Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

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Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

3.37 of 5 stars 3.37 · rating details · 5,065 ratings · 654 reviews

In this sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores love, music and the passage of time. This quintet ranges from Italian piazzas to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the “hush-hush floor” of an exclusive Hollywood hotel. Along the way we meet young dreamers, café musicians and faded stars, all at some moment of reckoning.

Gentle, intimate and witty, Nocturnes is unders...more

Hardcover, 221 pages

Published May 5th 2009 by Knopf Canada

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Dec 16, 2010 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, drama

A nocturne is a “composition of a dreamy character, expressive of sentiment appropriate to evening or night”. Traditionally such nocturnal sentiments include regret, chagrin, melancholy, perhaps a dash of ennui – the pastel twilight tones at the lighter end of the spectrum that darken to gloom, rage and black despair.

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall is the first collection of short stories by the Japanese-English novelist, Kazuo Ishiguro. As the subtitle indicates, it is composed...more

A nocturne is a “composition of a dreamy character, expressive of sentiment appropriate to evening or night”. Traditionally such nocturnal sentiments include regret, chagrin, melancholy, perhaps a dash of ennui – the pastel twilight tones at the lighter end of the spectrum that darken to gloom, rage and black despair.

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall is the first collection of short stories by the Japanese-English novelist, Kazuo Ishiguro. As the subtitle indicates, it is composed of 5 "immaculate" (prose-wise) stories whose common denominators are music (what it promises to the characters) and nightfall (the regrets, the failures, the unrealized potentials, the possibilities at the midlife or at the crossroads of its characters' lives).

This is my 3rd book by Kazuo Ishiguro and I agree with one of my Goodreads friends that he indeed is one of the authors who do not re-write themselves. Remains of the Day is about an aging butler and his reflection in his twilight years while Never Let Me Go is about three young kids who were raised solely to be organ donors. The 5 short stories here are all about musicians, their lives and their struggles to stay afloat (Story#1: "Crooner"), how to spend time waiting for a big break (Story#2 : "Come Rain or Shine"), how a young musician can relate to old aging ones (Story#3: "Malvern Hills"), how physical appearance is seen as ticket to hit it big in the music industry (Story#4: "Nocturne"), or how to get the right coach or the better way of coaching (Story#5: "Cellist"). They have common denominators and some even share a character or two, e.g., the guitarist in Story#1 reappears in Story#5. The aging but still beautiful woman about to get divorced by his crooner-husband in Story#1 also appears as a cosmetic surgery patient in Story#4.

I enjoyed reading this book because of Ishiguro's style of presenting his short stories. He aptly calls this collection as story cycle. Unlike Murakami, he just did not collate all his stories from his dreams, released them in one book and call the whole book by one of the titles in the collection. In Nocturnes, the stories seem to be part of an astoundingly pleasing orchestra piece with each story beautifully complementing the totality of the masterpiece by forming five distinct variations in tunes. Stories #2 and #4 are funny and playful. Story#1 is downright sad and gloomy. Story#3 is open-ended (with the end note in high pitch floating in the air) while Story#5 recaps the 4 by having more musician-characters as if providing the climax and conclusion to the piece.

Just like Remains of the Day and to a lesser extend, Never Let Me Go, this book will not elicit a strong emotion from its reader. You will not feel downright sad or happy. You will not laugh out load, cry a tear or even smile. You will not need to fold a page to remember where that beautiful quote is. However, after reading the book, Ishiguro will make you reflect in your own life and will make you ask yourself questions like where your present life is heading or how to achieve your dreams. Despite having crossed the midpoint, is there still a dream worth pursuing? Is there still a chance for you to peak? That is if you haven't reached your peak? It is this subtlety that I appreciate in his writing. He neither states the obvious nor preaches. He will make you think of life's deeper meanings without going philosophical or peppering his book with profound quotes. Reading him in this book is like sipping a warm well-blended coffee in a fine easy Sunday morning while sitting in a cold plaza or in your front porch.

With the cold December air, this book is a right read during this holiday season especially with the New Year soon unfolding. Makes you think of your first step for 2011.(less)

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Oct 15, 2010 Esther rated it 2 of 5 stars

I have a problem with Kazuo Ishiguro. And my problem with Nocturnes is the same one I had with his last novel, Never Let Me Go: I can't figure out why I didn't like it more.
Despite his deceivingly simple prose I am very aware of his tremendous skill. I find many of his themes fascinating. I am sufficiently interested in his characters to keep on reading. I admire his resistance against easy resolutions or explicative characterizations. I marvel at his ability to create moments that are truly fu...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Ceridwen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: abandoned, red-scare, rule-britannia, short-shories, audio, not-for-me-maybe-for-you

I had 15 seconds during which to bolt down into the library – no not a typo; for reasons known only to late-70s civic leaders, my branch library is underground – and grab an audiobook or two for the ride north. I'm not a big audio person – I have no regular commute, and my home life is too loud and distracting for home listening – but I like listening to books on solo car rides. Anyway, so this was swept up in my arms without much thought other than I'd read one other Ishiguro and liked it.

