serenade

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

This is the author's first collection of short stories, woven through the thread of music, and composed of five seemingly independent yet interconnected stories. The main characters are all deeply connected to music: a frustrated restaurant musician, a washed-up singer whose fame has faded, a self-absorbed cellist, a saxophonist forced into plastic surgery for success, and so on. Many are deeply devoted to music yet deeply dissatisfied with life. The plots range from the absurd to the heartbreaking. Through the theme of musical life, the author expresses his consistent reflections on the modern human condition: the gap between ideals and reality, the mockery of fate, the torment of talent, and the repressed emotions controlled by the vast social machine...
It is worth mentioning that most of the musicians, singers and song titles that appear in the book are real, making people feel as if they are among the popular singers and classic songs from the 1950s to the 1980s; and music is exactly what the author had dabbled in, immersed in, and even determined to pursue when he was young.

2011-04-01

上海译文出版社

246

9787532752782