Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro Faber & Faber HK$104
Nocturnes contains five short stories that whistle a similar tune: music. The opener, Crooner, is partly about a crooner; Come Rain or Come Shine features the song of the same name. But it's not all titular plain-sailing. Nocturne itself combines plastic surgery, jazz and a character (Lindy Gardner) who was dumped by the crooner in Crooner. Some critics say such outlandish plot devices are unworthy of Ishiguro - as if the writer who brought us the exquisitely repressed pain in The Remains of the Day and the poignant love triangle in Never Let Me Go can't also do plastic surgery and dog impersonation. Why should this be? True, Nocturnes does feel like off-duty Ishiguro, or perhaps Ishiguro Unplugged. His chosen form - the dramatic monologue - acts like a sedative on the language, which is plain and stripped of metaphor. 'We crossed the ballroom with an outward show of calm' might apply to his calm, unshowy prose. And Crooner is a somewhat slight examination of the gap between love songs and a love life. But the remaining character studies explore the vast spaces between people, youth and age, and art and life with pleasing levity and telling insight.