The...more I had 15 seconds during which to bolt down into the library – no not a typo; for reasons known only to late-70s civic leaders, my branch library is underground – and grab an audiobook or two for the ride north. I'm not a big audio person – I have no regular commute, and my home life is too loud and distracting for home listening – but I like listening to books on solo car rides. Anyway, so this was swept up in my arms without much thought other than I'd read one other Ishiguro and liked it.

The first story, “Crooner,” was read beautifully, the reader affecting the indeterminate Eastern bloc accent of the first person narrator, maybe Romanian with a Hungarian overlay? without falling into Borat. The American interlocutor from the story, a 50s crooner whom the narrator idolized from youth, was spoken so differently that I thought that it was another reader entirely for a while, and that's cool. It's a story about meeting your idols and having them become men, and some of the pieces of the story were wonderful to me: the narrator talking about the black market in music under the Iron Curtain, the fragility of records and memory, the politics of playing in bands that cater to tourists, and how that relates to larger politics. But the crooner's story rubbed me the wrong way, as did his diction, which was too John Wayne, too fake American, like something Agatha Christie would write, with her Americans “opining” and saying “look here” and calling everyone “friend”.

I've always said I like when non-Americans write about the project of America, and I think I still do – when the narrator talks about the transmission, through music, of the American style of sadness, which is bound up in the road and boundless optimism, I was leaned in. But then I didn't like at all the way this American talked, the things he said about how America worked, the central conflict of what was going on between him and his wife. That was bullshit. It's possible someone would think that way, but he would never ever say that stuff out loud, not like that, not so bald and on the nose. Plus, frankly, the story was a little boring.

So then I move onto the next story in this collection, “Come Rain or Shine”. Another first person narration, about a British guy going back to England to stay with friends from college. He's been an ESL teacher in Spain with no particular ambition; his friends are successful finance types who view him as a sad-sack and a whiner. Turns out his friends' marriage is on the ropes, and he's pulled into a plot by the husband to be so lame that the wife will take the husband back. This doesn't make any sense, of course, and the plot moves forward with histrionics and hissed conversations, building to a scene where the narrator is on the floor, having wrecked the living room in order to cover up the fact that he's snooped on the wife's diary through a phantom dog attack he's orchestrating- I know, that doesn't make any sense either – on his hands and knees chewing the pages of a coffee table book, and then he realizes that...DUNDUNDUN...the wife has unexpectedly returned home and is watching him.

I swear, my hand snapped out like a snake and turned the book off of its own volition at this point. NOOOOOO. I HATE SITUATION COMEDIES. I hate them. They make me feel horrible in the joints of my jaw, the weird taste I get when I eat too many scrambled eggs. They make me squirm with embarrassment for everyone involved: the characters, for being so fucking stupid and constructed, for me having to watch this unfold in such a schematic way, for the author for putting that situation out into the world, a little plastic snow globe of plot that blizzards in the same fake ass way when you shake it. The situation comedy on screen can be bad – oh noes! Jack Tripper has to pretend he's gay even though he wants to hit it with that girl, and now he has make-up on his face, and there's a marmot in the fridge! ZOMG! - but it's a thousand times worse with a first person narrator, who has to justify these increasingly stupid antics without the physical comedy that can make watching teevee sit-coms workable.

Maybe this could have worked third person, maybe, with a narrative voice that was more broadly comic, more suited to the wild-eyed stupidity of the characters and their situation. Even then, the build was too slow, allowing me to see what was coming far too early, the Chekhovian gun not so much set on mantle as shoved up my ass and fired until the gun went click click click. No. I don't know how this story ends, and maybe it's a brilliant ending, reversing all my kvetching, but I will never read/hear it. Barf.

