Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall is a 2009 collection of short fiction by Japanese-English author Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro OBE or ; born 8 November 1954) is a Japanese–English novelist. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and 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...

. After six novels, it is his first collection of short stories, though described by the publisher as a "story cycle". As the subtitle suggests, each of the five stories focuses on music and musicians, and the close of day. The hardback was published by Faber and Faber

Faber and Faber

Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...

 in the United Kingdom on 7 May 2009 and in the United States by Knopf in September 2009.

Stories

As the subtitle suggests, each story focuses on music and musicians, and the close of day. All of the stories have unfulfilled potential as a linking theme, tinged with elements of regret. The second and fourth stories have comic undertones. The first and final stories feature cafe musicians, and the first and fourth stories feature the same character. All five stories have unreliable male narrators and are written in the first person

First-person narrative

First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...

.

• "Crooner"
  • Set in Venice
    Venice
    Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
    
    , a fading American singer co-opts a Polish cafe musician into accompanying him while he serenades his wife (whose relationship is disintegrating) from a gondola.
• "Come Rain or Come Shine"
  • In London, an expatriate EFL
    EFL
    EFL most commonly refers to English as a Foreign Language, see English as a Foreign or Second LanguageEFL may also refer to:In sports:* Eastern Football League , a defunct Scottish football competition...
    
     teacher is invited to the home of a couple whom he knew whilst at university. However the couple's tensions affect the visitor, leading to a rather awkward situation.
• "Malvern Hills"
  • A young guitarist flees London and lack of success in the rock world to the Malvern
    Malvern, Worcestershire
    Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...
    
     countryside cafe owned by his sister and brother-in-law. Whilst there he encounters Swiss tourists whose behaviour causes him to reflect on his own situation.
• "Nocturne"
  • A saxophonist recuperating after plastic surgery at a Beverly Hills hotel becomes involved with a wealthy American woman (the now ex-wife of the crooner in the first story) and ends up in a rather bizarre confrontation on stage of the hotel (involving an award statuette and a cooked turkey).
• "Cellists"
  • A Hungarian cellist falls under the spell of a fellow cellist, an apparently virtuosic American older woman, who tutors him. He later realises that she cannot play the cello as she was so convinced of her own musical genius, no teacher ever seemed equal to it, and so rather than tarnish her gift with imperfection, she chose never to realise it at all.

Reception

Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane, , is a British travel writer and literary critic. Educated at Nottingham High School, Pembroke College, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford, he is currently a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and teaches in the Faculty of English at Cambridge.-Books:Macfarlane's first...

 writes in The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

that "Closing the book, it’s hard to recall much more than an atmosphere or an air; a few bars of music, half-heard, technically accomplished, quickly forgotten." Christian House of The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

writes that "Ultimately this is a lovely, clever book about the passage of time and the soaring notes that make its journey worthwhile".