From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Author Kazuo Ishiguro
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Historical novel
Publisher Faber and Faber
Released 1986
Media Type Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages 206 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-571-20913-0
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Picture: Utagawa Hiroshige, View of Mount Fuji from Satta Point in the Suruga Bay
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An Artist of the Floating World (1986) is a novel by British-Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro. It is set in post-World War II Japan and is narrated by Masuji Ono, an aging painter, who looks back on his life and how he has lived it. He notices how his once great reputation has faltered since the war and how attitudes towards him and his paintings have changed. The chief conflict deals with Ono's need to accept responsibility for his past actions. The novel attempts to ask and answer the question: what is man's role in a rapidly changing environment?

The novel was shortlisted for the 1986 Booker Prize and won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for the same year.
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Ukiyo-e: Pictures of the floating world

International Bookray:

Portugal

1. Virgulina
2. PedroGamaVieira
3. sofiacavaco
4. kizmiaz
5. Chibia
6. irusdodot
7. lenore1
8. Frangipani04
9. Ftarazu
10. Realryu
11.Taelsin

Brasil
12. izinha82

UK
13. stormlilly
14. Heaven-Ali
15. shnedwards

Australia
16. tqd

RELEASE NOTES:

Segue para a Virgulina.
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Estampa:Katsushika Hokusai, A Grande Onda de Kanagawa

Brooklyn Museu online Exhibition: Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo

From the website:Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, actually composed of 118 splendid woodblock landscape and genre scenes of mid-nineteenth-century Tokyo, is one of the greatest achievements of Japanese art. In order to protect these very special prints, the Museum can only physically display them periodically, but they are presented here in this ongoing online exhibition. The series, reproduced online in its entirety, contains many of Hiroshige's best loved and most extraordinary prints. It is a celebration of the style and world of Japan's finest cultural flowering at the end of the shogunate.

It's here! Thanks for doing this Bookring Aquina! :-)

I read half of this book and couldn't get into it, Masuji really got on my nerves with his fake humility, after reading Never Let Me Go I was expecting something completely different. I haven't had much reading time lately, maybe I'm just not in the right mood and I hope everyone else enjoys this!
I contacted sofiacavaco and PedroGamaVieira and they both said they were a little busy at the moment and asked to be moved forward in the list. So the book will be going to kizmiaz sometime this week.

Got it today, thanks Virgulina. I still ave one to finish before I get to this one, but it shouldn't take long.

I don’t really know what to say about this book. What I enjoyed most about it was its reminiscence, at least to me, of certain of Mishima’s books, especially the ones that deal with the new Japan after WWII.
As for the story itself it drags a bit with all the wandering memories of Mr. Ono, of course these are important for the plot and to see the changes the characters go through but still… it drags.
The reflections of Mr. Ono on his formative years and his glorious days, marked by his effort in the campaigns against China and the Allies, are interesting because we can see how the character fights with himself and the youth that surrounds him about what he tried to achieve and how that effort is currently viewed by the young ones (who, as usual, know very little from the past and think the Present is all there is), instead of seeking a sort of redemption Mr. Ono seeks merely his place in the modern Japan, a country he loves and wishes to see thrive in the modern world but also a country that is shunning its past, and that, as we all should know, is the gravest mistake any country can make.
In the end it was a good read but nothing to write home about.
I'll be sending the book to Chibia today (02.11.2007).

Já chegou!

Já acabei e para ser honesta custou-me um pouco terminá-lo. Dava a sensação que as páginas se seguiam umas às outras e a história nunca se desenrolava. Pode ter sido também pela altura em que o li, mas este livro pareceu-me algo monótono...De qualquer forma quero conhecer melhor este autor e perceber se foi este livro em específico que não me motivou, ou se o Ishiguro não faz mesmo o meu tipo =)
De qualquer forma obrigada Aquina, segue assim que conseguir morada!

It's here! I'll ready it soon.

After reading Never Let Me Go, my expectations were really high. However, I must admit that it was really hard to get through this book. I'm not having much free reading time these days and so I read at a really slow pace (10 pages a day), which doesn't help. Still, I felt a bit of annoying this lack of plot in a novel... I never felt curious about what would come on the next pages.

Still, it was interesting to have a perspective on Japan's post-war history.

Thanks for sharing it Aquina. I've asked for Ftarazu's address.

27/05 - sent today (sorry for the delay)

It arrived yesterday. Im looking forward to read it but I still have 2 books in waiting before this one...

I really dont know what to say about this book. It was quite hard for me to read it (it took me a long time) but at the same time I have enjoyed it. It is a very slow book. What I liked about it was the way the author told a bit of Japan´s story through Ono’s memories. It also gives us a hint on the relationships between father and daughter during those times in Japan and about all the trouble to negotiate a marriage.
It will be sent to the next person as soon as I have an address.

Sent for my Intl secret Santa buddy.
Hope you enjoy it!

Thank you for my wonderful Secret Santa gift! From what I've read here, this seems to be a slow burner. I really liked Never Let Me Go, I hope this one is as good! Merry Christmas :)

I really liked this book.

It follows a retired artist in Post War Japan who is reflecting on his younger life. It would seem that he painted propaganda during the war, something which is now frowned upon.

He is worried how this will affect his daughter's marriage negotiations but at the same time, still proud of the work he did.

Not an awful lot happens but I enjoyed hearing Masuji's memories of the past.

Left in the Phone Box.