Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

by Kazuo Ishiguro

Hardcover, 2009

Call number

FIC ISH

Collection

Publication

Knopf (2009), 240 pages

Description

One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character.

Media reviews

Novellen ”Schlagersångaren” är suverän, men även de andra är speciella och mycket läsvärda. Samtliga har temat musik och uppbrott eller slut. En sorgesång över något som människan fabricerat åt helsicke. Musik ur ”Gudfadern” är kongenialt ledmotiv i boken.
2 more
Unfortunately for the reader, these stories do not share the exquisite narrative command, the carefully modulated irony or the elliptical subtlety of Mr. Ishiguro’s strongest works like “Remains of the Day” and “Never Let Me Go.” Instead they read like heavy-handed O. Henry-esque
Show More
exercises; they are psychologically obtuse, clumsily plotted and implausibly contrived.
Show Less
Ishiguro's battery of talents are applied in Nocturnes to one goal—the scrubbing away of false romance, of clichéd resolutions, in life and in his writing. The result is a pitch-perfect riff on the sheer quirkiness of reality.

User reviews

LibraryThing member tapestry100
OK, I'm going to just come right out and say this: I did NOT like this book. I read Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day too many years ago to use that as a comparison, but I did read Never Let Me Go a couple of years back and that was one of my top books of 2008. Never Let Me Go stayed with me for
Show More
weeks after I finished, the nuances and implications of the story were so powerful.

Quite frankly, the only reason that I finished Nocturnes was because I was so shocked that something so bad could come from the same person that wrote something as mesmerizing as Never Let Me Go. I didn't feel the stories were of Music and Nightfall, but more of Music and Nonsensical, Absurd, Totally Unrealistic Behaviors and Relationships. The connections between the stories was feeble at best, and the actions of some of the characters in the stories seemed so farcical that I wasn't sure if Ishiguro was trying to make the stories into parodies or if he seriously believes that people act the way they do in his stories - for instance, in one story, the main character, on the suggestion of his friend who he is staying with, trashes the living room of the house he is visiting and gets down on his hands and knees to start eating a magazine to make it look like a dog had been in the house, simply to hide the fact that the main character had wrinkled the page in his friend's wife's datebook - who does this?

It wasn't until the last story, Cellists, that I felt that he hit any kind of stride in his story telling, without having to rely on such extreme caricatures of human behavior to move his story along. The interactions between the main characters seemed genuine in this one story, not forced, and therefore became the only redeeming value to this book for me.

In my estimation, reader beware. Just because Ishiguro can write some amazing novels, it appears that he has a little work to do until he can polish up a proper short story.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Helenliz
This was 5 separate short stories, two of which have a common character. They were each narrated by a different person and involve music and some form of shift or change in someone's life. Not necessarily the narrator's life, it could be that they were involved in a point of change in someone
Show More
else's life. The first was quite sad, about an aging crooner and his wife who had decided to split (we'll he'd decided they;d split) for the sake of his career, this was narrated by a young musician who's mother had listened to the crooner's records in his younger days.
The second was a trifle silly, with a pair of university friends who had married and were now having trouble in their relationship inviting a third (the narrator) to stay. involving a diary and a recipe for wet dog, this was not terribly convincing.
The third involves a young man trying to make his way as a songwriter and guitarist. He's staying (rent free) with his sister and not pulling his weight, when he meets a Swiss couple. The initial meeting doesn't go well and he ends up recommending a really awful hotel to them. They meet again later and discover a shared interest in music. The couple have quite different outlooks on life and are clearly having some difficulties in their relationship and that with their son. Lots to reflect on in this one.
The forth was a bit on the odd side again. A jazz saxophinist has plastic surgery at the expense of his wife's new bloke, and finds himself in an hotel room next to Lindy Gardner, who's on her third face operation. There's little to do when you're swathed in bandages like a mummy (does that really happen?) and Lindy has taken to wondering the halls of the hotel at night. It gets a little more bizarre when the awards for Jazz musician of the year are due to be held in the hotel and the trophy goes missing... Almost farcical at times, I remain unsure what to make of this one.
The last one involves a cellist who meets a woman who professes to know what he needs to make him really great and so she tutors him - but ithout once playing the cello herself. turns out she's convinced she's a virtuoso cellist, but hasn't played since she was 11 - determined not to harm the gift she was born with. I was left with a sense of the fraudulent and the hope that she hadn't ruined the young man - but the chatter of the other musicians didn't bode well on that score.
I think the best I can do on this selection is that it was OK. None of them were standout good, all of them had some unrealistic elements, some were entirely unrealistic. Not sure the short story format suits him, the other novels of his I've read were far more finely crafted.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Stromata
I have loved reading Ishiguro's work, especially 'Never let me go, which to this day haunts me, ' and I am very partial to the short story form, so was excited to see the publication. However, although all five stories were enjoyable to read - I struggle rather to recall them only a few days later.
Show More
Perhaps the fault lies with me - I will endeavour to re-read this volume again at some other time.
Show Less
LibraryThing member carolcarter
Ishiguro's latest is a series of five stories, written consecutively, about music and nightfall. While I wouldn't say this is his best it certainly fulfills any expectations I had of a master storyteller and he even adds something new to this collection - humor of a kind not seen from him
Show More
before.

