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Musical Stories Spellbindingly Narrated – Nocturnes | Kazuo Ishiguro

Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Short Stories, Music

 

Kazuo Ishiguro is a name that has gained quite a lot of favor in the literary world recently owing to his Booker Prize winner – Never Let me Go. So it is of no surprise that when I spotted a hardcopy with a pretty cover and a tagline ‘Five Stories of Music and Nightfall’ authored by Kazuo Ishiguro, I instinctively picked it up.

Nocturnes is a collection of five short stories, spinning around music in Europe, nostalgically narrated and abruptly ended. I vaguely remember reading An Artist of the Floating World by Ishiguro, but these stories have a similar charm to them – a style that inexplicably weaves the reader into the narrator’s world.

A common thread across these stories is a love or pursuit of music and fame or the desire for recognition Then there are the troubled couples, lovers whom life has slowly clinched apart and those who are still inching closer and finding each other. But they only form a part of the story, a background tune. Rather, it’s the fleeting moments shared between strangers connected through music that form the chorus, with the impending goodbye as the crescendo.

In some ways, these stories are about travelling and meeting new people – who you never really know except in the few hours that they decide to spend with you. It’s about people who you wish you could have known better or people that bring out a different side to you – sometimes they are inviting and mysterious like a tune you can’t get out of your head, and then, as suddenly as they appeared, they disappear and become another of those strangers you might catch a glimpse of from afar.

Nocturnes builds up a rhythm of its own. It has the kind of stories you would exchange with unfamiliar faces across a campfire, a bit to impress but really to avoid forgetting them yourself. These are stories that don’t necessarily lead to a well-formed ending but have still somehow stayed with the narrator all along – eternal mysteries wrapped around quirks in a stranger’s behavior.

The book is a light read that draws you in and shows you the colorful, vibrant and nostalgic world of a stray musician – full of lies and dreams. Even if you’re not the short story kind, if you’re looking for a change of pace and love music enough to experiment with it, Nocturnes is definitely a go-ahead. And if you’ve read anything else by Ishiguro, I wouldn’t mind a recommendation myself.

P.S. This was slow in coming to me but I finally remember why the title sounds strangely familiar. Think Neil Gaiman and his graphic novel Sandman – no wonder then that this nocturnes has a dream-like aura itself!

 

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A Treat of a Book – A Man Called Ove | Fredrik Backman

 


A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Slice of Life

 

Let me start with this fact.
One of the major characters in this book is a cat and Ove (the grumpy old man who’s the lead, as is evident from the title) has a name for said cat.
There. For those who find this information enough, I wish you pleasant reading as you make your way to your favorite bookstore to get a copy.

Meanwhile, I’ll try to present a better case for why this books is hands-down the sweetest book I’ve ever read. This is a book that restored my trust in humanity. No kidding. It’s not to be read for some thrilling plot or an edge-of-a-cliff storyline, but to explore the characters and know more about them with every turn of the page. And even though the story is as everyday as it gets, you’ll still find yourself surprised by the small connections and the small moments that inevitably strike a chord in your heart.

Then there is the viewpoint of Ove – an old, painfully righteous, man living alone. Ove, as the book itself puts, is the type of person you just don’t find in the world anymore, except in the grandfather age generation, maybe; the type that will find a nasty way of saying the nicest things; the type that are completely misunderstood despite meaning so well; the type that find that easily get irritated but still go out of their way to help others; the type that will never accept that they mean well even if you tie them to a railway line and threaten their lives. And that gives a completely fresh and unique perspective to the story.

Reading ‘A man called Ove’ is like returning to your home at the end of a tiring day and finding your loved ones sitting at the dinner table waiting for you, Imagine that feeling and multiply it with the number of chapters in the book, and that might give an estimation of how I felt about this book. This is how my thoughts went while reading it (in similar order):

#1
I swear this is a book about my grandfather

#2
Wait. Why am I relating so much to a grumpy old man who doesn’t like espresso machines?

#3
I wonder if all old people are like this.

#4
Awww….

 

Literally. This is how I felt at the end. I realized that there is as little we understand of the people we know as we are quick to form opinions about them. I started as the salesman at the electronic store who was ready to hand Ove the ‘Most Annoying Customer of the Day’ title and ended up as the kid who’d paint the entire world in monotone and just Ove in colour.

Reading this book is like loving someone, and as Sonja (Ove’s wife) puts it

“Loving someone is like moving into a house. At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren’t actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it’s cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without them creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.”

Backman has such a talent for putting feelings into words that it leaves you speechless. Like all your life, you’ve been wanting to say the same thing but didn’t know how. And he comes along and frames those thoughts into sentences more true and beautiful than poetry.

The humor is one thing I felt the writing fell short of. The prose is often interposed by lines of dry humor which barely draw a chuckle. Still, a bit of it can be justified by Ove’s character which might lean more towards humor of this kind. I chose to give Backman the benefit of doubt in this case because the writing and story is beyond such small tidbits.

If you like indie music and slice-of-life series; and your catchphrase is cut-the-drama, you’ll probably like ‘A man called Ove’. Even if it’s not and you’re looking for a slow read, I’ll highly recommend this.

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How I embarrass myself where I don’t want to most

That is, in front of people I like.

And people I want to like me back.

More precisely, here, a guy who works in a cafe which makes the best coffee in town. And I love coffee.