And then, that was it. I didn't want to go on with this collection, afeared I would encounter more of the same, so I put in a bunch of mid-90s screaming girl bands that were popular with me when I was a lass, even though much of it embarrasses me now, and sang along. My daughter joined in with the Liz Phair, because apparently she has good hooks for 4-year olds, even if maybe I don't want the girl singing “fuck and run” at daycare. I dig what Ishiguro was going for in this collection, music and regret and nostalgia and whatever the opposite of nostalgia is – shame? - but I'll just work that out in my own situation non-comedy, thank you. (less)

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Mar 18, 2013 Fionnuala rated it 5 of 5 stars

I’ve always associated the word Nocturne with sadness, sublime sadness, deeply felt sadness, but sadness, none the less.
I think that Kazuo Ishiguro may share this feeling, even though, given that the term Nocturne when it started out simply meant a piece of music in several movements played by an ensemble at an evening party and that several of these stories revolve around ensembles playing music in the evenings, he may intend a simpler meaning. But I don’t think so. A character in one of the st...more

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Jan 26, 2012 Ariadna73 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

09-01-2011- I finished the five stories and I liked them all. Some are more rounded than others (for example; come rain or come shine ends abruptly whereas Nocturne has a very defined ending) I liked the way the author mentioned and analized music in a way that made me feel it without even listening to the actual songs. And some of the stories are really hilarious (Crooner; Marven Hills) I lauged a lot with the different funny scenes. In sum; very entertaining and another evidence of the big tal...more

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Jul 07, 2011 Maria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The prose is supple and luminous and I like good writing. Nocturnes consists of 5 music-themed interwoven tales that I think should be read in a sitting for full value. Insightful writer, this Ishiguro.

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Mar 20, 2011 Isabelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

A very fine collection of five short stories, all revolving around music and, as in all of Kazuo Ishiguro's books, loneliness. As always, he is a master of restraint, which does not diminish the pathos of the stories, on the contrary!
In each of those stories, something gets unraveled for each of the characters who collide with each other during that particular moment in their lives.... and of course all this happens to music, for music, because of music.
This is all tremendously lyrical albeit in...more

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Jun 22, 2010 FreshGrads .Sg rated it 5 of 5 stars

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall is Kazuo Ishiguro's first collection of short stories after six successful novels. His latest book is made up of a quintet of short stories—Crooner, Come Rain or Come Shine, Malvern Hills, Nocturne and Cellists—where he explores love, music and the passing of time as dreams and relationships might start getting dusty.

Ishiguro, also a guitarist and a former chorister, was winner of the Booker Prize for novel-turned-film, The Remains of the Day. The f...more Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall is Kazuo Ishiguro's first collection of short stories after six successful novels. His latest book is made up of a quintet of short stories—Crooner, Come Rain or Come Shine, Malvern Hills, Nocturne and Cellists—where he explores love, music and the passing of time as dreams and relationships might start getting dusty.

Ishiguro, also a guitarist and a former chorister, was winner of the Booker Prize for novel-turned-film, The Remains of the Day. The famed author has this characteristic charm—wistful and yet captivatingly whimsical. And in this latest book, titled Nocturnes, the same charm is as evident and the book is just as its name suggests—dreamy with a touch of melancholy and surely pensive. Each of the five stories would be best described as slices of life with no dramatic resolution; I loved the fact that it was as if we were eavesdropping on their conversation and then left pondering what might become of them.

The first story, Crooner, kicks off with Janeck, a Polish guitarist who feels sorry for himself and dwells on the monotony of his life such as playing the Godfather nine times in a single afternoon. This self-indulgence was, however, soon broken when he spots his mom's favourite but aging American singer Tony Gardner. To his surprise, Janeck is invited to assist Gardner in serenading his wife from a gondola beneath her window. But unbeknown to him, it is a farewell gesture from the man to his soon-to-be ex-wife.

However, it was the last story, Cellists, that especially struck a chord with me. Hungarian musician Tibor meets enigmatic American woman who claims to be a virtuoso. After much ado about nothing, he realises she does not even play the cell but believes she could do so extremely well and was merely "protecting her unwrapped talent". The story ends with the narrator who spots Tibor at a cafe they used to work together. Tibor's dressing and actions suggests that like the many that had great dreams, he ultimately had to settle for less—a scenerio that might be familiar with many jaded dreamers like myself.

In summary, the book chronicles ordinary and even familiar moments of bittersweetness, regret and disappointments with open endings aptly done. Perhaps it is because they are so ordinary and could well have happened to any of us, that book critic, David Sexton, would say: "These stories come up on you quietly, but then haunt you for days." Readers will find Ishiguro's stories lingering in your head just like a music note.

For more book reviews, visit FreshGrads Reads. We also do reviews on food, movies and more in Singapore. Check us out here!(less)

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Jun 22, 2010 Jana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: east-and-aussie

Ishiguro is liquid. Can I say it like that? There is not a single thing in these stories where his writing isn't compatible with how a great beginning or the end of a story should look like. Or how a story should interestingly develop and how characters should be engaging and how... These nocturnes are almost perfect, and yet, they are somehow not.

