An Artist of the Floating World

by Kazuo Ishiguro

‘I’m sorry, Ono,’ Matsuda said, smiling and shaking his head, ‘but I fear I was correct in my assumption after all. As a breed, you artists are desperately naïve.’ He leaned back in his seat and gave a sigh. The surface of our table was covered in cigarette ash and Matsuda was thoughtfully sweeping patterns in it with the edge of an empty matchbox left by previous occupants. ‘There’s a certain kind of artist these days,’ he went on, ‘whose greatest talent lies in hiding away from the real world. Unfortunately, such artists appear to be in dominance at present, and you, Ono, have come under the sway of one of them. Don’t look so angry, it’s true. Your knowledge of the world is like a child’s. I doubt, for instance, if you could even tell me who Karl Marx was.’