The Price of Wisdom

“You’ll understand when you’re a parent someday.” You may hate me for this now but when you’re an adult you’ll be thanking me for it later.” These quotes and phrases haunted me my entire childhood, and even today I still get bombarded and pestered with words like these from my parents.   “I couldn’t’ believe how dumb my father was when I was 15, and when I was 21 I couldn’t believe how much he’d learned in six years.” This is one of my father’s favorite Mark Twain quotes, which pokes fun at arrogant know-it- all teenagers, who think they are wiser than their decrepit old parents.   Now with 21 years under my own belt, it is easier for me to see the wisdom of parents, (though no easier to admit it), but I also see a streak of something else. They are not only becoming wiser they are also becoming a bit well, senile.  Their perspectives are narrowing, memory is fleeting, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for my parents to relate to and recognize what the world has become. They often struggle to keep up.  Masuji Ono has is plagued by a similar paradox.

 In the novel An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro, Masuji Ono the narrator is caught between various worlds. His age has brought wisdom and prestige, but has also distanced him from his family and the world that they are currently living in. He is highly influenced by his past, his prime years in which he loves to reminisce, which makes him naive to the changes in the world since the war.

Masuji Ono is caught in a paradox of wisdom, and senility. With age he has gained a wisdom and expertise that has awarded him respect and prestige amongst his community. He was believed to have such good character, that he obtained a prestigious house built by Akira Sugimura, one of the city’s most influential and respected men (7-9). He was awarded the house in essentially, in “an auction of prestige” (9).  Yet his increased age, combined with his steadfast point of view, and worn, reminiscing attitude has made relating to his family and living in the present difficult. His youngest daughter describes his worn mellow manner and claims that he is prone to “mope” (13). In his narrative he discusses his dismay at the bitterness that seems to infect the post war youth. While waiting at the tram stop Ono bumps into Miyake, a young man who was arranged to wed Ono’s youngest daughter.  Ono is surprised at the bitterness and distaste for the elder generation that the typically quite and good natured young man displays while discussing the suicide of his boss. “Sometimes I think there are many who should be giving their lives in apology, who are to cowardly to face up to their responsibilities (56).” Ono is also often agitated by his son in laws bitter begrudging attitude toward the elder generation and life in general. Ono’s age has also made him naïve to the changing post war society. Not only is there a distaste for elders, and the war, there is an uprising in western society fascination. This is displayed to Ono through his grandson, who loves cowboys, and is an ill mannered undisciplined child, not at all like the Japanese children of his, or his children’s day. Ono is wise yet senile and still reminiscing in the past.

Ono is still so caught up in his past he is practically oblivious to the changing society around him. He loves to hang out at Migi-Hidari, one of the only unchanged bars in the pleasure district. He reminisces with old students and Mrs. Kawakami the owner of the bar. He often drifts off thinking of his childhood (50). Between the reminiscing with old students, the day dreams and recollections of the past, Ono has sheltered himself from the changing society of amongst which he is living. A society devastated and bitter from the war, and a society with a growing fascination and lean toward western society.