An Artist of the Floating World cover art

An Artist of the Floating World

As heard on BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

An Artist of the Floating World

By: Kazuo Ishiguro
Narrated by: David Case
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £11.98

Buy Now for £11.98

Season's Savings | £0.99/mo for 3 months

£5.99/mo after 3 months - terms apply. Cancel monthly

1948. Japan is rebuilding her cities after the calamity of WWII, her people putting defeat behind them and looking to the future.

The celebrated painter Masuji Ono fills his days attending to his garden, his house repairs, his two grown daughters and his grandson; his evenings drinking with old associates in quiet lantern-lit bars. His should be a tranquil retirement. But as his memories continually return to the past - to a life and a career deeply touched by the rise of Japanese militarism - a dark shadow begins to grow over his serenity.

©2014 Kazuo Ishiguro (P)2014 Faber & Faber Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction War & Military
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
All stars
Most relevant
The story is absorbing and thought-provoking; it's typical Ishiguro. However, the narrator inflects at random points and it sounds like he's asking a question at the end of most declarative sentences and it's really beginning to grate.

Let down by narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator (or the sound editing) leaves random pauses and question marks hanging mid sentence making the entire passage of text feel disjointed.

Drawling and Dry

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An interesting book with an unreliable narrator. Performed so well by the voice artist who really brought the character to life

Fantastic performance by the reader.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Don’t understand peoples problem with the narrator, it suited the style of the novel perfectly

Well suited narration to the text

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a poignant and insightful story giving a terrific feel for Japanese society and life in Japan after the war. It's not as good, in my view, as Nocturnes or Never Let me Go, but grew on me in the months after finishing up and that's why I round it up from a 4.5 to 5 star rating.

David Case is a strange choice with his posh English accent but he always does a good job and he does somehow capture the spirit of the book.

Ishiguro on almost best form

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews