书名：Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall 小夜曲——音乐与黄昏五故事集
作者：Kazuo Ishiguro石黑一雄
出版社名称：Vintage 
出版时间：2010
语种：英文
ISBN：9780307455789
商品尺寸：13.2 x 1.7 x 20.3 cm
包装：平装
页数：240 （以实物为准）

悠悠隽永的老歌，郁郁寡欢的乐手，风光不再的歌星，孤芳自赏的琴音……名噪国际文坛的石黑一雄在他的Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall《小夜曲——音乐与黄昏五故事集》这第一部短篇集里，通过对现实的巧妙复制与自我融入，创造了一组音乐人生的浮世绘。

本书以音乐为线索，由五个看似独立却又相互关联的故事组成：Crooner《伤心情歌手》、ComeRainor Come Shine《不论下雨或晴天》、Malvern Hills《莫尔文山》、Nocturne《小夜曲》、Cellists《大提琴手》。

在这精雕细琢的5篇小说当中，作者着力探索的爱、音乐和时光的流逝。从意大利的比萨店到马尔文山伦敦的一处公寓，再到奢华的好莱坞酒店，而我们邂逅的人物则从年轻的梦想家到咖啡馆音乐家，再到过气的明星……温柔、私密而又机智，这一阕五重奏有个挥之不去的主题：即便年华老去，情感倍加挣扎、年轻时的希望逐渐破灭，仍拼命想抓住人生那点浪漫的感觉。
From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize–winning novelThe Remains of the Day comes an inspired sequence of stories as affecting as it is beautiful.    
With the clarity and precision that have become his trademarks, Kazuo Ishiguro interlocks five short pieces of fiction to create a world that resonates with emotion, heartbreak, and humor. Here is a fragile, once famous singer, turning his back on the one thing he loves; a music junky with little else to offer his friends but opinion; a songwriter who inadvertently breaks up a marriage; a jazz musician who thinks the answer to his career lies in changing his physical appearance; and a young cellist whose tutor has devised a remarkable way to foster his talent. For each, music is a central part of their lives and, in one way or another, delivers them to an epiphany.
Review
“Expressive and harmonic, delicate yet substantive.... [A] true virtuoso performance.” —Christian Science Monitor

“In both craft and substance Nocturnes reveals a master at work.” —Seattle Times
 
“Immaculate.” —Los Angeles Times
 
“Ishiguro is, as always, a master of style and tone.... [Nocturnes] build[s] into a melancholic soundtrack. We’re helpless to do anything but listen.” —Time Out New York

“Tight and assured.... Suffused with sympathy.” —Time
 
“These stories recall Ishiguro’s best known novel,The Remains of the Day.... 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.”  — The Times, London
 
“Superb... a deceptively plain and easy style that rides on the surfaces of manners and decorous behavior.”  — Providence Journal
 
“A brilliant new book... art, its dangers, its pains and its gaiety [are] all topics seriously considered in this accomplished book.”  —Frank Kermode, London Review of Books
 
“Ishiguro blends musical concepts with their literary counterparts in his latest work, and Nocturnes has the... quality of a song cycle with recurring themes and motifs developed in different prose keys.”  —Bookmarks magazine

