A change for the better.

            When I first went to college out of high school I was very lazy with the amount of effort I would put into my school work. I made it through high school without any real academic challenges, and as I later found out so did most college bound students. When I arrived on campus for the first time it was impossible to miss signs displaying that students need to study 25-35 hours a week outside of class. I laughed at these signs; there’s no way I would study 25-35 hours out of class. I went through three years assuming I could just skate through college without putting in much effort, until I hit a wall half way through my junior year. Long story short I got the boot. My problem was that I was unable to shift from my old ways of excelling without much effort to the rigorous study required to just pass in my major. Because I was stuck in my old ways and unable to perceive studying necessary of my time, I was unable to progress in my life. Similar paradigm shifts occur with a man by the name Masuji Ono, the fictional main character in the novel An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro.

            The change in my life that spurred the need for change in my views and practices was my shift from high school life, to college life. For Ono it was life from pre to post World War II. Most of the novel is driven by a paradigm shift of the Japanese people’s opinion of their countries actions in the war and of the men that influenced the propagation of the war, and how this affects Ono and his family. The novel divulges very slowly how this shift influences our main character Ono, who we initially perceive to be nothing more than a retired highly esteemed artist and art teacher.

In the first few pages of the novel we are told of a great change in Ono’s mannerisms from before and after the war. Ono’s two daughters Noriko and Setsuko are greeting one another and Setsuko is embarrassed and uncomfortable with her sister’s comments about her father. Noriko turns to her father saying “Setsuko probably has no idea of what you’re like these days, father. She only remembers you from when you were a tyrant and ordered us all around. You’re much more gentle these days, isn’t that so?” (13). It becomes clear that Ono was a different man before the war than he is now, but one wonders how this is impairing Noriko from getting married. As the novel weaves a story clouded by Ono’s glorification of his actions pre-war and ignorance post-war, this question about Noriko’s marriage ties into the largest paradigm shift Ono must make in the novel.

Half way through the novel we begin to see that Ono’s involvement in the war was through art. Ono experiences a shift from the “ukiyo” form of art to creating propaganda which he believed to be helping his country. He even brought his students along with him in the change to painting propaganda posters. But after the war this set of beliefs that these artists were helping the country changed dramatically, and artists involved with propaganda were marked as traitors. All of Ono’s students distanced themselves from Ono after the war, even Shintaro who had stayed loyal to Ono long after the war until doing so threatened his chance at obtaining a teaching post. The worst of all the problems caused by Ono’s views of his work during the war was that it caused Noriko’s first marriage talks to fall through. Ono begins to realize that he must not let his ignorance take another possible mirage from his young but aging daughter.

Ono finally acknowledges his mistakes in the nick of time as it seems to be weighing heavily on Noriko’s second wedding talks during a miai, a formal dinner meeting involved with the wedding process. During the dinner Taro Saito’s, Noriko’s possible suitor, family seems to be circling around Ono’s opinions about things concerning the country during the post war changes in Japan. When the conversation at the table comes to a former student of Ono’s who a few weeks prior had openly shown his distaste for Ono in a letter, Ono must clear his and his daughter’s name. He openly states that he knows it is widely viewed that his work, and those like it, had a negative influence on Japan. Ono states “that at that time I acted in good faith. I believed in all sincerity I was achieving good for my fellow countrymen. But as you see, I am not now afraid to admit I was mistaken.” (124). It is when he admits this to himself and to the table around him that Ono experiences another paradigm shift, but most importantly tackles the underlying hesitance in the possible marriage of his daughter. After this statement Noriko astonishment at her fathers break from ignorance makes her forget her anxiety she had carried with her through out the rest of the miai and the dinner finished in an air of success.

The novel is not much more than half over but I think Ono has made a shift for the better. But with so much more of the novel to come I doubt that just admitting it to himself is going to make the problems his past has caused go away. At least his daughter seems like she will be married. As for me, well I’m obviously back in school and I too have made a shift for the better. As I walk through campus and overhear freshman talking when faced with information like the 25-35 hours of studying signs I once saw, I laugh to myself and hope they can accept this necessity sooner than I did.