PositiveThe Guardian...what most binds these stories: the conflict between what music promises and what life delivers. Nocturnes is Ishiguro's first collection of short stories, after six novels ... Like a cycle, the collection begins and ends in the same place – Italy – and it contains modulations of tone that would be awkward within a single narrative ... All the narrators in Nocturnes sound roughly similar and the collection is saved from monotony by Ishiguro's subtle shifts of register ... The bittersweet memories that such music evokes make it suited to Ishiguro's style, but the air of stillness and regret, and the sense of missed opportunities, are tempered now and then by moments of farce or surrealism. Each of these stories is heartbreaking in its own way.