Each tale revolves around a musician or music lover with one character from the first story reappearing in the title one. As always with Ishiguro there is an underlying feeling of bittersweetness, in this case mostly to do with the aging process and/or the erosion of talent, ambition, or purity over time. What sets some of these stories apart from the rest of his work is the comedy he introduces in at least two stories. Normally Ishiguro's humor is far subtler and sardonic. He has at least two scenes in this book which required the kind of set up P. G. Wodehouse is known for and the action sequences would make Dave Barry proud.

" 'It's all right. It's all right. It's a man.' There was a pause, then he said: 'I thought for a moment it was something else. But it's a man. With a bandaged head, wearing a night-gown. That's all it is, I see it now. It's just that he's got a chicken or something on the end of his arm.' "

In order to appreciate that you have to read the entire story but suffice to say I was laughing my head off at this point. And yet with a skilled hand Ishiguro also makes this story as poignant as the best he has written.

The last story is also quite funny but more in keeping with Ishiguro's usual style of humor and follows up on a theme he used in The Unconsoled. I read these stories in one night (nocturnes - duh). This is a lovely book with the unexpected fillip of the new humor.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Greatrakes
Five short stories dealing with music and nightfall. They are all told in the first person and use the unreliable narrator device. The narrators are more self deluded than dishonest in these stories of unfulfilled
potential and the march of time.

Crooner – a jobbing musician helps an old famous
Show More
crooner woo his wife in a Venice hotel, but it turns out this is their last holiday together as he is divorcing her to hook up with a younger model as part of a cynical attempt to re-launch his career.

Cellists – A cellist finds a mentor who is slowly revealed to have a ‘talent so great’ that she refused to learn the cello herself, as no one was worthy to teach her.

Come Rain or Come Shine – A middle aged failure is invited to visit a couple, his oldest friends, their marriage is falling apart and they communicate through him in the strangest way, by constantly belittling him to his face. The story descends into farce when he imitates a rampaging dog (to destroy a room) as a way of disguising something he has done.

Nocturnes – A jazz musician sees his less talented peers achieving success, his agent persuades him to have plastic surgery to make himself more marketable. Whilst bandaged in the hospital he pairs up with an older bandaged woman (the ex-wife from the Crooner story) and they listen to music and roam the clinic at night.

Malvern Hills – A rock musician, disappointed by lack of success, stays with his sister and brother–in-law in a guest house to re-discover his muse. He is supposed to help out in lieu of rent, but does as little as possible. He meets two Swedish tourists who are also musicians and have their own issues.

Ishiguro tells you about his characters through what they aren’t aware of, self-delusion is everywhere, I enjoyed the stories very much, I think Malvern Hills was my favourite for its portrayal of a man utterly unable to see himself as the rest of the world must see him.
Show Less
LibraryThing member kidzdoc
A nocturne, according to Wikipedia, can be defined as a musical composition that evokes the night. However, "{n}octurnes are generally thought of as being tranquil, often expressive and lyrical, and sometimes rather gloomy, but in practice pieces with the name nocturne have conveyed a variety of
Show More
moods." And so it is with this collection of interlinked short stories, all with a connection to music, quiet yet evocative, melancholy for the most part with interspersed brief touches of pathos, humor and searing anger and bitterness.

Although music does appear in each story, the major theme of these stories is the relationship between two people, and how the pursuit of one's career and passions, the expectations we have for those we love, and how we view ourselves in relation to the loved one can often undermine and even destroy the relationship.

In all of the stories there is an outsider who views and comments dispassionately on a troubled relationship. The stories are separate, yet closely connected. One character from the first story, "Crooner", will reappear later in "Cellists", and the location of the first and last stories are identical. The moods differ within and between stories, but Ishiguro's unique ability to gently convey a story is always present.

