'An Artist Of The Floating World'

Kaz Ishiguro's second novel is set after World War II in Japan when Ono begins to reflect on his life as an aging father and grandfather.

There's a series of mixed feelings on how he lived his life although it was always his to live. During World War II, Ono broke away from his master and got into right-wing politics (does right-wing politics mean the same thing in every culture?) and did propaganda posters in addition to an informant.

Reading Reinaldo Arenas' memoir Before Night Falls and talks about all the writers and good friends that became traitors to freedom and informants for Fidel Castro's communist government in Cuba.

By my count, there's two reasons why you'd become an informant: You're looking to spare your life or the life of a loved one or you're an asshole, who generally hates freedom.

No matter what you may feel -- whether one side is right or the other is horribly wrong -- the idea of preventing one or the other to have an opinion is a rejection of freedom, a concept many people agree is a good thing.