As if they need that jump from the springboard to make a perfect somersault and maybe end it with some surprisingly unexpected flip or something. I a...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Yumi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: second-half-of-2011, books-read-in-scotland

At times I forgot I was reading Ishiguro and thought I was reading Haruki Murakami, and that is definitely a compliment. Ishiguro always works better for me when he keeps things simple instead of overwrought.

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May 18, 2011 Venus rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-story

زیبایی دختران را تا نیمه ی راه می برد . کافی است از آن درست استفاده نکنند تا مثل روسپی ها با آن ها رفتار شود.
من امیدوارم زنت برگردد . واقعا امیدوارم . اما اگر برنگشت خوب تو باید به فکر اینده ات باشی . شاید زن فوق العاده ای باشد اما زندگی بزرگ تر از عاشق بودن است

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Aug 10, 2011 Stephen Wong added it · review of another edition

My first Ishiguro read. The scenes in the stories (there are five of them) are magnificent and lack mendacity; some are comedic and many are hinged loosely to a fabric of loss, be it time, place, or even that which is called opportunity. Even then, the characters in the mise en scène vaguely respond to a lambent sense of loss and misgiving, which plays outside it, not being exercised by it, rather slipping through windows (in Crooner), outside terraces, in the bridge passage of an unfinished son...more

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Mar 05, 2009 Lia rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

This was the first I read by Kazuo Ishiguro and I remember thinking "how did this guy win a Booker?" but then I read The Remains of the Day immediately thereafter, which I loved. But I found this collection of short stories very weak -- there's a couple of good scenes and clever ideas but by and large it's readable but really quite ordinary.

My main gripe would be that all the stories are too similar. As well as the motifs of music and nightfall flagged by the title, there's several common theme...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Emir Never rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Emir Never by: Monique

This is Kazuo Ishiguro's first short story collection, dubbed by the publisher as "story cycle", perhaps suggestive of the common thread of the stories: music, musicians, and nightfall (here, representing failures, regrets, and unfulfilled dreams and desires).

Crooner (Two stars)

Janeck, the guitar player of the band playing outside the piazza spots someone in the crowd, sitting alone with his coffee: Tony Gardner, a star crooner, his mother's favorite back in the communist days. It turns out Tony...more

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Sep 05, 2012 Natalie DeMaioribus rated it 1 of 5 stars

I loved The Remains of the Day, but everything of Ishiguro's I've read since sounds like it was written by someone else. These are 6th-grade-English-style short stories. The narrators are all perfectly bland and boring; none of them have their own voice, they just serve as a vessel for a story while making half-assed attempts to prove they’re people, like the replicants in Blade Runner. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve just read the same story four times in a row, just with the names of the n...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

The short story is the art of the moment. From author to author, they take dozens of different forms, covering such varying topics as the slow decay of a marriage (like "Shiloh") to the grisly murder of a man (like "The Cask of Amontillado"). Kazuo Ishiguro, who has written such moving and intimate novels as The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, ventures into the world of the short story with his distinct style. These stories are inconclusive and evocative, so simple that we immediately kn...more The short story is the art of the moment. From author to author, they take dozens of different forms, covering such varying topics as the slow decay of a marriage (like "Shiloh") to the grisly murder of a man (like "The Cask of Amontillado"). Kazuo Ishiguro, who has written such moving and intimate novels as The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, ventures into the world of the short story with his distinct style. These stories are inconclusive and evocative, so simple that we immediately know that there is something deep beneath their quiet surfaces.
As stated on the cover, the five stories have two common themes-- music and nightfall, both of which are covered in five very different ways. From the first story, "Crooner," we know that something is terribly sad and wrong with the characters, despite outward appearances. The main character, a guitarist named Janeck, meets his mother's hero, Tony Gardner, by pure chance in a cafe in Venice. However, what should be a simple meeting with an aging musician quickly becomes an uncomfortably intimate portrayal of a marriage about to crumble. Ishiguro's writing unblushingly uncovers the deepest parts of people, making even minor characters unmistakably real and human.
Nocturnes quietly, simply destroys the concept that you need a novel to fully explore a character. From the first moments of one of the stories, we know exactly who that character is, and what is to come only further elaborates on that person we saw so clearly from the first words. Each story, told in first person, pulls us inside the minds of the tellers, seeing the world as it happens to them, not as it is or as it should be. To a degree, we are watching the shadows of the tale play out, but to another degree we are so invested in each one that it's over too soon.
The title story, which is actually the fourth in the book, is exactly the culmination of the whole point. Steve, an unappreciated saxophonist, is in the middle of recovery from plastic surgery when a character from the first story reappears: Lindy Gardner is his neighbor. We met Lindy before through the eyes of Janeck, and now she reappears some time later, recovering from the divorce as well as her plastic surgery. She makes friends with Steve, likely from boredom, and he learns far more about her character than he expected.
Throughout the narrative, Lindy and Steve never see each others' faces, which leads us to wonder: how much does what we look like affect who we are? Lindy is a mystery from the beginning, an unpredictable conundrum around whom the whole story swirls. She's a child and an old woman, a young soul caught in an old world. She's been hurt and she hurts. Through her, Ishiguro paints a painfully true picture of the human condition: no matter how horrible the things that happen to us, we still do them to one another.
Nocturnes paints moments of stillness caught in the middle of a wild world, a deep breath before diving back under. Each character is on vacation, taking stock of their lives before a major change will either bring fortune or disaster. They become utterly themselves, naked and stark before the future and the past. Music has brought them thus far, and night brings the sudden change.
Ishiguro's form is impeccable as always, casual and philosophical all at once, presenting all sides of the narrator's mind through simple, necessary thoughts and actions. His music choices are varied in each story, but focused and to the point as well-- folk, rock and roll, contemporary, jazz, and classical are all represented, and the references to bands and songs are well placed in the context of each story.
At just 221 pages, Nocturnes is a short read and feels like it. Each story cuts off suddenly, but not inappropriately-- the tale is told, but there is still a sense of incompleteness that is a part of each one. The effect is wonderfully tantalizing, like a light that only comes halfway on.(less)