Like a well written piece of music, I believe that the reader of these stories will gain greater appreciation of the characters and what Ishiguro is trying to tell us with repeated "listening". This is a beautiful collection, and is very highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Cariola
I've never read anything by Ishiguro, so all the gushing on LT was making me feel a bit guilty. I thought I'd start with this collection of short stories--which may have been a mistake. It's what I'd call a "concept" collection, and the concept really didn't engage me. Each of the five stories
Show More
centers on a musician: a young emigré cellist from a former Soviet bloc country, a once-great crooner, an itinerant guitar player, musicians whose dreams of glory have faded into part-time gigs in Venetian cafés. On the whole, I just didn't care about them, their often extreme efforts to get ahead, and their somewhat seedy, down-and-out lives. The writing was OK, but not as glorious as I had come to expect. I am underwhelmed. But I'll give Ishiguro another chance down the road.
Show Less
LibraryThing member gward101
If I had to choose one thing I admire about Kazuo Ishiguro (and there are many more than one) it would be how drawn in I am by his characters. At times as I read perhaps Ishiguro's besk-known book Never Let Me Go, I was convinced that narrator Kathy was a real person. No mean feat by the author
Show More
given that the plot of the novel stretched the limits of credulity. In fact if someone had told me that what I'd actually been reading was Kathy's diary, I think I would only have been half surprised. To do that in a novel of course is one thing, but to do it in a collection of short stories?
Somehow, a page or two of Nocturnes is enough to convince that Ishiguro has done it again. No substitute for a novel perhaps, but this collection of five stories themed around music and nightfall are fantastic nevertheless. Tony Gardner is a wholly believable ageing crooner, Lindy his wife the ultimate opportunist, and cellist Tibor is every inch the aspiring but penniless musician. Lovely stuff.
Show Less
LibraryThing member sweetiegherkin
This series of short stories by Kazuo Ishiguro are (it almost goes without saying) beautifully written and give the author a chance to showcase his talents in an array of forms (i.e., he is humorous in some of these stories unlike in his other fiction that I have read). His characters are all
Show More
delightfully unique and intriguing, and his stories have much more going on beneath the surface so that the reader is left chewing them over long after the book is finished. The first story ("Crooner"), told in the first-person by a "gypsy" musician in Italy, is a bittersweet and touching tale about a 27-year marriage on the brink of ending. The second story, "Come Rain or Come Shine," is a humorous account, almost to the point of being slapstick, about a man drawn into helping his friends' marriage problems by highlighting what a catch the husband is in comparison to himself. The third tale, "Malvern Hills," is a short and sweet story of a young guitarist who spends the summer working at his sister's café where he meets a pair of Swiss tourists who are also musicians. In the fourth story ("Nocturne"), we meet up again with the newly divorced Lindy Gardner (who was introduced in the first tale) as she forms a peculiar bond with an up-and-coming saxophonist while they are both recuperating from plastic surgery. In the fifth and final story ("Cellists"), our narrator from the first story returns to talk about the unusual relationship between a young cellist and his virtuoso mentor. In my opinion, this story was the weakest one as the narration coming from someone who wasn't there for the majority of the action makes for a very disjunctive narrative. Overall, however, I rather enjoyed this collection of short stories weaved together by all having music as a core feature and would highly recommend this book.
Show Less
LibraryThing member YaacovLozowick
It's not his magnificent The Remains of the Day, one of the better books I've read, but it is a very good book. Five short stories, very lightly interwoven, about itinerant musicians (and one itinerant English teacher) and their world.

I liked the way Ishiguro used American English when his
Show More
narrators are American (or East European), but English English when they're Brits - but maybe that's banal when dealing with a master wordsmith. His depiction of the itinerant's world was new to me: folks who spend their career on the edge of the normative family-work-walking-the-dog-saving-for-retirement world, indeed, they live off that world and encounter it every day, without any apparent feeling of regret for not being in it. Artists who make a living from their art, without high-flying aspirations nor the despondency of not achieving them.

Not that they all live lives of serene contentment: if so, what would the author write about? Most face a flaw in their lives, or several of them; and the stories are not about how they get resolved, either. It being reality Ishiguro would like to comment on, none of the flaws actually go away. At best, they evolve, moving from one state to another. As Jane says in Mr. and Mrs. Smith - hardly a profound cultural creation, that - happy ending are merely stories that haven't ended yet. Ishiguro, however, can be profound, and this is a wistful book, beautifully written, that may well cause you to notice the band in a cafe alongside a piazza in a new way.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lauriebrown54
Ishiguro writes his novels with rare power and grace. In the short story form, this power is diluted but still definitely there. The stories in this collection are linked by music, by failing relationships and by failing careers. The tales all play in a minor key; even the comedic sections are
Show More
farce rather than sprightly wit.

