Age of Aquarius?

Next time you are listening to the radio or that cd that your friend burned for you, you might notice that most songs you hear are full of nostalgia. Remembering that lost love or those wonderful days gone by, maybe even that bright, shiny future to come. When I was a little girl back in my own nostalgic days of the 70s, a song that played on the radio over and over talked about how we were all heading into a wonderful, peaceful and loving time called the "Age of Aquarius". We were all pretty confident about the future then. The Vietnam war was over and we had decided as a nation that we would never go "there" again. Technology was on the verge of a huge jump, and many thought that by the year 2000 there would be no more pollution, litter, extinct species; we even thought it possible that cars would be flying around above our heads and robots would be doing all the dirty work. Somehow though, when I look back on those days of my childhood, they do seem much more shiny and happy than these do. The banana seat on my bicycle, 10 cent popsicles and swimming at the pool all day every summer. First love and first kisses, 8th grade graduation and real rock and roll (not like that stuff today); it was all a simpler and more innocent time. Nostalgia is a funny thing. Memories of the past always seem to be happier and more positive than they really were.

In Kazuo Ishiguro's "An Artist of the Floating World" the protagonist is Ono, a man who seems to almost live on nostalgia. In a way, you can't blame him. His present world is one of a country shattered by war, and loved ones who are dead and gone. Any past world would probably seem better than the one he is presently living in. His memories of the past seem to sustain him at times, even if those memories are just a bit prejudiced. But as the story goes on, his nostalgia for the past seems to collide with his present until little by little his memories begin to seem not so shiny.

At first, Ono's nostalgia seems to enable him to paint a picture of himself as a respected and admired man who has even acquired a small amount (according to him) of political power in his country. Whenever he recites episodes from his memories, they are full of conversations where everyone is very conciliatory and admiring of him, and he is always humble and unwilling to accept accolades. Whether it is his co-workers or his students, he is surrounded by people who either thank him for his help in securing them a job, or compliment him on his wonderful skill as an artist. His memories are warm and envelop him in a kind of hazy glow of nostalgic pride. Ono's need to ensure that the reader knows how humble he is, at times rings hollow. It almost seems as though he "protest-eth too much". After a few such episodes in the story, the reader starts to wonder if these memories are true representations of the past, or just Ono trying to make himself feel and look better.

Later in the story, Ono begins to come up against something that we all eventually do; the contrast between our own memories and that of others. His daughters do not seem to understand what he is talking about when he sometimes shares his memories of what happened in the past. They are puzzled, and at times even treat him as if he were an old man who is losing his mind. Ono tries to put on a good face, but the reader can tell that he is uncomfortable about this inequality. At times it is hard to tell whether Ono's version of the past is true, or his daughters'. Little by little, it becomes difficult to keep up his nostalgic version. There is a real feeling that Ono is hiding things that he cannot or will not face. Reality will not allow his nostalgia to survive.

By the end of "An Artist of the Floating World", Ono is beginning the journey on the road to looking at his life and his past realistically. He can no longer count on nostalgia to cushion him from the real happenings of his past. He has decided to no longer hide his decisions and his actions from himself or from others. His memores begin to include episodes that do not paint him in such a positive light. He begins to recount his mistakes and even admits to hurting people that he cared about. His struggle to justify his past to others and to himself cannot survive being encased in the nostalgia of a past that existed only in his own mind. Eventually he comes to terms with the man he really is and owns his own past. He seems to find a kind of peace with it all, and by letting go of his nostalgic view, can even find hope for the future.

Nostalgia can be a comfortable and warm thing. But it can also be a dangerous place to try to live, when your memories are not true ones. Thirty or forty years from now, many of us will look back on the times we are living in today, and nostalgia will take over. We can't help it. Human beings are (as far as we know) the only animals that can be carried away by nostalgia. But is nostalgia really just a way of lying to ourselves so that we can ignore the fact that things don't really ever change? Is it a kind of security blanket that makes today's hard times easier to bear? It is obviously a question that continues to be worked out in many songwriters' lyrics, and in everyone's photo albums. Perhaps nostalgia is something we cannot live without. But life without it would be a cold place.