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Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall |  | Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Publisher: Knopf
List Price: $25.00
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Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 4552
Format: Deckle Edge
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First American Edition
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307271021
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780307271020
ASIN: 0307271021
Publication Date: September 22, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In a sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the 'hush-hush floor' of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning. Gentle, intimate and witty, this quintet is marked by a haunting theme: the struggle to keep alive a sense of life's romance, even as one gets older, relationships flounder and youthful hopes recede.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
 Uninspired Music November 13, 2009
L. Young (West Orange, NJ USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Here are five uninspired stories very loosely connected via music. In each a young, unsophisticated and unmarried man who either plays music or enjoys music, becomes either involved with an older couple or an older woman and thus observes the vicissitudes of marriage. After the second story my interest waned significantly. The title story, Nocture, about two plastic surgery patients recuperating on a secluded floor in a fancy hotel I found to be totally vacuous. I guess the morale of this book is that an outstanding novelist does not a great short story writer make. Compate these short stories with those in Elizabeth Strout's magnificent "Olive Kitteridge".
Stories of self-pitying losers November 11, 2009
Alan A. Elsner (Washington DC)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was a huge fan of Ishiguro's first two books. Unfortunately, there has been a sense in his recent work of a craftsman losing his touch. Ishiguro retains the rare ability of capturing an entire character through the narrative voice he creates for him. His writing is always clear and evocative - but the message has become tired and world-weary rather than self-affirming.
The five stories that make up Nocturnes are loosely linked, like movements of a symphony. Music plays a major part in all five, and some characters show up in more than one story. They also each share what is supposed to be a wistful longing tone, but more often it comes across as tiresome whining.
In the first story, "Crooner," a café musician from Eastern Europe is hired by an aging American singer to accompany him while he serenades his much younger wife in Venice from a gondola. It turns out the crooner loves his wife but has decided to replace her with a younger model to revive his fading career. How marrying a younger woman would achieve this is never explained.
The second, "Come Rain or Come Shine," tells of a failed middle-aged foreign language teacher, Ray, who returns to England to spend a weekend with old college friends Charlie and Emily. We understand that Ray and Emily, who share a love of jazz standards, were in love but never admitted it to themselves. Now Charlie and Emily's marriage is in trouble, so Charlie hatches a plan for Ray to spend a weekend alone with Emily. He figures his wife will see him in a better light after spending 48 hours with a verified loser like Ray.
In "Malvern Hills," an aspiring musician working as a kitchen hand in an English country hotel runs into a Swiss couple. They admire his talent but infect him with their own sense of failure.
"Nocturne" brings back the spurned wife from the first story, who winds up in a swanky hotel recovering from radical cosmetic surgery. In the next room is a talented saxophonist who has agreed to the same plastic surgery because his agent and ex-wife feel he is too ugly to succeed on musical talent alone. The two characters meet, bond, and share a comical adventure but are unable to forge a lasting connection.
Finally, in "Cellists," a talented young musician meets a woman who presents herself as a virtuoso of the instrument. She begins to teach him, and he feels he is making enormous progress. But it turns out she has never actually learned the instrument, although she feels she was born to be a supremely gifted cellist. By refusing to play, she says, she has preserved the purity of her gift.
What links these five short tales, apart from the overwhelming sense of failure that surrounds each of them, is the belief that talent alone does not ensure success. Indeed, without youth and good looks and good fortune, talent alone can be a blessing rather than a curse. The final story seems to suggest that the mere act of creation is always accompanied by artistic compromise and disillusionment.
It's a supremely cynical view of the world, and one can't help thinking that the author may be expressing some deeply-held bitterness of his own. That would be a shame, because Ishiguro is talented - but talent linked to self-pity does not serve any author well.
Ishiguro doesn't disappoint November 3, 2009
Arthur Lewis (Indiana)
Whenever I approach a favorite writer working in a format I'm not used to seeing him or her in, I always do so with some reluctance. I've always admired Ishiguro's longer fiction, and these short stories share many of those works' qualities. The gentle but questionable narrators, the sly comedy, and heartbreak under the surface of the main characters are all here. The theme of music, with all of the emotion by proxy contained therein, works well with the recurring themes of these stories. Highly recommended.
Diappointing read October 29, 2009
J. Aubry Goins (Oklahoma)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I found this collection very disappointing. They are lifeless stories in which unwitting third parties get drawn into failing relationships. Oh, and all the characters either enjoy or play music. The female characters are almost all bitchy.
I think the lesson here is this: writing a good short story is a task with which even good novelists struggle.
Not Disappointed October 8, 2009
N. M
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I would rate this as an almost 4 star.
Nocturnes is a collection of 5 short stories with a common theme of music and nightfall. I was hesitant about reading this, since Ishiguro's style - slow, beautiful prose - seemed more fitting of longer novels rather than short stories. Still, I wanted to see how he would pull this off, and I can't say I was disappointed. It was different than the other two Ishigoru books I've read (Never Let Me Go & Pale View of Hills), and yet there was that subtleness of Ishigoru that was very much visible in this book. I enjoyed reading all 5 stories, and liked the title story "Nocturnes" most of all.
Crooner: Set in Italy, Jan, a street musician and temporary member of a band, meets Tony Gardner, his mother's favorite singer and musician. Jan meets an older Tony, and is enlisted to help him with matters concerning love, and as the story progresses, you find more layers to Tony's mission.
Come Rain or Come Shine: I heard lots of shouting in my head as I read this one. Ishigoru's characters just leapt out of the page and I could hear them loud and clear. Charlie enlists his old college friend's help in patching matters with his wife and although the terms are unclear, when you do realize what they are, the whole story gains a very humorous light.
Malvern Hills: A young musician goes to his sister's place for some reflection time and meets people from the past; an exceptionally horrifying teacher. He also meets an interesting couple. The exquisite details and descriptions of this particular story added to the overall narration.
Nocturne: A character from the first story makes an appearance here, but the story is mostly about a gifted jazz player who makes a choice, or is almost forced into one. I loved this the most. Symbolic, with a twist of humor.
Cellists: Same setting as the first story, a saxophone player recognizes an old band mate and revists the past.
Another major theme that connected some of these stories was actions based on what other people thought best (Crooner, Nocturne), i.e, when reality and dreams conflict. Even if these actions went against personal beliefs and caused harm.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
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