31.3.09
10.3.09
another digression
Have any of you watched Changeling with Angelina Jolie? I just watched it last night, and it totally reminded me of the book...only because of all the turmoil and conflict in the film that occurs and the choice of music Clint Eastwood decided to accompany the film with.
5.3.09
but i am digressing
it took me a week to remember what email address i used to set up this blog, so my thoughts are going to be a little dated (meaning the book isn't as fresh in my mind as i would have hoped).
i want to first mention something about the title: the artist of the floating world. obviously, it refers to the style of art practiced by ono, an art that capture the glimpses of a kind of transitory world that only appears at night in the pleasure districts before the war. but, i think, the narration in the book too counts as the floating world. this floating world is the one of the past, the floating, fleeting memories interrupted (or continued) by distractions, misrememberings and tangents. these memories only last a second and then disappear. if they reappear, they're usually in a new form. in some ways, ono, in his advanced age, seems trapped in this floating world only occasionally drawn out by sporadic visits from his daughters and old acquaintances. however, even these brief interludes end up taking him back to the past. (this habit of the narration speaks to what natali was talking about when she mentioned ono seemed to be suffering from dementia or alzheimer's -- he's pretty much trapped in his own mind.)
last week i ended up watching part of kurosawa's seven samurai. one of the things interesting about this movie is how much it has in common with earlier westerns. there's this part early on in the film where two samurais have the equvilant of a quick draw shootout. it's as if, in some small ways, kurosawa is refashioning the samurai story to be more compatible with the influence of american popular culture prevalent in japan after the war. which, of course, reminds me of ichiro's heros being american cowboys and cartoon characters.
overall i liked the book. especially the focus on the unreliability of memory -- ono seems to have completely different memories of events than everyone he talks to -- and the way we refashion our own personal history through our memories. also, the fragile nature of memory. that memories are there for an instance. and so, because memories, like life, are transient, there is a certain melancholy as we lose the memory just as we remember.
i want to first mention something about the title: the artist of the floating world. obviously, it refers to the style of art practiced by ono, an art that capture the glimpses of a kind of transitory world that only appears at night in the pleasure districts before the war. but, i think, the narration in the book too counts as the floating world. this floating world is the one of the past, the floating, fleeting memories interrupted (or continued) by distractions, misrememberings and tangents. these memories only last a second and then disappear. if they reappear, they're usually in a new form. in some ways, ono, in his advanced age, seems trapped in this floating world only occasionally drawn out by sporadic visits from his daughters and old acquaintances. however, even these brief interludes end up taking him back to the past. (this habit of the narration speaks to what natali was talking about when she mentioned ono seemed to be suffering from dementia or alzheimer's -- he's pretty much trapped in his own mind.)
last week i ended up watching part of kurosawa's seven samurai. one of the things interesting about this movie is how much it has in common with earlier westerns. there's this part early on in the film where two samurais have the equvilant of a quick draw shootout. it's as if, in some small ways, kurosawa is refashioning the samurai story to be more compatible with the influence of american popular culture prevalent in japan after the war. which, of course, reminds me of ichiro's heros being american cowboys and cartoon characters.
overall i liked the book. especially the focus on the unreliability of memory -- ono seems to have completely different memories of events than everyone he talks to -- and the way we refashion our own personal history through our memories. also, the fragile nature of memory. that memories are there for an instance. and so, because memories, like life, are transient, there is a certain melancholy as we lose the memory just as we remember.
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