Guest Author - Daria Przybyla

Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World portrays the biography of a retired painter. After the war, Masuji Ono finds himself in a web of ‘silent’ narratives; hardly anything that concerns the past can become a subject of an open discussion between relatives, friends or colleagues. Ono must make sense of history only by evoking his own memories and decoding metaphors other people use in order to refer to history.

Past in “An Artist of the Floating World”
The most vivid memories from the past concern prestigious position Ono held in the local fine arts community and the anticipation of old age by the time of which he would become an honorable citizen of Japan. Since the truth about the past cannot be directly signified it only appears instantly – as an accidental reminiscence. Therefore, the painter’s memories centre on the sense of pride and honor. Even the act of buying a house is remembered through the sensation of being an exceptionally venerated person.

Crisis of Identity in "An Artist of the Floating World"
It starts shortly after the war when Ono gradually notices that now his illustrious past only diminishes the prospects of his family. First, he notices that he is no longer held in high esteem and many people have reservations about his past. Second, the world which he aspired to influence and co-create by means of his artistic input and the patriotic motivations behind all his creations is now shattered to pieces. The world, as he knew it, is now both literally and metaphorically debris.

Memory in "An Artist of the Floating World"
The world was not only destroyed by the war but also the last traces of ‘old Japan’ are now torn to pieces. The problem is that he has very slim chances of getting to know any reasons for the existing situation. The author of The Artist… portrays post-war Japanese reality as a culture overburdened with historical conflicts but simultaneously producing no social discourse on history. All the facets of the observed reality are motivated by history which, in the oriental logic of good manners, is in this case beyond the order of direct confrontation. That is why there is no connection between Ono’s memories and the way others refer to the past. The only discursive area of Japanese antecedents is located in the playground of cultural, social and family constraints where history is always prevented from trespassing their borders.

Ono proves that history does not have to be adjusted to the needs of the present time. Trying to get to the source of the meaning of history and finding the historical truths applies neither to Oriental nor Occidental reality. The logic of discourse turns against itself especially since the means of perception, in the post-war Japan, have been borrowed from Western culture. At the same time Ono acknowledges that promoting private stories is no use as they are always judged through the perspective of master-discourse. The effect of deconstruction rarely comes up to the individual expectations of the interpreter. Not only is the architecture of the town rebuilt but also the mindset of the society. Whatever Ono believed no longer holds for the culture for which he used to dictate the trends. Now the painter is thrown to the margins of the discourse which he himself commenced many years ago. Under the pressure of American occupation, the archaic Japanese culture is translated through and into a foreign system of values. In the course of Ono’s meditations, the protagonist prepares to accept the youth’s vision of history as well as acknowledge his own fault in exposing Japan to contempt of the international community.