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall《小夜曲》是石黑一雄的***短篇集，全书以音乐为线索，由五个看似独立却又相互关联的故事组成。故事的主要人物都同音乐情牵相关：郁郁不得志的餐厅乐手，风光不再的过气歌星，孤芳自赏的大提琴手，为求成功被迫整容的萨克斯手等等，多是对音乐一往情深，对生活却满腹牢骚。情节或荒诞不经，或令人唏嘘，借音乐人生这个主题，表现了作者一贯的对现代人生存状态的反思：理想与现实的差距，命运的嘲弄，才华的折磨，以及庞大社会机器控制下被压抑的情感……
值得一提的是，《小夜曲》中大量出现的音乐家、歌手、歌名，绝大部分都是真实的，令人仿若置身于上世纪五十至八十年代的当红歌手和经典曲目之中；而音乐，恰是作者年轻时曾经涉足，并浸淫于其中，乃至立志从事的。
One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character.
A once-popular singer, desperate to make a comeback, turning from the one certainty in his life... A man whose unerring taste in music is the only thing his closest friends value in him... A struggling singer-songwriter unwittingly involved in the failing marriage of a couple he’s only just met... A gifted, underappreciated jazz musician who lets himself believe that plastic surgery will help his career... A young cellist whose tutor promises to “unwrap” his talent...
Passion or necessity—or the often uneasy combination of the two—determines the place of music in each of these lives. And, in one way or another, music delivers each of them to a moment of reckoning: sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes just eluding their grasp.
An exploration of love, need, and the ineluctable force of the past, Nocturnes reveals these individuals to us with extraordinary precision and subtlety, and with the arresting psychological and emotional detail that has marked all of Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed works of fiction.

石黑一雄（Kazuo Ishiguro），日裔英国小说家，1954年生于日本长崎。1989年获得“布克奖”，与奈保尔、拉什迪并称“英国文坛移民三雄”。被英国皇室授勋为文学骑士，并获授法国艺术文学骑士勋章。
2017年，石黑一雄获得诺贝尔文学奖。瑞典学院给出的获奖理由为“石黑一雄的小说，以其巨大的情感力量，发掘了隐藏在我们与世界联系的幻觉之下的深渊。”
石黑一雄文体以细腻优美著称，几乎每部小说都被提名或得奖，其作品已被翻译成二十八种语言。
虽然拥有日本和英国双重的文化背景，但石黑一雄却是极为少数的、不专以移民或是国族认同作为小说题材的亚裔作家之一。他致力于写出一本对于生活在任何一个文化背景之下的人们，都能够产生意义的小说。于是，石黑一雄的每一本小说几乎都在开创一个新的格局，横跨了欧洲的贵族文化、现代中国、日本，乃至于1990年代晚期的英国生物科技实验，而屡屡给读者带来耳目一新的惊喜。
石黑一雄的出版作品如下：1982年《远山淡影》（A Pale View of Hills），获得“英国皇家学会”（Royal Society of Literature）温尼弗雷德?霍尔比奖（Winifred Holtby Prize）。1986年《浮世画家》（An Artist of the Floating World），获英国及爱尔兰图书协会颁发的“惠特布莱德”年度小说奖（Whitbread Book of the Year Award）和英国布克奖（Booker Prize）的提名。1989年《长日留痕》（The Remains of the Day），荣获英国布克奖，并荣登《出版家周刊》的畅销排行榜。1995年《无可慰藉》（The Unconsoled）赢得了“契尔特纳姆”文学艺术奖（Cheltenham Prize）。2000年《我辈孤雏》（When We Were Orphans），再次获得布克奖提名。2005年《别让我走》（Never Let Me Go），也入围了布克奖后决选名单，并获全世界文学奖奖金zui高的“欧洲小说奖”（European Novel Award）。2009年短篇故事集《夜曲》（Nocturne）。2015年，睽违十年后推出长篇小说《被掩埋的巨人》，再度席卷欧美与亚洲书市。
Kazuo Ishiguro is the 2017 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages. BothThe Remains of the Day andNever Let Me Go have sold more than 1 million copies, and both were adapted into highly acclaimed films. Ishiguro’s other work includesThe Buried Giant,Nocturnes,A Pale View of the Hills, andAn Artist of the Floating World.

