Remember?

    “Hurry up, Hil. I’m hungry!” my little sister cried to me as I carefully picked my way down the steep ridge to the meadow, hands overflowing with a huge picnic blanket and various snack foods I’d made off with from the kitchen.  We had spent the past few weekends scouring the woods for fallen trunks and branches that we had used this very morning to finally piece together our masterpiece tree fort.  Well, rather than a fort, it was more of a lean-to between a large rock and the giant boulder that we spent our afternoons pretend-adventuring on, but it was beautiful.  It was worth our sacrificed Saturday morning cartoons and our battle scars: all the cuts, bruises, splinters and skinned-knees caused by its coming into being.  I couldn’t help but think proudly of these things as I saw it standing there tall, finished, and waiting for me. 

    Nearing the bottom of the ridge, Ky rushed to meet me, grabbing the snacks and dumping them next to the fort.  “Slowpoke!” she giggled playfully.  We unfolded the blanket together and spread it on the ground, beaming at each other, so proud of what we had accomplished.  It was a beautiful, and somewhat rare, moment of shared happiness and complete understanding between sisters that often spent their days throwing insults at each other.  Tearing through the snacks with grimy, unwashed hands, we discussed further plans for “the rock” and our new secret hideaway.  A campfire: we could cook our own meals.  A bridge across the creek: we wouldn’t have to jump it anymore.   Raspberry picking in the spring (or was it summer?), safaris in the tall grass…the plans were endless and all equally exciting.  Now that we had our fort, we could do anything.

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    “I remember it as if it was yesterday…”  How many times have you heard these words (or any variation of them)?  I have surely uttered or thought them to myself countless times.  The experience of nostalgia is something that I believe all human beings share.  One cannot help but look back on the past in a shining, positive light.  It is in this way that Masuji Ono examines his own questionable past in Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World.

    Ono’s narrative is a constant recalling of past memories.  Though he many times insists he is a modest man, he also often remembers the “exaggerated respect” (8) given to him by his students, acquaintances, and even friends.  Indeed, this nostalgic past is one where he was an accomplished artist, respected by many for the great work he put into the pre-war and wartime patriotic movement.  Since the paradigm shift brought on by the end of the war, however, Ono has lost the prestige and peer recognition he once enjoyed.  Instead of facing up to that reality, Masuji Ono spends his days blissfully losing himself in his past.  His daughter Noriko regularly accuses him of “moping around, as usual” (105), which seems to be her interpretation of his constant reminiscing.  Though he himself seems to be unaware of it, the younger generation around Ono worries that he is unable to move on from his nostalgic interpretation of the past.

    Indeed, engaging in nostalgic recollections is a happy and quite normal part of human life, but one must not lose him or herself in the past for danger of losing their grip on the present.