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I'm not a big fan of short stories, but read these because after the emotion and length of Perdido Street Station, I wanted a total change, and I'd been meaning to try another Ishiguro (I enjoyed Remains of the Day in my twenties, but more recently, gave Never Let me Go only 2*)

They were certainly a contrast, and they were perfectly competent, and had a connecting theme (music), but... That is all. I won't be rushing to read any more Ishiguro.

2.5* rounded down to 2*, because Ishiguro is supposed to be better than this.

AS A COLLECTION
All five stories have music as the link between main characters, and in four of them, the main character is a musician. In the fifth, it's shared musical tastes that are the bond.

There is a certain sadness about the central relationship in each story, and several characters make extreme or odd sacrifices for their careers ((view spoiler)[divorcing when they want to be together, plastic surgery, avoiding tuition lest it spoil the innate talent (hide spoiler)]). Two have sections of borderline slapstick comedy, two are set in Piazza San Marco in Venice with the same narrator (though only one of the stories is about him), two feature the same secondary character.

All are told in the first person (though in the final one, the narrator is actually telling the story of an acquaintance, so the first person aspect is more of a gimmick, presumably to link the first and last stories). Reading short stories in quick succession can be a little disorienting, but it's even more so when "I" keeps changing, but the characters' voices are not distinctively different. Then, in the fourth story, we meet a character from the first - but told by a different narrator! David Mitchell does this sort of thing better, in both Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas.

Reviewers more musical than I am, have seen this collection as being like the sweep of an orchestral piece, with variations and recaps, along with the new.

CROONER
Janeck is a guitarist, who is a ringer for café bands in Piazza San Marco: "A tourist strolling across the square will hear one tune fade out, another fade in, like he's shifting the dial on a radio."

He spots a once-famous US crooner, Tony Gardener, and his rather grumpy wife, Lindy. Tony persuades Jan to accompany him to serenade his wife from a gondola. The reason for this is not what one might expect ((view spoiler)[it's their last holiday before they divorce, so he can make a come-back (hide spoiler)]).

COME RAIN OR COME SHINE
A sad comedy of university friends, about twenty five years later. Ray and Emily bonded over shared taste in music, but she married Charlie, though all three stayed friends. Ray is single and teaches English overseas but regularly goes to stay with Emily and Charlie in their plush London duplex.

On this occasion, Ray finds "his" room unkempt, Charlie highly strung, and Emily discontented. Charlie had invited Ray to keep Emily company while he goes away on business for a couple of days, and also to persuade her not to leave him ((view spoiler)[because in comparison to Ray, Charlie will seem more successful (hide spoiler)]).

It then turns into farce, as one small mistake snowballs into a catalogue of ever more far-fetched episodes.

MALVERN HILLS
A singer-songwriter (guitarist) goes to stay with his sister and her husband for the summer, so he can write in between helping them in their café and living rent-free. They are not really fans of his music.

An Elgar-loving Swiss couple come to the café (also musicians), but there is tension between them, and she dislikes the slow service: "this woman was livid with anger. Not the sort that suddenly hits you then drains away. No, this woman, I could tell, had been in a kind of white heat for some time... It's the sort of anger that arrives and stays put... never quite peaking and refusing to find a proper outlet." This triggers what is potentially the funniest incident ((view spoiler)[sending them to the worst hotel in the town (hide spoiler)]), but it happens off-stage.

NOCTURNE
A supposedly talented, but not very successful tenor sax player is persuaded his lack of success is because of his looks: "Billy's... sexy, bad-guy ugly. You... well, you're dull, loser ugly. The wrong kind of ugly."

Recuperating from plastic surgery in a secret wing of a hotel, he comes to know the ex-wife of a more successful musician. Her route to the top was "The right love affair, the right marriage, the right divorces. All leading to the right magazine covers, the right talk shows." The sort of woman he rather despises.

It's an odd meeting: "She was wearing something that was part night-gown, part cocktail dress... it was at the same time vaguely medical yet glamorous". Both are swathed in facial bandages, so she has no idea what he looks like, and neither can see each other's expressions.

Boredom and bonding over music creates a friendship of a kind, leading to farcical escapades in private areas of the hotel at night, evading security and (view spoiler)[stealing and hiding something (hide spoiler)].

CELLISTS
A café saxophonist in Piazza San Marco spots a former colleague and tells what happened to him a few years earlier: he's a Hungarian classically-trained cellist, and he was taken under the wings of an older American woman. This virtuoso cellist recognised his talent and gave him personal master classes. There is a bit of a twist, though not the one you expect ((view spoiler)[she is a "virtuoso" in theory - she can't actually play because she had to protect her gift from being destroyed by well-intentioned but inadequate teachers (hide spoiler)]. I thought this was the weakest story.