2. An Artist of the Floating World

By Kazuo Ishiguro

An Artist Of the Floating World paints an interesting portrait of post-war Japan as seen through the eyes of the aging Masuji Ono. It reads much like an early Ozu movie - the pacing is slow and deliberate, and it wanders through Ono's life, interweaving with thoughts and memories. Similarly as well, there is little conflict. Ono has tension with his daughters and he internally questions his past, but there are no crisises to overcome, all the battles have already been fought.

In his youth, Ono is the proto-typical rebel artist, aiming to achieve a new level in his work. The "floating world" refers to night-life Japan, clouded by drink and other pleasures of the night. Ono, like his colleagues, paints images inspired by this life. However, when his attention is turned to the suffering of the poor, his paintings come to support the Nationalist movement in their support of a stronger Japan.

Ono's reflections on his life often come through interactions with his daughters who are embarrassed of his past, and his grandson who has taken to emulating cowboys instead of Samurai. The book never dwells on these little moments, perhaps that is what makes them stand out so clearly. Similarly, the backdrop of a city which lies partially in ruins is only casually referred to by Ono.

There are great discussions on this book on the meaning of art, and its relationship with the world. Its particularly interesting to read, in Ono's rather passive voice, about his attachment to nationalism; its something that you rarely get 'the artist' perspective on, as most 'rebel artists' are portrayed as fighting against a totalitarian government.

1. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

I figured that while Kim and I were in Prague this year, it would be appropriate to read something with a little local color. Seeing as Milan Kundera was of Czech origin (and having read and loved The Unbearable Lightness of Being), I picked up The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Good choice, because it included a lot of interesting personal reactions to much of the politics of Czechoslovakia during the communist period.

Like Unbearable Lightness, TBOLAF isn't so much a straightforward story, but a philosophy that wanders through different ideas like a path in the woods, meeting different characters and joining diffrerent events as it goes. In fact, where lightness wanders, Laughter and Forgetting even gets lost a few times. Not always in a bad way - it just strays from the path, looks around at another part of the forest, and then stumbles upon the path again.

The story follows a bunch of different characters in different stories. Kundera claims that some of them are real and some are made up. Likewise, it is obvious that the story goes back and fourth in an inconstant pattern between real and fiction as well. The characters and plots in the story have little or nothing to do with each other (with the exception of the author's presence who knew or wrote them into existence).

Many of the themes in lightness are repeated here. In many ways this book feels almost as if its a 'study' for lightness - sort of like sketches of an idea versus the finished painting. In a way, the sketches have their own beauty and capture an immediacy that is lost in the final painting, but it also doesn't reach the level of "complete-ness" (for lack of a better word).