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Mar 29, 2012 Hannah rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up because “The Remains of the Day” is one of my absolute favorits books. The prose is so melancholy and dreamlike and the characters are so expertly drawn. Nocturns did not rate as high as “The Remains of the Day” (few things do), but nonetheless it was a beautifully written book.

“Nocturnes” is a collection of short stories about music and night time. There are five stories, each slightly connected: Crooner, Come Rain or Come Shine, Malvern Hills, Nocturne, and Cellists.

I absolute...more I picked this up because “The Remains of the Day” is one of my absolute favorits books. The prose is so melancholy and dreamlike and the characters are so expertly drawn. Nocturns did not rate as high as “The Remains of the Day” (few things do), but nonetheless it was a beautifully written book.

“Nocturnes” is a collection of short stories about music and night time. There are five stories, each slightly connected: Crooner, Come Rain or Come Shine, Malvern Hills, Nocturne, and Cellists.

I absolutely loved the title story; it followed Steve and Lindy Gardner, both of whom are recovering from having major plastic surgery. Lindy is famous for being famous while Steve is a struggling musician. The story is beautifully written (as all Ishiguro’s stories are) and he truly captures the magic and splendor of wandering around a hotel at night. Lindy was a fascinating character; she longs to be talented like Steve, but is simply a public figure, though she worked hard even to get there. I could really relate to that immediate jealousy and slight hatred of those who have a real gift, especially a real artistic gift.

My other favorite story was Malvern Hills, which follows another struggling musician as he works at a cafe his sister runs next to the Malvern Hills. I thought the descriptions of the struggle to write music and the partnership that exists only between musicians were both wonderfully done.
The rest of the stories were passable, but not brilliant. Crooner is about the sacrifices we make for those we love and how music can recall memories and emotions. It was lovely in a melancholy way, but did not hold my attention for very long. Cellists follows a young, promising cellist and his relationship with a woman who wants to help mature his talent. The character of the young cellist was well done, but the twist made the story unlikable and it seemed as though Ishiguro was trying to convey something that the characters were unable to bring out. The other story, Come Rain or Come Shine, was my least favorite. It is about the struggles of a married couple and the friend brought in to fix them. None of the characters seemed quite real and all were unlikeable. Again, it had a sort of twist that degraded rather than enhanced the story.

All in all, I would say read Malvern Hills and Nocturne (and Crooner if you want some context for Nocturne), but the rest are skippable. (less)

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Feb 01, 2012 Joe Sacksteder rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book illustrates the blundering awkwardness of words compared to music. Turns out Ishiguro is really boring when he's writing about normal people. He seems to entertain a lot of misconceptions about music and musicians, as do even well-researched writers when they venture into this terrain. Worst was "Cellists," which summed up the huge problems of the collection; Eloise's "virtuosity" - which she bafflingly maintains despite not being a musician - depicts music a cultish type of gift that...more

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Oct 23, 2011 notgettingenough rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-lit, short-stories

I’ve never read a book before that starts off with a threat to sue the reviewer, in capital letters, no less:

THESE ARE UNCORRECTED PROOFS, ALL QUOTATIONS OR ATTRIBUTIONS SHOULD BE CHECKED AGAINST THE BOUND COPY OF THE BOOK. WE URGE THIS FOR THE SAKE OF EDITORIAL ACURACY AS WELL AS FOR YOUR LEGAL PROTECTION.

