Kazuo Ishiguro is in many ways at the opposite end of the range of contemporary fiction writers to Salman Rushdie. Where Rushdie is flashy and extravagant, Ishiguro is quiet and subtle and whereas Rushdie's prose draws attention to itself, Ishiguro's presents no such barrier between the reader and the story beyond the 'reliability' of the narrator.
These five 'stories of music and nightfall' are inevitably comparable to movements in a suite, sometimes relying on the musical references to add an emotional charge to the writing but also varying the pace and style as the book progresses. They all deal with relationships at crucial moments, at breaking points or in search of resolution.
In Crooner, the narrator is a guitarist working in Venice who meets an ageing singer who had been a favourite of his mother's. He is invited to accompany the singer to serenade the singer's wife from a gondola below her window. He misunderstands that the motive is not to win her over and retrieve the marriage but to mark the end of the relationship which he is sacrificing in the interests of making a comeback.
Come Rain or Come Shine and Nocturne develop into unlikely farces from ordinary beginnings while Malvern Hills has apparently more sinister undercurrents and Cellists ends the set with the theme of unrealised potential still in the balance. Ishiguro's friendly, conversational narrators and references to jazz, pop and classical music suggest a kinship with Murakami but his surrealism is more domestic, like a situation comedy, and his insight into relationships is more subtly expressed. In fact the quiet melancholy has more in common with the unfulfilled relationship between the staff in service in The Remains of the Day.
The stories are masterpieces of subtle control and gain power from their understatement. They gain from being read together but can also each stand on their own. It is clear that less can certainly be more and that such craftsmanship can be ultimately more satisfying than controversy, pyrotechnics and flamboyance.
These five 'stories of music and nightfall' are inevitably comparable to movements in a suite, sometimes relying on the musical references to add an emotional charge to the writing but also varying the pace and style as the book progresses. They all deal with relationships at crucial moments, at breaking points or in search of resolution.
In Crooner, the narrator is a guitarist working in Venice who meets an ageing singer who had been a favourite of his mother's. He is invited to accompany the singer to serenade the singer's wife from a gondola below her window. He misunderstands that the motive is not to win her over and retrieve the marriage but to mark the end of the relationship which he is sacrificing in the interests of making a comeback.
Come Rain or Come Shine and Nocturne develop into unlikely farces from ordinary beginnings while Malvern Hills has apparently more sinister undercurrents and Cellists ends the set with the theme of unrealised potential still in the balance. Ishiguro's friendly, conversational narrators and references to jazz, pop and classical music suggest a kinship with Murakami but his surrealism is more domestic, like a situation comedy, and his insight into relationships is more subtly expressed. In fact the quiet melancholy has more in common with the unfulfilled relationship between the staff in service in The Remains of the Day.
The stories are masterpieces of subtle control and gain power from their understatement. They gain from being read together but can also each stand on their own. It is clear that less can certainly be more and that such craftsmanship can be ultimately more satisfying than controversy, pyrotechnics and flamboyance.
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