In the last lines of Ono’s narration, “June 1950” Ono’s struggle to find some dignity in his life is backed by Matsuda’s comforting remarks, yet the critical reader ponders over the sincerity of Ono’s words. His last lines are conciliatory, but I venture that by exaggerating his own triumph, Ono juxtaposes it with the likes of Shintaro and Tortoise, who, according to him, never experienced such success: “For their kind do not know what it is to risk everything in the endeavour to rise above the mediocre” (AFW 204). While reiterating his core of self-conceit: “For however one may come in later years to reassess one’s achievements, it is always a consolation to know that one’s life has contained a moment or two of real satisfaction such as I experienced that day up on that high mountain path”
(AFW 204), I find Ono’s use of the general pronoun “one” intriguing as he, as opposed to Stevens’, hardly uses it. By replacing “we” with “one,” in my interpretation, the narrator enlarges and expands his statement in a weak effort to make it universal, i.e., more acceptable and convincing.
Recalling his last visit to Matsuda, the narrator again passes through the “Bridge of Hesitation.” The two old men exchange pleasantries and converse openly, Ono’s most straightforward dialogues are with Matsuda. Therefore, I propose the idea that Matsuda is Ono’s double too, the soft and weak Tortoise was one, the strong, influential Matsuda the other. The condensation of the two is indicated in the text by the narrator’s agreement with Matsuda’s sharp remark claiming that Ono “wanted so badly to make a grand contribution”
(AFW 199) to life and admits that unfortunately he had “a narrow artist’s perspective”
(AFW 199). Matsuda thinks now that they should not blame themselves though, he phrases 103
the key sentence about Ono’s so greatly feared mediocrity: “We at least acted on what we believed and did our utmost. It’s just that in the end we turned out to be ordinary men.
Ordinary men with no special gifts of insight, it was simply our misfortune to have been ordinary men during such times” (AFW 200).
Ono does not respond to these key lines, but the smell in the air instantly reminds him of burning. Here I refer to young Ono’s paintings being burned by his father and later Kuroda’s paintings being burned by the police. Moreover, he refers to his deceased wife, Michiko and the bombing in which she was killed, information gaps that were thus far not revealed. While Matsuda mercilessly portrays themselves as people with “marginal” (AFW 201) contributions, Ono observes that in spite of Matsuda’s imponderable present, the old friend is not disillusioned (AFW 202). Nonetheless, the narrator, in my view, is not ready to share Matsuda’s clear and undeceiving point. For the rest of the narration Ono will argue, as Stevens does at the beginning and in the middle of The Remains of the Day (but not at the end), that he has had satisfactory and triumphant moments in his life that contributed to great things. Exaggerating his own triumph, he juxtaposes it with the like of Shintaro and Tortoise, who, according to the narrator, never experienced such success:
“For their kind do not know what it is to risk everything in the endeavour to rise above the mediocre” (AFW 204) while reiterating his core of self-conceit: “For however one may come in later years to reassess one’s achievements, it is always a consolation to know that one’s life has contained a moment or two of real satisfaction such as I experienced that day up on that high mountain path” (AFW 204). Once more crossing the “Bridge of Hesitation,” the narrator amuses himself with the scenery that has so hastily changed in the pleasure district and the Migi-Hidari to a wide “concrete road with heavy trucks” (AFW 204). He also glimpses the young, optimistic employees “on the doorsteps of that glass-fronted building, laughing together in the sunshine. With no trace of his work of art left to be proud of, with certain nostalgia Ono, the artist says good-bye to the aesthetics of beauty with water lanterns and murmurs of people. While he is facing the empty days in the large house of Akira Sigismura, a house he was once so proud of, he is sitting down on a bench, just like Stevens will do at the end of The Remains of the Day, observing the activities around him, he provokes his last self-deceiving optimism on a splendid future:
[…] all those people gathered beneath the lamps, laughing a little more boisterously perhaps than those young men yesterday, but with much the same good heartedness, I feel a certain nostalgia for the past and the district as it used to be.
