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BookBrowse - Karen Rigby
Like many of Kazuo Ishiguro's widely-acclaimed novels, Nocturnes charts the nature of shifting relationships, the passage of time, real and perceived failures, the consequences of deferred dreams, feelings of estrangement, and the quiet but destructive erosion that occurs when truth is denied for too long, yet it does so with more attenuated gestures and less reflection... Fans of his novels may enjoy the change of pace offered by this debut, but newer readers may prefer to begin with his previous works, which better exemplify his talents.
Publishers Weekly
The stories are superbly crafted, though they lack the gravity of Ishiguro's longer works, which may leave readers anticipating a crescendo that never hits.
Kirkus Reviews
Like sophisticated literary mood music, this book lingers in the memory, ringing true in theme and metaphor even when lacking plausibility.
Library Journal
Starred Review. Once again Ishiguro does something different; recommended for anyone who loves thoughtful writing.
Booklist
Starred Review. Each tale of musicians, muses, and users is funny and incisive; each is a fable about the dream of mastery and the nightmare of pragmatism; and each dramatic story line delivers arresting psychological transformations.
New York Times - Michiko Kakutani
Unfortunately for the reader, these stories — which, curiously, won rave reviews in Britain — do not share the exquisite narrative command, the carefully modulated irony or the elliptical subtlety of Mr. Ishiguro’s strongest works like Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go. Instead they read like heavy-handed O. Henry-esque exercises; they are psychologically obtuse, clumsily plotted and implausibly contrived.
New York Times - Christopher Hitchens
He seemed to me, in A Pale View of Hills and The Remains of the Day, to have intuited something subtle and miniature and layered, in what I read as a latent analogy between English and Japanese society. In The Unconsoled, which was heavier going, he at least showed how musical commitments could be, as one might say, a cause of 'discord.' Never Let Me Go was so orchestrated as to slowly gather pace and rhythm from its varied sections. But these five too-easy pieces are neither absorbingly serious nor engagingly frivolous: a real problem with a musical set, and a disaster, if only in a minor key, when it’s a question of prose.
The Times (UK)
By now it is clear that this exquisite stylist is serious in his pursuit of a minimal – perhaps even universal – mode of expression for the emotional experiences that define our lives as human. Nocturnes is a set of poised and playful reflections on the falling away of sentiment ... in their deceptively simple exploration of love and loss, they build on the achievement of Never Let Me Go.
Sunday Telegraph (UK)
It is hardly surprising that a writer as resonant, and as emotionally pitch-perfect, as Kazuo Ishiguro should be so keen on music ... [The title story's] set-up is so beautifully engineered that it left me simultaneously gasping in admiration and shaking with laughter.
Evening Standard (UK)
These stories come up on you quietly, in Ishiguro's strangely weightless style [and] haunt you for days ... A nocturne is a piece of music inspired by, or evocative of, the night ...These little pieces could only be the work of a great composer.
The Observer - Tom Fleming (UK)
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, but some have moments of great comedy, and they all require a level of attention that, typically, Ishiguro's writing rewards.