Toward the end of "Malvern Hills," the third of five short stories in British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro's collection "Nocturnes," an unnamed guitarist wanders to a remote bench to finish writing a song.

Kazuo Ishiguro likes to tell stories in the first person. His best-known work, “The Remains of the Day,” is propelled by the voice and vantage of an English butler whose attention to detail blurs his ...