The Unreliable Narrator in Kazuo Ishiguro’s “An Artist of the Floating World”

Lucia Volpe

Introduction

An Artist of the Floating World is a novel written by the Japanese-born British

writer Kazuo Ishiguro in 1986. The novel is set in post-war Japan and is narrated by the
retired artist Masuji Ono, who, faced with the investigation required to conduct the
negotiations for her daughter’s marriage, looks back on the events that shaped his life.
This takes him to a quest for identity and he travels through his memories in order to find
answers that could release him from his insecurities about his past actions. Through Ono’s
recounting of his past, this novel shows how memories can be manipulated in their
representation in a narrative, even unconsciously.
This paper deals with the distrust of seeming objectivity of recounting which is
characteristic of postmodern fiction and that is made explicit by means of an unreliable
narrator. The novel portrays this concept by showing how subjectivity intervenes in a first
person narrator’s account, which is also triggered by an intention or a particular goal, in
this case, that of forging a satisfactory image of himself.

A novel written and set in postmodernism

This novel can be analyzed as postmodern by looking at both its content and its
form. As regards its content, the novel is set during the period of reconstruction of Japan,
in which not only cities were being reconstructed, but also the culture itself, which is a
recurrent theme in postmodern art. Ishiguro (1989) states that he chooses post-war
settings because he is “interested in this business of values and ideas being tested, and
people having to face up to the notion that their ideals weren’t quite what they thought
they were before the test came.” The horrors that the world had experienced led to a
general feeling of uncertainty about what was previously taken as natural: everything
begins to be revised, questioned and denaturalized. As Andrew Sanders (1994, 578)
states: “The post-war period was often seen as one which required the reassembling of
fragments of meaning.” In a context in which every foundation of society is being rebuilt,
the feeling of loss drives people to try to find something stable, a meaning of life, a sense
of continuity, of purpose and identity (Lalrinferi, 2012, 4). Bearing this in mind, Ono’s
need of revisiting and questioning his past actions may be motivated not only by personal
circumstances but also by the post-war cultural context.
 As regards its form, this paper shall focus on the variety of aesthetic devices that
appear in the novel that build an unreliable narrator. The unreliable narrator is defined as
“a narrator whose account of events appears to be faulty, misleadingly biased, or
otherwise distorted, so that it departs from the 'true' understanding of events shared
between the reader and the implied author.” (Baldick, 2001, 268) As it can be seen from
this definition, unreliability does not imply a planned or intentional lie, but rather
“inconscience; the narrator is mistaken, or he believes himself to have qualities which the
author denies him.” (Booth, 1983, 158) Unreliable narrators are not exclusive to
postmodernism, in fact, they were employed in gothic novels such as The Turn of the
Screw (1898) and Wuthering Heights (1847). Nevertheless, their wide use in postmodern
novels can be associated with a need to explicitly reflect the postmodern claim that every
representation of reality is mediated by subjectivity, which is loaded with assumptions
based on both the discourses that constitute the culture and their own life experiences and
emotions.

Aesthetic devices that build unreliability

A self-conscious first person narrator and his use of disclaimers

One of these devices is the first person narrator, which is, on the surface, the most
unreliable type of narrator. “In fiction, as soon as we encounter an ‘I,’ we are conscious
of an experiencing mind whose views of the experience will come between us and the
event.” (Booth, 1983, 151) However, what actually makes this first person narrator an
unreliable narrator is the fact that he overtly introduces himself as such to the reader: “the
existence of a narratee suggests that Ono is aware he is telling a story, even if he is not a
self-conscious literary artist.” (Karttunen, 2016, 13) Ono’s self-consciousness of his
position as narrator is also illustrated in his persistent use of metanarrative comments such
as disclaimers, for instance: “These, of course, may not have been the precise words I
used (…) for I have had cause to recount this particular scene many times before, and it
is inevitable that with repeated telling, such accounts begin to take on a life of their own.”
(Ishiguro, 1986, 30)
Nevertheless, the insistence of the narrator in making his own unreliability explicit
may cause two different responses in the reader. Either thinking that the truth of his
accounts has to be questioned, or believing that the narrator is honest and trustworthy. As
Laura Karttunen (2016, 5-8) observes, “Expressions such as “or words to that effect” may
be perfectly normal, and in that sense invisible, in everyday quotations (see Fludernik
1993: 418-419), but in fiction they may give recognition to inaccuracies in quoting that
are supposed to be picked up by the reader”. In this novel, the reader can sense that the
narrator is attempting to be as reliable as he can, but disclaimers –among other devices-
make him suspicious at the same time.
In this way, presenting himself as a self-conscious narrator contributes to Ono’s
self-deception since, in fact, it is impossible to avoid his feelings or his cultural
background to interfere with the objectivity of his recounting. “Through either a
purposeful, willful recollection of the past based on a need to know, or through an
unconscious yearning for stimulus, memory is evoked in the mind of an individual that is
firmly rooted in the present.” (Lalrinfeli, 23; my emphasis) In other words, each of the
reasons that Ono has at present for revisiting his past further alter the way in which he
remembers facts, as we shall see in the next section.

