

There are many interactions which are culturally impenetra...more
June
This is the first Ishiguro book I have read, and I am looking forward to reading more.

It's a beautifully written story of an aging Japanese artist who looks back on his career and his role in the "patriotic" movement supporting imperialism and war. The book leads us through his struggles to understand the changes that have happened since in Japan - particularly the rejection of his generation, distrusted by the younger, more western/American-influenced generation that has grown up post-war.

What...more
Chenthil
This is my second Ishiguro book after "Remains of The Day". Ishiguro's strength is that he lets the narrator talk directly to the reader, the writer doesn't come in between. The novel can be loosely termed as recollections of an artist in post war Japan. The painter Masuji Ono struggles to come to terms with the new Japan that shuns his kind of people (who pushed the imperialistic agenda of Japan that led to its ruin). His daughters & son in law subtly tell him that his ideology was somethin...more
Kelly
Dec 31, 2010 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone. Particularly those with an appreciation for Japanese aesthetics.
As much the portrait of an aging artist as a portrait of post-apocalyptic 1950's Japan, one can expect all the read-between-the-lines tragic sadness-with-a-silver-lining prose that Ishiguro is just so bloody good at.

Stylistically, the story bears Ishiguro's paradoxical hallmark: it is written with such consummate restraint as to render his authorship nearly invisible. Under his subtle hand, the novel's characters and landscapes seem to take shape of their own accord. We are given a glimpse into...more
Faith Justice
This one left me wanting a little more resolution. After reading Never Let Me Go, I can see some of Ishiguro's style in this earlier work. We have a somewhat unreliable narrator who frequently let's us know he might be unreliable, by saying such things as, "At least, I think that's what he said. I do sharply remember..." He starts off seeming self-effacing, but the reader quickly deduces he has a pretty high opinion of himself, by the compliments he reports from others and his "humble" disregard...more
Kerfe
The character of the artist Ono reveals himself in layers, peeling away the successful, satisfied, respectable artist to expose the conflicted passions of his, and post-WWII Japan's, past. The actual truth of his memories and observations mean less than the emotional truth they unveil. His "now" often seems to be lived in his mind, providing a screen between himself and his regret. He is indeed "of the floating world", present physically, but not attentive to actual events.

And how much fault, ho...more
Seth Hahne
This is, so far, my second-favourite Ishiguro book. Even if it wasn't, as advertised, a novel.

An Artist of the Floating World is the fifth of Kazuo Ishiguro's works I've read. I've been gradually working my way through since last year. I only have A Pale View of the Hills and Remains of the Day Left. I'm saving Remains of the Day for last—as it's the one that bought him all the acclaim. I'm almost certain to be disappointed, I guess. I'd almost have to be.

But that's neither here nor there becaus...more
Milan/zzz
Apr 24, 2009 Milan/zzz rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommended to Milan/zzz by: Ruby
Shelves: asia
Read 2006

Kazuo Ishiguro is definitively one of my favorite contemporary writers and this novel is surely reminding me why? An Artist of the Floating World is first Ishiguro's novel that I've read which is settled in Japan and it brings such a fabulous picture of so many aspects of Japan society, tradition, culture and at the end, evolution. But more than anything it brings such a perfect picture of Japanese character. Magnificent indeed!
Lessons about Japanese role in WWII in school were inferior...more
Vasha7
A fine novel. The first book I've read by Ishiguro, and now I know what the fuss is about.

The most notable thing about it is the subtlety of the telling. For one thing, even though a major part of its subject matter is the brutal military dictatorship of Imperial Japan, Ishiguro doesn't sensationalize, in fact he understates. With a single exception, every scene represents people strolling in a garden, at dinner, in a teahouse, etc. -- talking. (In fact, the narrator Ono was very sheltered, it s...more
Jeff Scott
Artist

I went into this book a bit blindly. I love the author's work so I picked this one up, not knowing the main crux of the work. Ishiguro even hides it's purpose until three-quarters of the way into the book. He is such a great writer though and his endings are always fabulous.

It's the first book that I have read that involves Japanese guilt over World War II. Of course, the main character, a famous artist, doesn't think anyone should feel guilty of anything. It's a story of youth and regret....more
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Kazuo Ishiguro (カズオ・イシグロ or 石黒 一雄) is a British novelist of a Japanese origin. His family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing course in 1980. He became a British citizen in 1982. He now lives in London.

Ishiguro received the 1989 Man Booker prize for his third novel...more
More about Kazuo Ishiguro...
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“…It’s hard to appreciate the beauty of a world when one doubts its very validity….But I’ve long since lost all such doubts, Ono,’ he continued. ‘When I am an old man, when I look back over my life and see I have devoted it to the task of capturing the unique beauty of that world, I believe I will be well satisfied. And no man will make me believe I’ve wasted my time.” 9 people liked it
“An artist's concern is to capture beauty wherever he finds it.” 4 people liked it
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