A has-been singer engages a younger guitarist to serenade his wife, but not for the reasons the guitarist thinks. A man finds that his old college friends think of him- *need* to think of him- as a loser, with his taste in music his only redeeming quality. A singer/songwriter finds himself in the middle of the marital discord of a couple he’s only just met. A cellist is tutored by a self declared virtuoso cellist with a secret. A gifted jazz musician who has never gotten a break lets himself be convinced that a new face will solve his career problems. Simple ideas, but made into stories with depth and insight.
Show Less
LibraryThing member RachelWeaver
Who knew that Kazuo Ishiguro had screwball comedy in him? I mean, really? There are two stories in this book that are absolutely laugh-out-loud funny. Not at all what I expect from Ishiguro, who is usually all subtlety, with a solemn wit and sadness that creep up under your skin when you least
Show More
expect it. The first and last stories, "Crooner" and "Cellists" are the closest to Ishiguro in his most classic form, but I have to say I'm completely surprised by how effective "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "Nocturne" were at blending that creeping sadness with out-and-out zaniness. "Malvern Hills" was, in my opinion, the least effective of these five stories. This is definitely not my favorite Ishiguro, but I do admire him for reaching outside of his usual comfort zone, and I think he mostly succeeds at this.
Show Less
LibraryThing member stephaniechase
Disappointing. This came highly recommended by one of my favorite library volunteers, but, aside from the first story in the collection, I found the rest dull and uninspiring, populated by characters I did not care a whit about.
LibraryThing member dsc73277
Looking at the reviews and ratings so far, opinion seems very much divided on this one. I'm not a great fan of short stories but I was interested to discover if a novelist whose work I have largely enjoyed could perhaps win me over to the form. I'm afraid to say he didn't. For me, these stories and
Show More
the characters within them, were as grey and unappealing as were the skies on two days during which I was reading this book. Don't write it off, though, without considering some of the more positive reviews below.
Show Less
LibraryThing member JackieBlem
This book was a great introduction to an author I have previously avoided (blame the cure-for-insomnia movie that was made from his 'The Remains Of The Day'). I'm especially pleased with his character development given the fact that these are short stories--really short, since there is 5 of them in
Show More
this slim volume. But each story gave me both a character that I could identify with and a character that I had to puzzle over. The themed stories (music and nightfall) and the interwoven characters added a nice touch as well. They read quickly but give you plenty to think about. In a nutshell--I'm impressed
Show Less
LibraryThing member mich_yms
As it says on the cover of the book, Nocturnes is a collection of five stories of music and nightfall. Just this description alone is enough to evoke a certain romanticism for me. The mood created here is almost like the balance of scales; there has to be just enough of everything to be perfect,
Show More
otherwise it falls out of balance, tips over, and loses the magic it could have had.

Ishiguro managed this balance like a pro.

There is a silent beauty to the way the stories were told. It’s the kind of feeling you get when you see this quietly elegant lady walk into the room, wearing that simple black dress, but grabbing the attention of everyone in the room without purposely intending to do so.

The common thread throughout the five stories were not only in terms of music and nightfall. There was also the same train of sadness, the slight tinge of regret, a soft touch of melancholy to be found in all of them, perhaps some more than others. But when we think of it, these emotions and feelings are also the ones that are the easiest to be evoked from music and nightfall.

There is a certain kind of loneliness that nightfall presents, and yet it is the kind of loneliness where one is almost comfortable with. And music brings out this magic so well.
Show Less
LibraryThing member AndrewBlackman
First of all, let me say that I'm a bit of an Ishiguro fan. I've read all but one of his novels, and love his understated writing style and knack of dealing with big themes while appearing to do no more than tell a story. So I was excited when I heard he had a new book out, and anticipated it more
Show More
than any other for quite a while.

So if my review contains a note of disappointment, it could be because my expectations were so high to begin with. After all, I did enjoy these stories. They were as well-written as everything else Ishiguro produces, and they dealt with themes of disappointment, desperation, lost love and the yearning for fame in a convincing and thought-provoking way.

Yet I was left with a feeling of slight disappointment. I enjoyed reading the book, certainly, but towards the end I had a slight feeling of "Is this it, then?"