The purpose underlying Ono’s narration

Besides being rooted in the general feeling of uncertainty of the era, and though
apparently motivated by the investigation, Ono’s rethinking of his self may be motivated
by the changes that took place at the personal level: the loss of a wife and a son, his
retirement and the approximation of death. Ono finds himself being displaced from both
society and the family. As a retired painter that belongs to a generation that has
disappointed the country, he no longer has a role in society; as the old father of two
daughters who are in the process of leaving the house and starting a family, he has also
been displaced from his role as a patriarch. “Everything, for Ono, is provisional and
troubling: art, family, life and posterity.” (The Guardian)
This results in a crisis of identity that makes him feel nostalgic for the past and
also to look for something that defines him. This leads him to believe that anything that
is addressed to his generation is personally addressed at him. Therefore, he feels guilty
for being one of the traitors “who led the country astray” (Ishiguro, 1986, 23) and he
becomes obsessed with analyzing his role as an artist in the past. As regards family, he
blames himself for the failure of Noriko’s first marriage negotiations and then he
attributes to himself the success of the second ones. Also, and although he never actually
says it, one may infer that in blaming himself for the atrocities of the war, he is blaming
himself for the deaths of his wife and son.
Digressions and reported speech
Ishiguro uses memory as the narrator’s source in many of his novels and he
explains why: “I like that the scenes are necessarily foggy around the edges, because
they’re open to manipulation and they’re open to self-deception and embroidery. And
they’re often tinged with nostalgia, some kind of strong emotion.” (Ishiguro, 2008, cited
in Lalrinfeli, 2012, 17; my emphasis) In The Artist of the Floating World, there is a self-
conscious narrator that is looking back on his past, which cannot be done “in any passive
manner, it [the past] is modified and filtered through the present consciousness (...) it is
in fact being reinterpreted and reconstructed.” (Home, 2002, cited in Lalrinfeli, 2012, 25)
The representation of memory implies frequent digressions which are, in Ono’s
case, unconsciously motivated by his present concerns and emotions – namely nostalgia
and guilt- which direct the order of his thoughts and drive him to choose certain memories
above others. Certainly, the random narration of events evokes the modernist technique
of stream of consciousness, which has been greatly criticized as being biased in the sense
that choosing to prioritize stylistic innovation has hidden moral consequences (Finney,
2006, 95). As Linda Hutcheon claims “by both using and ironically abusing general
conventions and specific forms of representation, postmodern art works to de-naturalize
them.” (1995,8) In contrast with stream of consciousness novels, the bias here is made
explicit: on narrating “just what comes to his mind” Ono is hiding something from the
reader, and probably from himself. His divagations tend to take us far away from the facts
that trouble him, while distracting us with other memories he is fond of.
In fact, it is only through these digressions that we can infer Ono’s actual
concerns, emotions and purposes and where the self-deception Ishiguro talks about is
made evident. On the one hand, Ono is constantly trying to get rid of this feeling of guilt
by trying to justify his past actions or by overshadowing them with positive memories
which he remembers with nostalgia. For example, when he is recounting a conversation
with his daughter Setsuko and describing the room they were in, it reminds him of the
time he told his parents his decision of working as an artist. At a certain point in the story,
he acknowledges it: “However, I see I am drifting. My intention had been to record here
that conversation I had with Setsuko last month when she came into the reception room
to change the flowers.” (Ishiguro, 1986, 19) On the other hand, he behaves in a paranoid
way by associating every conversation in the present to the memories of the past he is
reproducing in his mind. This can be seen in the metanarrative comments that accompany
reported speech, such as
 “Perhaps I am being unfair if I credit young Miyake, too, with such
bitterness, but then the way things are at present, if you examine anything anyone
says to you, it seems you will find a thread of this same bitter feeling running
through it. For all I know, Miyake did speak those words; perhaps all men of
Miyake's and Suichi's generation have come to think and speak like that.”
(Ishiguro, 1986, 25; my emphasis)
Ono does not mind the accuracy of his reporting, as long as it manages to suit the
purposes of his narration. In this case, he may be trying to dismiss a negative comment
about himself attributing it to a general quality of that generation, or to support his
suspicion that everyone blames him for contributing to the war.
Conflicting testimony in reported speech
Nevertheless, it is in Ono’s thoughts in divergence with other characters’ sayings
where self- deception is more noticeable. Although all dialogues are reported by the same
narrator, these appear to be more reliable since they do not seem to support Ono’s
suspicions but rather to contradict them or to prove that Ono may be overreacting.
Furthermore, they are not accompanied by disclaimers or other metanarrative comments
in the same way as other instances of reported speech.
""Forgive me, but it is perhaps important to see things in a proper
perspective. (...) Father's work had hardly to do with these larger matters of which
we are speaking. (...) He must stop believing he has done some great wrong."
"Well now, Setsuko, this is very different advice from last year. Then it seemed
my career was a great liability." "Forgive me, Father, but I can only repeat I do
not understand these references to the marriage negotiations last year. Indeed, it
is some mystery to me why Father's career should have been of any particular
relevance to the negotiations(...)”” (Ishiguro, 1986, 79)
This is a case of what Booth (1983, 160) calls a correction. Corrections
need not be other character’s words, they can come from the very actions, words or
thoughts of the narrator himself, for instance: “I cannot recall any colleague who could
paint a self-portrait with absolute honesty; however accurately one may fill in the surface
details of one's mirror reflection, the personality represented rarely comes near the truth
as others would see it.” (Ishiguro, 1986, 28) Ono makes this observation himself about
self-portraits, which works as a metaphor for autobiographical works of any nature.
However objective a self-conscious recounting may seem, in speaking about themselves,
people often improve the facts or even make them up, with no deliberate intention of
lying. This can be seen when Ono reports direct speech, either of what he has said or
done, or of what others have said about him: “But even if I did not express myself to the
Tortoise quite so succinctly that day, I think it can be assumed those words I have just
attributed to myself do represent accurately enough my attitude and resolve at that point
in my life.” (Ishiguro, 1986, 30; my emphasis)