Well. I wasn’t going to quote anything from this book, there isn’t anything that is zippily quotable. On the other hand, it just has to be done, doesn’t it? Now. In the context of that threate...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Jeruen Dery rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If I were to pick a short story collection that I have thoroughly enjoyed, then I would pick this one.

I never picked up an Isiguro book before. I guess this is my first introduction to the novelist, and somehow, I like the fact that I picked it up. In fact, I liked it enough that I was able to finish the book within a day.

So, what is this book about? This book, as the subtitle says, is a book containing five stories of music and nightfall. I find it amazing that a writer was able to pick such a...more If I were to pick a short story collection that I have thoroughly enjoyed, then I would pick this one.

I never picked up an Isiguro book before. I guess this is my first introduction to the novelist, and somehow, I like the fact that I picked it up. In fact, I liked it enough that I was able to finish the book within a day.

So, what is this book about? This book, as the subtitle says, is a book containing five stories of music and nightfall. I find it amazing that a writer was able to pick such a topic as a nocturne and write five related stories about it. And come to think of it, these five short stories indeed feel like the literary equivalent of a musical nocturne. I have played several nocturnes in a past life, when I was playing Chopin and Faure, and playing those nocturnes just gave me this melancholy and pensive feeling upon hearing the dreamy music. These stories are just the same.

The stories look like they are unfinished yet interwoven stories to each other. The first and fourth story shared the same characters, while the second and fourth story had a rather comic take to them. The first and fifth stories on the other hand both involved scenes in a cafe or a piazza, somewhere in Italy. Finishing every story just gave me this pensive and melancholy mood that always followed whenever I would hear or play a nocturne, and after that, I would always want another one.

I guess I couldn't find anything bad about this book. And so for that, I am glad that I decided to try Ishiguro. I never had the courage to read Japanese writers, for some unexplainable reason. I thought that they were too dense or complicated, and given my experience in studying Japanese literature back when I was a student in Japan, I never got them. So I thought they would be a hard read. And only recently have I learned that Ishiguro is actually a British writer, and that his writing cannot be categorized in the same way as other Japanese writers. I guess that made sense after reading this book.

I am glad. I am giving it 5 out of 5 stars.(less)

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Feb 07, 2011 Tze-Wen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-century

I held high hopes for Nocturnes, because the issues that it deals with – nostalgia, relationships that are not meant to be and missed chances – usually appeal to me. Unfortunately, none of these quirky stories managed to move me. I simply could not sympathize with any of the characters in the book. In my eyes, they have annoying and immature personalities, and this shows clearly in their selfish and sullen behavior. I feel that Nocturnes is in fact a lost opportunity for the author. Compared to...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Josh Ang rated it 4 of 5 stars

As a first-time reader of Ishiguro, I found this collection of 5 stories enlightening and wonderfully cohesive in the way they stayed true the subtitle "Five Stories of Music and Nightfall".

Set in the scenic cities of Italy, the rolling Malvern Hills and the intimate London flat, the stories run the gamut of human emotion and longing, accompanied by the strains of the cello, guitars, a saxophone and the lilt of the human voice.

The brilliance of these stories lie in the ambivalence of feelings...more

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Jan 10, 2011 Andrew Brown rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kazuo Ishiguro is one of my favourite authors. His books take the reader on voyages of the imagination; not just to other times and places but into the thoughts, feelings and memories of the central characters. He explores the power of the past on individual motives and actions. The unreliability of memory and the ways in which time, emotion and personal perception act as a prism to distort recollections are recurring themes.

It always takes me some pages to truly get into an Ishiguro novel. His...more Kazuo Ishiguro is one of my favourite authors. His books take the reader on voyages of the imagination; not just to other times and places but into the thoughts, feelings and memories of the central characters. He explores the power of the past on individual motives and actions. The unreliability of memory and the ways in which time, emotion and personal perception act as a prism to distort recollections are recurring themes.

It always takes me some pages to truly get into an Ishiguro novel. His writing has its own particular cadence and the dialogue is often stylised and - to my mind - betrays his Japanese routes even in those novels which aren't set there. Once I get into them, however, I find they have they have their own peculiar momentum and are ultimately satisfying.

Nocturnes is different. It is a series of five bitter-sweet short stories with a musical theme. The characters are all at some form of decision point whether personal or professional and reflecting on how they arrived at their current situation as well as their next steps.