It might be a simple question of size - five short stories is not very much for a £15 book, and it only runs to 220 pages thanks to wide margins and generous spacing. A long way from my last Ishiguro read, the mammoth Unconsoled.

But I think it's also more than that. I think that, for me at least, Ishiguro's style lends itself better to novels than to short stories. One of the things I love about his novels is the way they develop slowly, as the narrator digresses and gives you a lot of small details while withholding important information. In these stories, Ishiguro uses the same technique, but in a short story there's not as much time for plot and character development. So I think this accounts for the feeling I had. Things moved slowly, at novel pace, for most of the story, and then suddenly at the end there was an abrupt resolution, usually through a character giving the explanation.

Having said that, I liked the way that the stories all deal with music and nightfall in different ways. Several of them are about either wannabe musicians or older, washed-up musicians, and the yearning for fame and success. The final one, Cellists, was about the difficulty of using a musical gift - the different ways in which the gift can be wasted, either by playing in a dead-end hotel job instead of a top orchestra, or by not playing at all. I'm trying not to say too much because the plot in each story is so slight that just a quick summary can give away a crucial twist. I think that reading reviews beforehand spoiled the book a little for me, as a couple of the stories depend on late plot twists that were not surprises for me. Normally 'spoilers' don't really bother me, but in this case they did.

So, no more about the plot. I guess that, despite my slight disappointment, I would still recommend reading this book. I've spent a lot of time talking about the negatives, so let me finish by returning to what I liked - the beautiful writing, solid story-telling and the poignancy of a lot of the situations the characters were in. There was also some unexpected slapstick humour in places, which worked surprisingly well.
Show Less
LibraryThing member blackhornet
These stories are fun, but a little slight for someone of Ishiguro's pedigree. The narrative voices remind me of Edgar Allen Poe: unhinged but acting as though nothing is wrong. I guess the narrators aren't in the same league as Poe's in terms of what they get up to, but they all live slightly on
Show More
the edge of reason, capable of losing their termpers at any point, laid low by gradual disappointment and betrayal.
Show Less
LibraryThing member thisismebecca
MY FEELINGS ON THE BOOK: This is my first foray with Ishiguro and I had heard many great things about his other books, Never Let Me Go and Remains of the Day. I had great hope for this book and it sounded like a unique set of short stories bound together by a common thread.

I was disappointed by
Show More
this book. Each story had a very thin "plot" and were all pretty much the same "plot." In each there was the same character disguised with a different name and a few varying details, and sometimes a character appeared in more than one story. The themes of loneliness and romance were good ideas, but poorly executed.

WHAT I LIKED:

* The idea that connected all 5 stories that did capture my attention was that of reality versus dreams. For instance, in "Crooner", a man leaves a woman he loves for a younger version in order to revitalize his dying music career. Yet the man is still in love with the first woman and hires a young man to serenade her from a gondola. You can see that his choice was bittersweet at best, but mostly foolish. (I was left wondering why he would choose his career over true love. It wasn't explained or even hinted at.)
* The title short story, "Nocturne", was the best out of the five stories. The wife from the first story, "Crooner", makes another appearance, this time after cosmetic surgery. Another musician is forced into cosmetic surgery himself and they forge a bond, albeit a loose and fragile bond. I felt this story drew the most empathy from me, even though all of the stories bittersweet and tragic circumstances were supposed to.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE AS MUCH:

* Out of five stories, not one had a character learn a lesson from his mistaken choices, nor was one ever offered to them to learn via another character. I can take tragic circumstances in a book, but this was more like 241 pages of pity party. I can only take so much.
* The prose was not nearly as sophisticated or captivating as I had imagined Ishiguro's would be. Perhaps his style does not lend well to short stories, perhaps it was simply not one of his better books. It is hard to say since I had not read any of his work prior to this one.
* A couple of the stories seemed like they just ended. In my opinion, the stories did not have the classic build up, climax, and after thoughts and left me thinking, "Is that it?" after each one. Not good.
Show Less
LibraryThing member akosikulot-project52
My second Ishiguro read - and as with all short story collections, this one is made up of hits and misses. Not necessarily bad, but it wasn't at par with his other, older works either.
LibraryThing member Carl_Hayes
Fairly light by Ishiguro standards, but still has that appealing narrative flavor. These stories definitely don't rank with Remains or Never Let You Go, but were entertaining enough.
LibraryThing member petterw
Perhaps the most enjoyable short story collection I have read, although not the best. In a way it didn't feel like a set of short stories, more like chapters in a novel, all dealing with music, with love, aging, life passing by. Some scenes are hilarious, slapstick even, others are tender. A lot of
Show More
the action comes through poignant dialogue, at times leaving me with a movie or a theatre play in my head. I am sure some readers will be disappointed with the lightness of it all. I am not one of them. This is a book to enjoy and to remember, particularily if you also have an interest in music as well.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jcwlib
Passion or necessity- or the often uneasy combination of the two-determines the place of music in each of these lives. And in one way or another, music delivers each of them a moment of reckoning: sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes just eluding their grasp.


