estaba muy interesado al principio. me gustaba el tono del narrador. un artista un poco en estado catatonico despues de un gran desastre. evasivo, con recuerdos reprimidos. como esquivando algo muy doloroso. me interesaba tambien la idea de un artista revisando lo que ha sido su vida. en algun momento por la mitad la narracion pierde interes. las revelaciones no son extraordinarias. de hecho es posible que todo haya sido mas bien su imaginacion. no hay mucha reflexion sobre arte ni mucha reflexion sobre el mundo flotante. mas bien es una meditacion sobre japon. no lo que prometia el libro. por eso:

not enough art, not enough floating world.

--- ( )

A gently told yet uncompromising novella, An Artist of the Floating World is the story of a Japanese artist in the years after the Second World War. Ishiguro tells a subtle tale of memory and legacy, of coming to terms with one's own mistakes and the world one has created for others. His narrator is as vague and unreliable as Stevens is in the later Remains of the Day, but here that narrative style didn't quite hit the political and societal notes with the same sharpness it would in the later novel. Overall, an interesting character study, and if you like Ishiguro's other novels, you will no doubt enjoy this one, too. ( )

This is a rich study of an artist. As with other Ishiguro novels, the narrator is unreliable. The action here is in trying to figure out what the narrator believes, instead of what he merely states that he believes, and so how far he is lying to us and himself in the presentation of his thoughts.

This was enjoyable for me because even though the artist--a Japanese painter who served as a propagandist for World War II--technically claims that what he did was morally wrong, you feel that he cannot quite accept that. He is a stubborn, proud man. Though the end during which the narrator reflects tranquilly on the path his life has taken, like Mr. Stevens at the end of Remains of the Day, but here the ending is sinister.

Without fully owning up to what he did, and the consequences of what he did, as well as being cast off by a progressing society that would rather pretend those years didn't exist, his summing up and self-satisfaction represents an revocation of responsibility. It is an revocation of responsibility, demanded by the rhythms of life, that allows for the sins of the past to be conveniently forgotten.

This is an elegant and understated novel. A retired japanese painter remembers his life in the context of arranging the marriage of his second daugther. The decisions he took in the past might influence the chances of her daughter to suceed. A pleasure to read. ( )

Like his later and more well known novels, Artist displays Ishiguro’s lyric command of language that just draws you in. But in this case, I wanted a little more. I wished for more context, more background, more descriptions of what people looked like and how they moved, even more descriptions of the controversial art at the center of the story, so I could better understand the two worlds Ishiguro is painting for us: the artist’s floating world and the contrite, beaten-down world of post-war Japan. ( )