For all that the stories were, of themselves, nice stories, the book lacked the impact that his novels have. Partly this was because none of the stories had a killer punch in the way, say, Remains of the Day does, partly this was because the short story format doesn't lend itself to the author's style. Ishiguro's books are populated with characters with complex feelings and motives which are developed and revealed gradually - many of the protagonists in Nocturnes are as well but these are underdeveloped. As a result, this reader was left with a lack of empathy for them.

Nocturnes is a pleasant distraction which belies the skill and talent of the author. One or two of the stories hint at something bigger - a story which could cover the canvas of a novel. Indeed, two of the stories share a character and I wonder if these might have originally been part of a greater whole in Ishiguro's mind. As it is though all that is left is, at best, a series poignant vignettes some of which could well have been critical points in a larger work but none of which left a lasting impression.(less)

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Dec 31, 2010 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 05, 2010 Bonnie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009-books, short-stories

Wow, I’ve never read so many stories in which nothing happened. And that all involved musicians/people who loved music who were spectacularly unsuccessful and apparently often quite unlikeable (at least, they didn’t have many friends). Here is the plot of the stories:

Crooner: Some guy meets a famous singer from back in the day, helps him serenade his wife and finds out they’re going to divorce so the singer can make a come-back.

Come Rain or Shine: Guy in a dead-end job who apparently is whiny a...more Wow, I’ve never read so many stories in which nothing happened. And that all involved musicians/people who loved music who were spectacularly unsuccessful and apparently often quite unlikeable (at least, they didn’t have many friends). Here is the plot of the stories:

Crooner: Some guy meets a famous singer from back in the day, helps him serenade his wife and finds out they’re going to divorce so the singer can make a come-back.

Come Rain or Shine: Guy in a dead-end job who apparently is whiny and lame visits college friends going through a rough patch in their marriage; the husband seems like he’s having a mental break and the wife is continuously condescending and possibly thinks the narrator is the King of Whiners; the narrator ends up going into a dog’s mindset and chewing on magazines...the story ends before we discover if everyone is going insane, possibly due to some biological weapon that turns people into zombies (what? it would make the story more interesting, at least), if the narrator and the wife are going to have an affair, what his friends actually think of the narrator and if they hate him as much as they appear to, why they keep inviting him to their house, why the husband is so goddamn strange, if the narrator is actually as annoying as his friends seem to think him (though I think the answer to that last one is yes, yes he is), etc.

Malvern Hills: Some deadbeat musician takes advantage of his sister’s kindness and crashes at her place, meets old couple who love his music but also fight and possibly break up (yes, every marriage in this book is crap).

Nocturne: Sax player gets plastic surgery after his wife divorces him; meets famous actress who is also recovering from surgery, they fight and leave off on bad terms, story ends before he gets his bandages off.

Cellists: Young cello player meets crazy-ass American who claims to be a cello maestro despite the fact that she hasn’t played the cello since she was 11 because no cello teacher was good enough for her. That’s it. That’s ALL the plot.

The book description of the stories is completely misleading, probably because they were trying to make the stories sound exciting, which they could only accomplish by lying. Also, I never really noticed it, but Ishiguro’s dialogue tends toward awkward. I don’t usually note this because the characters in his novels have been the type who would be a bit stilted: Japanese and British, who both can be a bit clipped in fiction. But when they’re supposed to be American or at least unidentified, the stiffness becomes more noticeable. And you know how his characters tend to be kind of passive? Yeah, usually I don't care but here it's really, really annoying.

This collection proves that no matter what he may think, Ishiguro was not meant to write short stories. (less)

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Mar 08, 2010 David Edmonds rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2010

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 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 f...more

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Feb 20, 2010 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-audio-books, 2010fiction

Nocturnes, stories of music and nightfall. By Kazuo Ishiguro, narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Kirby Heyborne, Lincoln Hoppe, Simon Vance, produced by Random House Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

The title of this work is the key to all five short stories. They all involve musicians or lovers of music. The confrontation each faces is at nightfall or during the night.
As the publishers’ note explains, each story has a central character and an a central conflict. A once-popular singer, desperate to...more

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Dec 06, 2009 Charles Matthews rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dry without being arid, lean without being starved, the stories in Kazuo Ishiguro's new collection are studies in disjunction. They're full of characters in a state of disconnectedness – miscommunicating, misjudging, mistaking one another's motivations and intent. The trick here is that Ishiguro exploits this state of things for neither pathos nor farce, but for a funny-touching blend of the two.

