An Artist of the Floating World

An incongruous reader

Of course one wants to read Ishiguro in part because of the Nobel Prize but this quiet book about the post war Japanese "reckoning" with the past is very hard to listen to because I think the choice of the reader was completely wrong. The main character's "voice" is a deep breathy upper class English one which is not at all the voice I heard through reading the book. I have no idea why he was chosen but it ruined the book for me. Ishiguro writes in English but this story is about Japan and Audible should have done more work on trying to match the reader to the character.

9 sur 9 personne(s) ont trouvé cet avis utile.

I liked this one nearly as much...

as The Remains Of The Day. Because it has all the same elements: an aging character reflecting back on a world which he must now leave for a new and changing time, a well-crafted little world and characters simple but so incredibly recognizable.

5 sur 5 personne(s) ont trouvé cet avis utile.

Interesting First-Person Narrative

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand better Ishiguro's world. This book explores the difficulty of evaluating the past (especially one's own past) because of the complexity of human motivation and the social and historical forces influencing the decisions people make.

What other book might you compare An Artist of the Floating World to and why?

There are similar themes in The Remains of the Day, especially the theme of self-delusion.

If you could rename An Artist of the Floating World, what would you call it?

The Bridge of Hesitation

4 sur 4 personne(s) ont trouvé cet avis utile.

as beautiful as a japanese painting.

a beautiful shiort novella (206 pages) with delightful characters. there's just enough of the japanese culture for us westerners to understand it but not so much to loose us in it.

3 sur 3 personne(s) ont trouvé cet avis utile.

Poor Performance

The reader butchers the pronunciation of all Japanese words and names, and downright offense attempts at relaying the voices of children and females.

5 sur 6 personne(s) ont trouvé cet avis utile.

Profoundly boring

I really wanted to like it, and I stayed with it, but... ultimately quite dull, despite the intriguing topic.

1 sur 1 personne(s) ont trouvé cet avis utile.

Interesting cultural background pre and post war

Japan male domimant society struggling to modernize and move on from its war crimes im China.