Nocturnes is a collection of
Show More
short stories about music and nightfall. My favorite stories were Crooner and Nocturne.

Crooner is told from a local musician's point of view who recognizes an American singer sitting at a cafe in Venice. The singer is there on a trip with his wife - one last hurrah. To stage a successful comeback the singer and his wife must separate. The local musician accompanies the singer one night as he serenades his wife one last time.

Nocturne actually is a continuation of the Crooner story. The wife and another jazz musician meet in a hotel while recovering from plastic surgery. They explore the hotel at night and listen to music together.

All the stories in this collection involve some type of couple either married already or not. None of the stories really have happy endings though. They are well written and easy to read. Very enjoyable!
Show Less
LibraryThing member elliepotten
This was my first Ishiguro, and although I’m not usually a fan of short stories this book really impressed me. The title pretty much sums it up: Nocturnes is a collection of five stories, each weaving a tale of music and romantic heartache. Crooner is set in Venice, where a guitarist in a café
Show More
band meets his mother’s favourite crooner and helps him woo his wife one last time before they separate. Come Rain or Come Shine is a farcical story about a man coming home from a life roaming abroad, only to find his friends’ marriage in trouble and himself involved in a plot to bring them back together. Malvern Hills was the only one set in Britain, in which a young aspiring songwriter comes up against various tourists and locals in his sister’s café. Nocturne, the longest of the stories, brings together a celebrity wife and a brilliant saxophonist on a secret floor of a Hollywood hotel after they’ve both had plastic surgery. And finally, Cellists, possibly my favourite of the five, is about a young man, eager to become a master of his music, who manages to attract a mentor in an Italian piazza who may not be all that she seems.

It’s always hard to review a book of short stories because they’re all so different. What struck me the most about the book as a whole was definitely the writing itself. It was just delicious to read, lyrical and exquisitely composed. Each story was subtle and quite gentle in both message and plot, entwining love and heartbreak with the strumming of the guitar or the deep notes of the cello; music and romance brought together in the fresh breeze of the Malvern countryside or the bustling atmosphere of an Italian piazza. And that was what really made the book for me – the atmosphere. The stories weren’t the most memorable, nor was the book as a whole something I’d read again or remember forever, but the atmosphere was so beautifully wrought that it reached under my skin, and made me feel like I was sitting right there in that English café or sipping cappuccino as a warm Mediterranean night drew in. I have several other Ishiguros already on my shelf, and if all of his books are this much of a delight, I should be in for a treat!
Show Less
LibraryThing member cameling
Ishiguro delves into the hearts of individuals and bring their yearnings to the surface. With these 5 short stories, all themed around music, we are introduced to musicians, both ones who have reached success in their careers and ones struggling to be noticed, as well as individuals who love music.
Show More


What resonates is the unhappiness behind a character in each story.
A visiting friend who used to share a love of jazz with his friend's girlfriend, is appalled to find himself being called upon to act as the catalyst to bring the spark back into their relationship.
A guitarist is engaged by a fading American singer, to serenade his wife under her window, along the canals of Venice.
An ugly but talented saxophonist finds himself persuaded by his agent and ex-girlfriend to undergo radical cosmetic surgery, a step they believe will propel him to the fame and glory his talent so rightly deserves.
A Hungarian cellist comes under the wing of an unknown American woman who sees a diamond in the rough that needs her help in polishing his talent
A musician seeking refuge at his sister and brother-in-law's cafe meets a Swiss couple who provide different insights to the paths that some musicians need to journey down.

While Ishiguro's style of writing does not disappoint, his short stories failed to deliver the satisfactory conclusions that he so successfully achieved in his longer works, ' Remains of the Day' and 'Never Let Me Go'.
Show Less

Awards

James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Shortlist — Fiction — 2009)

Pages

240

ISBN

0307271021 / 9780307271020
Page: 0.7518 seconds