An Artist of the Floating World cover art

An Artist of the Floating World

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An Artist of the Floating World

By: Kazuo Ishiguro
Narrated by: David Case
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About this listen

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

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I read this some years ago and didn't take to it. I think it was the first Ishiguro book I read, and I didn't appreciate the subtlety in the language. I think I found it quite boring. Returning, I realise I was wrong, Ishiguro has a way of drawing out thought on his subject and not telling you what to think / feel about even the most emotive subjects.

For people new to this. Notice that he never uses description about emotion.

The narration is utterly terrible. A nasal robotic voice that has difficulty with pronunciation and keeps putting emphasis in sentences in entirely the wrong place, which is really confusing.

Great story. Awful performance.

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I can appreciate why the narrator wanted to maintain a smug and arrogant tone, but 6 and a half hours of it is a little hard to endure.

Great novel irritating narration

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Ishiguro does it again... might be my second favourite of his. The flow of the inner monologue was great.

A surprising delight

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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

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I don't think we were supposed to like the narrator. This wasn't helped dy David Case's narration.

Struggled with this

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But listening to the audio brought this book to life. David Case is an excellent performer and I truly felt like I was travelling around Japan with Mr Ono, listening to his experiences.

I don’t think I could have read this

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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

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Don’t understand peoples problem with the narrator, it suited the style of the novel perfectly

Well suited narration to the text

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I usually prefer audio books, but am moving to the Kindle version alone, as the audiobook is spoilt by the distracting and dated style of narration.

Reflective story, spoiled by the narration

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Took me a while to get into the narrator’s style but after a while it became clear how entirely fitting it was. Wonderful writing. Brilliantly naive narrator allowing an elegant reflection on the human condition. A joy to listen to.

Brilliantly naive narrator

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