D.S. Review of Kazuo Ishiguro's An Artist Of The Floating World

[John Anon No.10113908]

Since Ishiguro has become a rising topic on this board, I wanted to foster some critical discussion and awareness of his work. Dan Schneider, the poet not the television producer, offered a critique of Ishiguro's 2nd novel in 2008.

Here are the highlights:
"Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1986 novel, An Artist Of The Floating World, which won that year’s Whitbread Prize, may be a great novel, but it just misses out on that elite company. Of course, the fact one can make arguments pro and con means the book is worlds above the tripe one would read were the author’s surname Oates, Boyle, or Eggers. The reason for the miss, in my mind, is that the novel never fully soars- it never takes that Keatsian leap into the subconscious, to wrench the reader into an experience he or she can get nowhere else. It is consummately written, and its lead character and narrator is very interesting. There really is no fat to trim, yet….there simply are no indelible scenes nor moments that one will recall years later."

"Nothing like that occurs in Ishiguro’s novel, although his proponents for greatness could claim it’s simply not that sort of novel. In a sense, that’s true. It is a complex psychological novel that slips easily in and out of the past, even as its first person narrator- a painter named Masuji Ono, is never not the speaker. Of course, the three aforementioned books are also complex novels with psychological heft, which would seem to invalidate the argument pro-Ishiguro readers make, but claimants might also argue that this book is an old man’s recitation of his claims to existence, and not a book that reveals the road one travels to get to a certain place, for the artist Ono is already there."

"Technically, Ishiguro does well in shifting the narrative, with Ono going on digressions, only to abruptly catch his wanderings, stop, and almost apologize to the reader for his indulgences, as well as admit to not being sure of certain things. In other scenes, Ono assumes the reader knows of a person or area of the town, which more easily gets the reader to accept his askance digressions as part of an ongoing or long-term dialogue he has been having with the reader; one which may extend back beyond the book’s opening scenes. Ishiguro also portrays the realistic and universal ways that humans react to each other. As example, there is a slightly retarded man, whom all in the town still refer to as ‘the Hirayama boy,’ despite the man being in his fifties During the war, it’s likely the retard was patted on the head for his rote recitation of nationalistic songs. Now he is attacked, yet goes on singing them. That such a character floats into the tale Ishiguro tells shows him as a true observer of life- one of the prerequisites for mastering narrative."

[cont.]

[John Anon No.10113912]

[cont.]
"the book’s biggest weakness: it simply never takes off into a higher plane. An Artist Of The Floating World is immaculately wrought, but its very understated nature undermines its claims to greatness, for by its end it recapitulates one thing that is troubling: not only has Ono not gotten any greater insight into himself, but neither has the reader. Yes, we know more of his externals, but his interior landscape is still a mystery. And there are ways, in fiction, that one can give a reader insight that still eludes a character. Ishiguro’s choice to not follow such a path may have been deliberate, but it also may be the slight Achilles’ Heel of the book. However, this novel is well worth a read, and the passage of time, and the sticktoitiveness of some of Ishiguro’s subtle scenes and intricate words may prove my initial assessment wrong, even to myself. It may indeed have a staying power as long as the adventures of Captain Ahab and the White Whale. Here’s hoping."

[Anonymous No.10114853]

qr on schneider?