Crooner伤心情歌手
ComeRainor Come Shine不论下雨或晴天
Malvern Hills莫尔文山
Nocturne小夜曲
Cellists大提琴手

Crooner
Chapter 1
The morning I spotted Tony Gardner sitting among the tourists, spring was just arriving here in Venice. We’d completed our first full week outside in the piazza—a relief, let me tell you, after all those stuffy hours performing from the back of the cafe, getting in the way of customers wanting to use the staircase. There was quite a breeze that morning, and our brand-new marquee was flapping all around us, but we were all feeling a little bit brighter and fresher, and I guess it showed in our music.
But here I am talking like I’m a regular band member. Actually, I’m one of the “gypsies,” as the other musicians call us, one of the guys who move around the piazza, helping out whichever of the three cafe orchestras needs us. Mostly I play here at the Caffè Lavena, but on a busy afternoon, I might do a set with the Quadri boys, go over to the Florian, then back across the square to the Lavena. I get on fine with them all—and with the waiters too—and in any other city I’d have a regular position by now. But in this place, so obsessed with tradition and the past, everything’s upside down. Anywhere else, being a guitar player would go in a guy’s favour. But here? A guitar! The cafe managers get uneasy. It looks too modern, the tourists won’t like it. Last autumn I got myself a vintage jazz model with an oval sound-hole, the kind of thing Django Reinhardt might have played, so there was no way anyone would mistake me for a rock-and-roller. That made things a little easier, but the cafe managers, they still don’t like it. The truth is, if you’re a guitarist, you can be Joe Pass, they still wouldn’t give you a regular job in this square.
There’s also, of course, the small matter of my not being Italian, never mind Venetian. It’s the same for that big Czech guy with the alto sax. We’re well liked, we’re needed by the other musicians, but we don’t quite fit the official bill. Just play and keep your mouth shut, that’s what the cafe managers always say. That way the tourists won’t know you’re not Italian. Wear your suit, sunglasses, keep the hair combed back, no one will know the difference, just don’t start talking.
But I don’t do too bad. All three cafe orchestras, especially when they have to play at the same time from their rival tents, they need a guitar—something soft, solid, but amplified, thumping out the chords from the back. I guess you’re thinking, three bands playing at the same time in the same square, that would sound like a real mess. But the Piazza San Marco’s big enough to take it. A tourist strolling across the square will hear one tune fade out, another fade in, like he’s shifting the dial on a radio. What tourists can’t take too much of is the classical stuff, all these instrumental versions of famous arias. Okay, this is San Marco, they don’t want the latest pop hits. But every few minutes they want something they recognise, maybe an old Julie Andrews number, or the theme from a famous movie. I remember once last summer, going from band to band and playing “The Godfather” nine times in one afternoon.
Anyway there we were that spring morning, playing in front of a good crowd of tourists, when I saw Tony Gardner, sitting alone with his coffee, almost directly in front of us, maybe six metres back from our marquee. We get famous people in the square all the time, we never make a fuss. At the end of a number, maybe a quiet word will go around the band members. Look, there’s Warren Beatty. Look, it’s Kissinger. That woman, she’s the one who was in the movie about the men who swap their faces. We’re used to it. This is the Piazza San Marco after all. But when I realised it was Tony Gardner sitting there, that was different. I did get excited.
Tony Gardner had been my mother’s favourite. Back home, back in the communist days, it had been really hard to get records like that, but my mother had pretty much his whole collection. Once when I was a boy, I scratched one of those precious records. The apartment was so cramped, and a boy my age, you just had to move around sometimes, especially during those cold months when you couldn’t go outside. So I was playing this game jumping from our little sofa to the armchair, and one time I misjudged it and hit the record player. The needle went across the record with a zip—this was long before CDs—and my mother came in from the kitchen and began shouting at me. I felt so bad, not just because she was shouting at me, but because I knew it was one of Tony Gardner’s records, and I knew how much it meant to her. And I knew that this one too would now have those popping noises going through it while he crooned those American songs. Years later, when I was working in Warsaw and I got to know about black-market records, I gave my mother replacements of all her worn-out Tony Gardner albums, including that one I scratched. It took me over three years, but I kept getting them, one by one, and each time I went back to see her I’d bring her another.