Why Not Now?

Why Not Now?

            I sometimes find myself recapturing feelings from times past.  Whether from an experience 20 years ago or 20 minutes ago, the nostalgic story I tell myself in remembering that particular moment in time brings a feeling of happiness.  This yearning is in fact an integral part of shaping who I or anyone else is today.  The question is however, to what extent is nostalgia a positive driving force.

            Masuji Ono, the main character in the novel An Artist of the Floating World, is a man whose identity is lost in nostalgia.  Throughout the first half of the book Ono portrays himself as a “holier than thou” figure that could, and would never do wrong.  In the many evenings recounting the past to Mrs. Kawakami, Ono’s stories are shaped to fit his own purpose.  In reminiscing about a conversation with “The Tortoise”, Ono at one point proclaims, “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”.  In so stating, Ono inadvertently admits his greatest fault. 

            Balanced with the “pure” and “honest” nature of Ono is the undeniable fact that the past is holding some less than noble secrets.  This fact is most obviously portrayed in Ono’s interaction with his daughters.  Ono describes his happy, nostalgic internal thoughts, while the dialogue of his daughters clearly describes a miserable exterior.  On page 114 and 115 of the book, an exchange between Ono and his daughter Noriko affirms the immense separation between his internal self image and that as seen by those around him.  In attempting to lighten Noriko’s mood while preparing for the miai, Ono makes a joke about Noriko’s time spent preparing her appearance.  It is obvious that Noriko receives the joke as just another one of her father’s pompous criticisms.  The nostalgic world that Ono has been living in has, at the present, turned him into everything he would consider shameful. 

            Then, during the meeting with Noriko’s potential husband’s family, Ono finally speaks the truth out loud.  Finally he leaves nostalgia for the past, and enters the present.