First, something about me. If I have to describe myself in one word, it would be awkward. Not the cute awkward. No. But the uncomfortable bumpy ride in a car when you’re holding in your pee kind of awkward. I’m usually quiet but when I do say something, it is totally out of place and just plain random. Picture Luna Lovegood. That’s me when I speak. Only stick a weird smile to that face. Because for some reason I always find myself smiling when I speak to people no matter how inappropriate it is in the situation, and I can’t help it. Awkward right? Now you get the idea.

Today I walked into the cafe again. It was my third day visiting the cafe and the fifth day since the cafe had opened. I had coincidentally walked into it on its first day and had been taken in(head and soul) by the Siphon coffee they had. It’s hard to find cafes that actually brew coffee in India. So it was a rare gem.

‘You again!’ one of the chefs remarked. The cafe had an open kitchen where you could watch the chefs preparing your orders. Like in a bar. Albeit with healthier stuff. Mostly. If it’s not obvious yet, this is the chef. The one I want to look cool to(or at the least, not ruin myself with my terrific social skills). The cafe had an informal air about it where the owner roamed about chatting to customers, exchanging opinions and small talks. Somehow I had ended up talking to a number of chefs on my first visit owing to my fascination with coffee. Still I hadn’t counted on being remembered so to cover up my surprise I chimed, ‘Hey! That’s kinda rude!’ and sat down smiling. Fail! As if on cue, a thousand buzzers went off in my mind. In the world of Inside Out, my feelings panel would be ringing the ABORT siren with all its might. Why did I say that? He works here! If any customer calls him rude, isn’t that bad for him. Even though I had made it apparent that I was joking. What if had cost him his job? Did the owner hear that? And so my mind went on accusing me of more and more serious allegations I had no defense against until the waiter came to take my order. I hurriedly ordered my Siphon and opened my laptop, doing my best to type away my embarrassment through my assignment.

Maybe, it wasn’t so surprising that he remembered my face. The last time I came here was the second day the cafe had opened and he had recognized me from the previous day — ‘You came here yesterday, right? You were pretty interested in the coffee and all.’ ‘Yeah’, I said, feeling a bit flattered. And then jumped into another discussion about the various coffees they offered, before stopping when I had to word what I was saying in three different ways to get my point across(remember the awkward part?).

I was dying to move to the table adjacent to the kitchen so I could watch the chefs work a little(which was fascinating) between my assignment. But owing to my overthinking cranial nerves, decided it would be too weird to move now that I had settled myself on another table. I struggled with my food(I’m a messy eater) and relished my coffee, as slowly as I could, so that I could finish my assignment and stay in the cafe a bit longer. When I could stall no more, I shut my laptop, put it in my bag and made my way to the billing machine.

As I paid the bill, the owner came up to me and started inquiring about the consistency of the coffee(he too mentioning that it was the third time I had visited). We also talked a bit about the other outlets they had, why they had such a limited coffee menu and what he had in mind for the cafe next. Since I was fairly curious about it (a euphemism), I asked him where he sourced his coffee from, and came to know about a wonderful independent coffee roaster in Delhi. The owner generously gave me the roaster’s number when I told him how I always had trouble finding good beans. While we were chatting I casually said, ‘You know, the first time I came around to this place, I was both happy and a little jealous. It’s such a rare cafe, especially in India but then, I had always hoped to open something like this myself 5–6 years down the line and you beat me to it.’ Fail! Mental facepalm. Why? It was going so good! What are you? A 10 year old school girl confessing her secret hobby? You’re not supposed to say these things out loud! How is the other person supposed to react to this?!

I needed to escape. I quickly paid. Focusing on the bills rather than the person on the other side of the machine(which was the owner again). But as I turned to leave, I saw the chef kneeling beside a cabinet and sorting through the stuff in there. He happened to look up and seeing me leave, did a quick wave. That killed me. The disheveled look with the lopsided specs and the clumsy wave — killed me. And knowing in another parallel segment of my brain that can somehow predict the outcomes of all my impulsive decisions to be regret, to be felt even by the tiniest of my bones, I still bent down (and smiled) and said, ‘Can I get your name?’ Boom! went the brain, but I was too far gone to withdraw now. ‘What?’, he remarked. ‘Your name. I didn’t get it.’ ‘Oh. It’s ____.’ He said. Damn! ‘Thanks’, I smiled. And turned away. But somehow there seemed to be something missing. What is the use if he doesn’t know my name? I turned around again(as the rational cells in my pumped up brain screamed in protest) and said, to no one in particular, ‘I’m Tulika by the way.’ Silence. I didn’t dare look around. The entire cafe seemed to freeze. What had I done? How loud was I? If I could blush, my face would have been a steaming beetroot by then. My mental eye spotted the door and I made my way to it looking down all the way for fear I would catch someone’s eyes and melt to the ground in a sloppy mess.

Once out, I walked a few steps to the right and buried my face in my hands. I had done it. This shot up to the top of my embarrassing moments list. Infact I couldn’t even remember the runner ups anymore. I can never show my face in there again! And it wa-is my favorite cafe. He’ll think that I was hitting on him for sure! What if he was married? He didn’t look old enough. But since when have I been a good judge of age? What if a married guy thought I was hitting on him? Was I hitting on him? And so they went on. Fazing in and out between all these thoughts was the quiet knowledge that he had the same name as my ex crush.