Male Sensitivity: Reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes

When reading this book, I suddenly realized that for all these years, almost all of the writers that I am obsessed with are those who concerns (more) about female sensitivity: Eileen Chang being too significant and exquisite she hardly needs mentioning, Sagan a very girlish, and later womanly, liberated and sometimes-self-judgmental soul, Miss Zhu Tianxin writes intimately not just about women but also lesbians (and apart from that, some larger-than-life issues), Kawabata a master (and connoisseur) of female sensitivity and sensuality, Mishima exhibits emotional depths and artistic aspirations with much complexity that appear more gay and feminine than straight, Kundera is sharp and witty about both sexes, and Proust's sensitive, sentimental and agonizing accounts of human emotions are more woman than a woman! (Eco, however, is rather asexual in this regard).

And so, these new Ishiguro's pieces, depicting variations of male sensitivity, all look fresh to me.

The book's moodiness evokes the feeling of Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth. In a light and blue tone, five stories of poignancy and sadness are slowly and delicately told. It soon becomes obvious that for the narrator(s), women are always elusive (if not unfaithful), incomprehensible and hard to please: Lydia divorces her beloved (, famous, and talented!) husband in order to marry another even more powerful man for her stardom, and plays with the response of another "up-and-coming" musician in the "facial surgery" hotel, acting totally whimsical; Emily leaves both her husband and college-sweetheart disheartened by appearing entirely different in 1) the husband's recollection of her, 2) the narrator's observation of her and 3) her own notes – it was a brilliantly mastered narrative - ; Sonja is so unyielding in coming to agreement with her husband's opinions; and Eloise gave her young apprentice a total blown off when she suddenly appears to be so agreeable to marry her suitor after the earlier indifferent remark on the same person - and the jealous thus evoked in the young was so subtly written - . Nonetheless, it isn't disapproval that Ishiguro is demonstrating here, rather, such portrayal of women underlies a deeper and more complex feeling of loss and frustration, of one's incapability in grasping something precious.

Yes, on the other hand, these men who attempt to get close or to understand the women are all doomed to feel frustrated and disillusioned, however tender, committing and innocent (yes, innocent) they are. It is noticeable that Ishiguro never goes deep into the psychology of these women, he is more concerned about the emotional states the men undergo, and so , the men's frustration of failing in getting hold of a woman/a moment, or making major achievements in their career as a musician in their middle age is very much in grasped in a first person narrative.

This male sensitivity was beautifully and carefully repeated in motif, until at last the very word that can possibly conclude the series of work was uttered (for the first time): bitterness. But it's a kind of bitterness that is beautiful and respectable, because no matter how despair they are, they remain a gentlemen; if the women are graceful in their appearances, then the men are graceful in their hearts and temperaments. And this bitterness comes from, I reckon, one's awareness of being in the midst of this fleeting modernity in which everything is so much in a hurry, that even genuine fondness or affection are too impatient to be held on.

"...soon he will drowse off, then he will wake, and all that time he will be trying to stay as close as he can to the night as it melts inexorably in the light."

- Milan Kundera, Slowness

Milan Kundera deals with a similar idea (but in an entirely different tone and narrative) in his Slowness. With the juxtaposition of two similar embarrassing situations in a clandestine affair took place in 18th century and in modern times, a fading sentiment is depicted: when the 18th Chevalier, as the quotation above tells, tries to cling to an unforgettable night, the modern professor wants to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Upon finishing the last page, a feeling of sadness lingers, and you can almost hear a saxophone being played, rather forlornly...