Being a six-books-to-his-name novelist, one who, at least as far as I can recall having seen, has never published a short story before in his life, Kazuo Ishiguro may tempt us to suspect that his new collection of five short stories, Nocturnes, could somehow be "minor" compared to the rest of his output--like the book is an EP dashed off before "proper" albums, like it's a lark less executed than committed before he gets back to the real work of doing a new novel. After reading the opening story, "Crooner," the only thing I can say I suspect right now is that I'm going to be incredibly sad when I get to the end of this slim volume, his slimmest since his first two novels. Sad because there won't be any more book to read. More sad because there's such emotionally wrenching power in his prose, prose that goes down as easy as water splashed with lemon. And saddest yet because, as with Michael Chabon's The Final Solution--another slender tale I've recently completed--lacing sadness through and beneath the surface of stories that might ostensibly profess to have other more immediate concerns in mind (detection and/or music) appears to be at the core of what's going on on the pages in front of me. One of the cores, at least.

Tangled thoughts. I shouldn't be discussing my reactions mid-stream, I suppose, but considering how things get away from me on here, I wanted to make sure I got at least something down in writing this month so I can lay some claim to having done something to promote National Short Story Month, about which you can read lots and lots more over at the Emerging Writers Network blog. Also, I've got this whole self-consciousness thing going on as I read Ishiguro, appropriate considering the concern with seeming lack of concern for self-consciousness that runs through so much of his work; I mean, this being the first real new Ishiguro I get to read since I picked up Never Let Me Go a couple years ago and never looked back. I guess I can't help but read myself reading the book, which is at once annoying and perfectly fine, worth and not worth considering. Whatever, I don't know, that first story kills, and the only reason I didn't spend the rest of the night reading the rest of the book is because I just know I need to savor it, and, well, yeah. Savor it.