An Artist of the Floating World
The pitch for Ishiguro is that he’s like a genre box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. I’d read a few of his books over the last few years, Remains of the Day, Never let me go and the Buried Giant particularly stand out.
So picking up a post war exploration of a retired Japanese artist felt like another jump to somewhere new.
About halfway through the book though, I was sure I’d found a theme. All these books seem to enjoy bewildering you, but throwing you the lifeline of a good character to cling to. Yet as the book progresses, and we learn more, we wonder who these good companions of ours might truly be.
I thought the book would build to a revelation, and we’d be horrified by who our new friend turned out to be. However I don’t think that kind of revelation is Ishiguro’s interest here. Instead we get something more unresolved, someone a bit trapped, watching a world they gave themself to disappear, vacillating on what is lost and what might now be possible.
Before "An Artist of the Floating World" I read: Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century
After "An Artist of the Floating World" I read: Time for Socialism: Dispatches from a World on Fire, 2016–2021