‘An Artist of the Floating World’ feels like a slow, steady walk through a park in deep contemplation. It is subtle and keeps unfolding to add more and more depth.
It is largely told through the eyes of the elderly Ono interacting with his two daughters, but chiefly it exists as his thoughts drift off to his past life as an artist painting propaganda for Japan’s imperial ambitions. The spindles of thought feel like those avenues thoughts spanning dream, wist, and doubt you get on warm, gentle, sunny walks. The conflict between the man Ono was during Japan’s hawkish rise to the society rebuilding from defeat is always delicate, communicated by characters through layers of etiquette and implied language.
I feel like this is a novel to reread on yet more slow days. I can’t possibly say I understand or empathise with such careful thought from the elderly, but it seems like Ishiguro manages to capture something like that, and entirely different to a rushed city life.