Confront your past. Embrace a new future...

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

     Life is like a twisted road with many different unexpected turns. When we make a certain turn we usually follow our heart, our beliefs and values and act in good faith. Only when we have gone far enough along the road, when we have gained some wisdom and experience we might turn around and see that that particular turn could have been a mistake. It felt right turning that direction at that time, you truly believed that that turn was the best decision at that point. It was like a white rose that looked beautiful and had a splendid odor, but left a torn in your thumb that now is beginning to hurt. It is in your best interest to acknowledge that growing pain and get rid of the thorn. The sooner you do it, the faster your thumb will heal…

     Ono, the main character of Ishiguro’s novel “An Artist of the Floating World”, was too once seduced by that white rose and enjoyed its beauty and aroma. In his case the white rose was the pre-war Japan with imperial power and military ambitions that promised the prosperity of his nation and its people. It promised the end of poverty, unemployment and the beginning of a new successful life. Ono recognized that the “floating world” he used to portray in his paintings was quite different from the real world and finally realized that his country needed a change. Ono supported Japan’s aspiration to go to war because he truly believed that it would help to improve the situation in the country. He felt that it was his responsibility to do something honorable for his nation and thought that his new art style would be the remedy for Japan. He had the best intentions when he painted his “Eyes to the Horizon” depicting three “stern-faced soldiers” and the “military flag of the rising sun” as he sincerely had faith that “Japan must go forward” and do whatever it takes to help the nation (169).

     The smell of that beautiful white rose was very encouraging and assured hope. Ono didn’t really feel the pain of its thorns at first, but then Japan lost the war, millions of young people died including his own son Kenji, his younger daughter’s marriage negotiations fell through and the pain of the thorn started to grow. Ono at first didn’t want to acknowledge the pain, but the circumstances of life made the aching stronger and stronger. Ono realizes that he must have done something wrong in the past that caused his daughter her marriage. After the conversation with his son-in-law Suichi who said : “Brave young men die for stupid causes, and the real culprits are still with us. Afraid to show themselves for what they are, to admit their responsibility”, Ono finally becomes aware of the fact that he was one of those people who supported the war and who might have caused all these numerous innocent deaths (58). He had his best intentions in the past, but now he starts to face the reality and realizes that the beautiful rose had thorns that sting.

     It is difficult to admit that you were wrong even though you truly believed that you made a good choice at that time. It is difficult to confess that what you believed in the past was hope, now was just a bad mistake. But Ono has the courage to acknowledge that he made a mistake and by doing that he finally lets his thumb heal and opens up his heart for a renewed hope, and a new future. At the marriage negotiations Ono for the first time openly admits that his past choice was wrong. The marriage negotiations in a way symbolize a new future for his daughter and his family and Ono finally understands that he can’t face the future until he accepts his past and takes responsibility for his mistakes. That is why during the dinner he very frankly says: “As far as I am concerned, I freely admit I made many mistakes. I accept that much of what I did was ultimately harmful to our nation, that mine was part of an influence that resulted in untold suffering for our own people” (123). It takes a lot of courage to say that; by confronting his past choices Ono finally is open for a new future.

     In the final scene of the book we lastly see that Ono’s wound is healed and though he still remembers the nice odor of the rose, he is ready for a change. He is ready to embrace the future. When Ono sees all the changes made to his old favorite pleasure district which now has transformed into a business center with “glass-fronted office buildings” he feels “a certain nostalgia for the past” (205-206). He likes to sit on a little bench which he believes occupies a “spot very close” to where his old table in the old pleasure district would have been situated, which surely represents his connection to the past (206). But Ono feels happiness when he is watching all the cheerful and content young office workers from his bench. Even though he is still “sitting on his past” and carrying the baggage of his past experience and mistakes, he is willing to accept the future. He is genuinely happy when he sees that his nation “whatever mistakes it may have made in the past, has now another chance to make a better go of things” (206). He still has a recollection of the pain from the thorn, he still has a little scar on his thumb, but he managed to get rid of it and is now waiting for the new spring…