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But to see how our city has been rebuilt, how things have recovered so rapidly over these years, fills me with genuine gladness. Our nation, it seems, whatever mistakes it may have made in the past, has now another chance to make a better go of things.
One can only wish these young people well (AFW 206).
His pathos, as Chu-cheh Cheng points out, is “deflated, for neither his own family nor the Saito family ever consider him an artist of notable influence, much less one capable of advocating militarism.”237 In talking about failed attempts, “silences” and “gaps” help the narrator to disguise this humiliating fact. As a contrast to silence, Noriko’s verbal attacks on her father are blunted by Setsuko who often volunteers to break silences (AFW 85). The diplomatic approach Setsuko represents as opposed to Noriko’s straightforward attacks is often highlighted, e.g. when she suggests the idea that Ono should visit Kuroda and
“certain acquaintances from the past” (AFW 85) soon, much sooner than the marriage negotiation detectives. Ono pretends not to understand and decides to silence the topic.
Yet, interpreting their heated dialogue on pages 189–194, the critical reader would be amused if these lines have ever been said. Plot-wise this is the only gap I have found to be unrevealed; if we accept Setsuko’s words that she has never warned her father to take
“precautionary steps” (AFW 191) to prevent “unnecessary misunderstandings” (AFW 85) in order to make Noriko an appropriate bride in the eyes of the Saito’s. I am not convinced about Ono’s involvement in Kuroda’s betrayal. The only evidence in the text that Ono and Kuroda have exchanged letters is known from the narrator. The self-narrated dialogues between Enchi and Ono is also only reported from the narrator’s perspective. Deduced from the above argument, I am unable to concur with Wai-chew Sim that “the lack of clarity about who said what, as well as Ono’s manner of being simultaneously blameworthy (but less so), might be said to reference these about-faces and disavowals.”238
237 Chu-chueh Cheng, Chic Clichés: The Reinvention of Myths and Stereotypes in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Novels.
1–39. http://www.brunel.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/185864/ET53ChengEd2.pdf. (accessed 30 October 2014)
238 Wai-chew Sim, Kazuo Ishiguro (New York, Routledge, 2010), 43.
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6.5 Conclusion
Discrepancies mark the narrative of Ono. The characters have different understandings of reality and Ono finds it difficult to change perspectives, even though he is a painter. It is ironic how Ono first fears prosecution at the miai, afraid of ruining his daughter’s marriage prospects again. The Miyakes, as we will get to know from their conversation, were not involved in the military agenda of pre-war Japan, while Ono was. In the narrative present and after the surrender of Japan, Ono and the likes of him are stigmatized and Noriko has to suffer from his father’s past. Miyake and Ono have a dynamic dialogue about an acquaintance who took on the responsibility to commit suicide, a hint Miyake makes that Ono should also take the similar action for his involvement in the war. While Ono does not feel he has to apologize, although Miyake, Noriko’s suitor, on moral grounds, accuses Ono for being a coward: “Indeed, sir, it is a pity. Sometimes I think there are many who should be giving their lives in apology, who are too coward to face up to their responsibilities”
(AFW 56). Ono cleverly retorts saying, exactly what Stevens was trying to explain in his Smith-scene (RD 205–206) in The Remains of the Day, that those who were fighting loyally for Imperial Japan could not be regarded as war criminals (AFW 56). From the start of the novel the reader assumes from Ono’s words that the painter was an iconic artist. By the end of the narration a shrivelled and perplexed narrator concludes his self-assuring lines on peaceful and honourable days to come. Small heroes have small fates.
If we concern ourselves with the characteristics of the narrator, we can assume that what Ono, as well as the main protagonist and narrator of The Remains of the Day, Stevens, cannot face is the fact of being only mediocre. Probably it is not farfetched to say that all his life Ono wanted to rise above average. But he is not more than average and it is a trap for him. Therefore via the narration Ono paints a favourable self-portrait, a private and public myth constructed via a matrix of digressions.
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