Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

THE GREAT COMPLETIST CHALLENGE: In which I revisit older authors and attempt to read every book they ever wrote

Currentlyâ€� ‌inâ€� ‌theâ€� ‌challenge:â€� ‌Isaacâ€� ‌Asimov'sâ€� ‌Robot/Empire/Foundationâ€� ´¥â€� ‌Margaretâ€� Atwoodâ€� ´¥â€� ‌JGâ€� ‌Ballardâ€� ´¥â€� Cliveâ€� ‌Barkerâ€� ´¥â€� Christopherâ€� Buckleyâ€� ´¥â€� ‌Jim Butcher's Dresden Files | ‌Lee Child's Jack Reacher | ‌Philipâ€� ‌Kâ€� ‌Dickâ€� ´¥â€� ‌Ian Fleming | Williamâ€� ‌Gibsonâ€� ´¥â€� ‌Michelâ€� Houellebecqâ€� ´¥â€� Johnâ€� ‌Irvingâ€� ´¥â€� ‌Kazuoâ€� ‌Ishiguroâ€� ´¥â€� Shirleyâ€� Jacksonâ€� | ‌Johnâ€� ‌Leâ€� ‌Carreâ€� ´¥â€� Bernardâ€� ‌Malamudâ€� ´¥â€� Cormac McCarthy | Chinaâ€� ‌Mievilleâ€� ´¥â€� Toni Morrison | ‌VSâ€� Naipaulâ€� ´¥â€� Chuckâ€� ‌Palahniukâ€� ´¥â€� ‌Timâ€� ‌Powersâ€� ´¥â€� ‌Terryâ€� ‌Pratchett'sâ€� ‌Discworldâ€� ´¥â€� Philipâ€� ‌Rothâ€� ´¥â€� Nealâ€� Stephensonâ€� ´¥â€� ‌Jimâ€� ‌Thompsonâ€� ´¥â€� Johnâ€� ‌Updikeâ€� ´¥â€� Kurtâ€� ‌Vonnegutâ€� ´¥â€� Jeanette Winterson | PGâ€� ‌Wodehouseâ€� â€�

Now that I've read what is arguably Nobel-winner Kazuo Ishiguro's most famous novel, 1989's The Remains of the Day, it was fascinating to go back and read the book he wrote right before it, 1986's An Artist of the Floating World, because at their hearts they're both about the same thing -- namely, milquetoast everyman characters living through the events of World War Two in the 1940s, who both unthinkingly adopted attitudes about the war that they naively thought made them good citizens, but only afterwards realized made them one of the millions that allowed for monstrous fascism to run unchecked in their countries at the time (in the case of Remains, in pre-war Britain, where a butler is forced to reconcile his experiences of working for a blue-blood lord who was a gleeful Nazi appeaser before the war officially began, and who thought it would be a great idea for the UK to ship all their Jews off to concentration camps too).

The big difference here, though, is that the protagonist of Floating World is Japanese, a respected fine-art painter before the war who happily commits himself to propaganda posters during the conflict, then must learn how to live with his actions in a post-war world of Western influence, where the generation after him embrace cowboy movies and Coca-Cola, and bitterly blame him and his peers for causing the near-destruction of their nation to begin with. But the book is about more than that, too, alluded to by the novel's title; for "the floating world" refers not just to the that our anti-villain Ono embraced before the war (just to then controversially dump it in favor of the of war propaganda), but also as a slang term for the "red-light districts" that were a regular part of most cities in pre-war Europe and Asia, a sort of perpetual-twilight dreamland of drugs and sex where Ono and his friends spent their time before the war, drinking and arguing philosophy inside a bar that eventually became famous because of their association.

That makes this book the usual bag of Ishiguro tricks like his others, as he very slyly examines subjects like groupthink, morality, loyalty and family, precisely by sliding up to the topics sideways before you've even had a chance to notice; but in other ways this makes the book very different than his most famous titles, in that this is also a very specific look at Japanese customs and rituals, from the strict mentor/apprentice approach to the arts that had an ironclad lock on their society's arts all the way into the 1960s, to the frustrations of a younger generation trying to corral their parents' wayward opinions within a society where it was still a deep taboo to raise one's voice in argument against an elder. After all, Ishiguro is famously a Japanese immigrant who has lived in England all his life, and it's my understanding that several of his first books are set in an Asia he only knew theoretically; he seems to have gotten that out of his system early in his career, in that all his later novels are thoroughly Western in approach and setting, but it still makes these early books fascinating to read and ponder.

Although I can state with authority that I liked The Remains of the Day better -- Ishiguro simply handles the subject with more finesse and subtlety in that particular book, and sets it in an environment that Westerners are much more familiar with, making the subversion of its subject matter even more powerful -- anyone who is a fan of that book is strongly encouraged to read this unofficial companion volume too, a one-two punch that collectively is one of the most devastating looks at the rise of 20th century fascism ever written. Next up: 1995's The Unconsoled, which I've been warned is a sprawling, linguistically dense 500-page headscratcher that received almost all negative reviews when first published, but that has since been reappraised as one of the best British novels of the late 20th century. Should be interesting!

Kazuo Ishiguro books being reviewed in this series: A Pale View of the Hills (1982) | An Artist of the Floating World (1986) | The Remains of the Day (1989) | The Unconsoled (1995) | When We Were Orphans (2000) | Never Let Me Go (2005) | The Buried Giant (2015) | Klara and the Sun (2021)