Four of the five stories are narrated by musicians. A Polish-born guitarist in Venice tells of being...more Dry without being arid, lean without being starved, the stories in Kazuo Ishiguro's new collection are studies in disjunction. They're full of characters in a state of disconnectedness – miscommunicating, misjudging, mistaking one another's motivations and intent. The trick here is that Ishiguro exploits this state of things for neither pathos nor farce, but for a funny-touching blend of the two.

Four of the five stories are narrated by musicians. A Polish-born guitarist in Venice tells of being hired by a famous American pop singer to serenade the singer's wife. An aspiring singer-songwriter escapes to the country to try to compose, but finds no peace there. A jazz saxophonist has plastic surgery because his career has been stymied by his looks -- his manager tells him he's “dull, loser ugly.” Another saxophonist tells the story of the relationship between a cellist and a mysterious woman who becomes his mentor.

The one story that doesn't feature musicians is also the most wildly varied in tone. “Come Rain or Come Shine” still hinges on the power of music – as the title's allusion to the Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer standard suggests. In the story, Ray, a middle-aged man who teaches English on the continent, comes to England to visit his old university friends, Charlie and Emily. The reunion is not a happy one: Charlie and Emily not only berate Ray for not making more of his life, but also embroil him in their own marital tensions, which are like something out of Pinter or Albee.

And then the story turns into situation comedy. Charlie leaves on a business trip and, while Emily is at work, Ray discovers that she has called him “the Prince of Whiners” in her diary. He angrily mutilates the book, but when remorse sets in he calls Charlie to ask what he should do about the diary. Charlie concocts a far-fetched scheme to to trash the apartment and blame the mutilation on a dog owned by some of their friends. The story moves from agitato to scherzando, and by the time it ends it has changed mood again, to andante. The healing agent, at least between Ray and Emily, is music.

Music hath charms. Indeed, it's the almost the only real agglutinating force in the lives of these characters, all of whom are – or feel themselves to be -- outsiders. Janeck, the narrator of the opening story, “Crooner,” was raised in Poland before the fall of communism, and now plays guitar in a café orchestra on the Piazza San Marco in Venice. “Anywhere else,” he tells us, “being a guitar player would go in a guy's favour. But here? A guitar! The café managers get uneasy. It looks too modern, the tourists won't like it.” He's also at a disadvantage because of “the small matter of my not being Italian, never mind Venetian,” but as long as he keeps his mouth shut he can get work because “they need a guitar – something soft, but amplified, thumping out the chords from the back.” He is delighted to meet the crooner, whose black-market records Janeck's mother used to play, and thrilled when the man engages him as an accompanist for the serenade, a romantic gesture that turns out not to be exactly what Janeck is expecting.

Ishiguro knows something about musicians and about feeling like an outsider: Born in Nagasaki, he moved with his family to England when he was five years old. As a teenager, he aspired to be a songwriter like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, and at 19 he hitchhiked with his guitar around California and the West. (The guitar was stolen in San Francisco.) But the characters in Nocturnes are no more (or less) autobiographical than the emotionally atrophied butler in The Remains of the Day or the doomed clones of Never Let Me Go.

What gives Ishiguro's fiction its peculiar quality is the sense of things held in suspension, of situations and relationships never quite fated to work out the way they should, rather like unresolved chords in a musical composition. These stories are often quite funny, predicated as they are on odd behavior, misinterpreted actions and false conclusions. But laughter depends on the release of tension, and Ishiguro's skillful avoidance of the expected resolution and his sly refusal to give us a full release of the tension produces a laughter with a melancholy, nervous edge.
(less)

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Nov 16, 2009 Megan rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have paid sufficient tribute to The Remains of the Day now by enduring three other Kazuo Ishiguro books: A Pale View of Hills, When We Were Orphans, and now Nocturnes. And now I'm finished reading Ishiguro for good. Nocturnes is a collection of five long-ish short stories, that were each too long and ended abruptly. Each story meandered along for twenty or thirty pages exploring the experiences of the protagonist, who was in each story a musician of some kind. Each musician/protagonist also ha...more

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Nov 12, 2009 Seth Hahne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I never know how to review collections of short stories.

It would be one thing if stories in a given collection were monolithic in terms of tone and quality. This, of course, is never the case. And is, by extension, not the case with Kazuo Ishiguro's collection of five stories, Nocturne. Three of these shorts I loved, one I liked a lot, and the other is of the variety where I'd be tempted to say, Let's just be friends, and then gradually distance myself until we were more acquaintances than anyt...more

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About Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro (カズオ・イシグロ or 石黒一雄) is a British novelist of a Japanese origin. His family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing course in 1980. He became a British citizen in 1982. He now lives in London.

Ishiguro received the 1989 Man Booker prize for his third novel...more

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