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An Artist of the Floating World
 
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An Artist of the Floating World (Paperback)

by Kazuo Ishiguro (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
Price: £5.59 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

An Artist of the Floating World + A Pale View of Hills + The Unconsoled
Price For All Three: £15.77

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Product details

  • Paperback: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber; New edition edition (3 Mar 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0571225365
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571225361
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12 x 1.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 9,311 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #4 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > I > Ishiguro, Kazuo

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
In An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro offers readers of the English language an authentic look at post-war Japan, "a floating world" of changing cultural behaviours, 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 nightlife who became a propagandist for Japanese imperialism during the war. But the war is over. Japan lost, Ono's wife and son have been killed, and many young people blame the imperialists for leading the country to disaster. What's left for Ono? Ishiguro's treatment of this story earned a 1986 Whitbread Prize. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description
It is 1948. Japan is rebuilding her cities after the calamity of World War II, her people putting defeat behind them and looking to the future. The celebrated painter Masuji Ono fills his days attending to his garden, his house repairs, his two grown daughters and his grandson, and his evenings drinking with old associates in quiet Iantern-lit bars. His should be a tranquil retirement. But as his memories continually return to the past - to a life and a career deeply touched by the rise of Japanese militarism - a dark shadow begins to grow over his serenity.

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
5 star:
 (9)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Art, but not for Art's sake, 16 Mar 2006
By John Self "www.theasylum.wordpress.com" (Belfast, NI) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
An Artist of the Floating World (1986) was Kazuo Ishiguro's second novel and his first fully-fledged masterpiece, just as achieved as The Remains of the Day, if a little more opaque and less directly affecting emotionally. It features another of Ishiguro's unreliable narrators, Masuji Ono, who is an elderly man, the artist of the title, with a dark secret. For a time this was my favourite Ishiguro novel - not a controversial choice as it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Whitbread Book of the Year award - and in certain moods it may still be so. Because although all Ishiguro's novels have unifying qualities, they are also all distinct, each appealing in a different way to a different mood. An Artist of the Floating World is spare and short like his debut, but had diversions that also made it a pleasure to read over and above the more literary qualities. He seemed to me, for example, to have developed an exceptional ear for children's voices, in the character of Oji, Ono's grandson, who may or may not be authentic but is charming and pleasing and a distinct character in the way that many young children in novels are not. As with A Pale View of Hills, the key is in the unspoken - while Ono sounds confident and calm most of the time, we know he is stricken and paralysed by some horror connected with the rise of Japanese militarism in the early- to mid-20th century. So Ishiguro is a gift to those who want their fiction to be a dialogue between writer and reader, and not a spoon-fed monologue. It also explains why his books always reward re-reading.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Unflawed, 25 Feb 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: An Artist of the Floating World (Paperback)
It is a shame that this book, Ishiguro's second, is still less well read than "The Remains Of The Day." This one says more in a much tinier space, and is elegant, elliptical and intelligent beyond the call of duty.

In "An Artist Of The Floating World" (only when you read the book will you know the proper way to place emphasis on the title) Ishiguro tells the story of a Japanese man, Ono, who has something to hide, something to do with the war... To say more would be to give away the plot, and part of the pleasure of the book - as fans of "Remains" or "The Unconsoled" will know - is in seeing how much you can work out for yourself from how little Ishiguro tells you.

Incidentally, the book introduces Ishiguro's brilliant facility for children's speech, with Ono's grandson (going on to perfect this technique with Boris in "The Unconsoled") - quite the best representation I have read of the illogicality, intemperance and, well, childishness of the way children speak.

A flawless gem, a buoyant confection, and a seemingly effortless work of art.

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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One artist on another, 15 Jun 2001
This review is from: An Artist of the Floating World (Paperback)
I started reading Ishiguro backwards, beginning with When We Were Orphans, moving onto A Pale View of the Hills, The Remains of the Day and now, An Artist. I think this is easily the most linear of the four novels, the simplest to comprehend. That doesn't mean, however, that the subtext is any less complex, or easy to access. It's just that the author has concerned himself here with -- dare I say it, a more unidimensional -- man and his history, zigzagging through time and memories in a gently satirical fashion. There's more humour in this novel than the others, which also makes it more approachable. I still think When We Were Orphans is a superior work, but that maybe because I haven't read The Unconsoled yet... But am I looking forward to it! And for those of you who haven't read An Artist, just go out and get it!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful insight
I bought 'An Artist Of The Floating World' after spotting the title amongst a list of the greatest books of all time and I wasn't disappointed. Read more
Published 15 days ago by C. Martin

5.0 out of 5 stars Dwelling in the past.
The early novels by Kazuo Ishiguro deal with loneliness, isolation ('A Pale View of Hills', 'An artist of the Floating World') and the inability to respond to the feelings of... Read more
Published 18 days ago by Jan Dierckx

5.0 out of 5 stars Elegant exploration of the role of the artist
An elderly, celebrated artist, Masuji Ono, is living in retirement in Japan just after the end of World War Two. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Andrew Blackman

4.0 out of 5 stars Subtle and elegant
Written in Ishiguro's trademark style, this is an elegant, understated and subtle novel. Narrated in a somewhat rambling and not always reliable way by an elderly artist, this is... Read more
Published 12 months ago by BookWorm

3.0 out of 5 stars A Japanese 'Remains of the Day'
`An Artist of the Floating World' is basically the Japanese version of Ishiguro's Booker winning novel `The Remains of the Day'. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Sam J. Ruddock

4.0 out of 5 stars "We, at least, acted on what we believed and did our utmost"
Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. He was awarded the OBE in 1995 and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1998... Read more
Published on 31 May 2007 by cluricaune

4.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Journey
This novel doesn't have an obvious plotline but instead effortlessly follows the trail of recollections in an old man's mind. Read more
Published on 22 Mar 2007 by Cee-Gee

5.0 out of 5 stars Art and artists
'An artist's concern is to capture beauty ... But however skilfully he may come to this, he will have little influence. It seems to be founded on a na? Read more
Published on 16 May 2006 by Luc REYNAERT

4.0 out of 5 stars Subtle and disturbing
This is a subtle and beautifully written book which takes the reader on a gentle journey into the heart and life of the main character, Ono. Read more
Published on 17 Dec 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars slow, real and human
Ono has much to deal with - the changed and still changing world around him, the loss of some members of his family, arranging the marriage of his daughter, an arrogant and fine... Read more
Published on 15 Feb 2004

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