Conclusion

The unreliable narrator acts as a tool to foster critical thinking without actually
dealing with this subject. By means of different stylistic devices, readers are forced into
a state of confusion in which they find themselves doubting about everything,
unconsciously questioning what they are being given as taken for granted. This turns out
to be vital because it is a way of raising awareness of the frailty of representation without
taking a confrontational approach. On the other hand, this situation of confusion and
disbelief that readers experiment, imitates and nurtures the general feeling of
postmodernism.
Ono presents himself as a self-conscious narrator who shows us his mind just as
it works and who persistently admits that his recounting may be faulty. When Ono
betrays his own intentions of objectivity, an ironic effect is created in discovering that he
is not as self-conscious as he claimed to be. The reader perceives the irony and is at first
confused, but then amused at the narrator’s struggle. In Booth (1983, 159) terms, a
distance is established “between the fallible or unreliable narrator and the implied author
who carries the reader with him in judging the narrator.”
4. Bibliography

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Finney, Brian (2006) “Ian Mc Ewan, Atonement (2001)”, Contemporary British Fiction.
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Hutcheon, Linda (1995) “Representing the Postmodern”, The Politics of

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Ishiguro, K. (1986) An Artist of The Floating World. Available from:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kCaJmcbMXFvLN9IlzzeZMTVPuwgjXDQ2/view?usp
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Ishiguro, K. (1989) Kazuo Ishiguro by Graham Swift [interview] BOMB Magazine.

Interviewed by Graham Swift, BOMB Magazine, 1 October. Available from:
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Kartunnen, Laura (2016) A Sad Monologist: Unreliable Reporting of Dialogue in

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McCrumb, Robert (2015) The 100 best novels: No 94 – An Artist of the Floating World
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Sanders, Andrew (1994) “Post-War and Post-Modern Literature”, The Short Oxford
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