Ilse’s review of The Coast of Chicago: Stories > Likes and Comments
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Dybek sounds a bit too close to Dybbuk for comfort ! ;)
Jan-Maat wrote: "Dybek sounds a bit too close to Dybbuk for comfort ! ;)"
Fortunately no ghosts in the one story that I read from this collection, not even Chopin's :)!
Your words are truly beautiful, Ilse. Melancholy and nostalgia aren’t prisons. I could feel the music’s power as I read your review.
Thank you so much.
Sublime, Ilse. I caught this at a time when I'm actually going through a bit of a Chopin Mazurka phase :p The most Polish of Chopin's work!
I found. Some months ago now, a podcast called, fittingly, 'The Chopin Podcast' with Ben Laude and Garrick Ohlson, 2 instructors from the 'tonebase piano' website. In each episode they cover a different 'genre' or form of Chopin composition and go into such wonderful detail. The very fact that you have such a love for Chopin tells me you would adore it but at the same time, maybe the practical troubleshooting of specific pieces would not be of as much interest to you and I know that not everyone is a fan of peaking behind the curtains at how a piece is constructed. Anyway, I found it spellbinding, much like this little sonatina of a review, and thought to let you know. All the best :)
What a wonderful scene you’ve reproduced here, dear Ilse. You made me go to my shelf and drag out Dybek’a story collection. I remember I’ve got it after reading the one of his stories online. I believe it was about a first love. And it was incredible moving. But since then I have not read him as those things go. This story seem to be a good place to come
back to him. Also just yesterday I’ve bought in a used bookshop the memoir by George Sand about her winter in Mallorca she spent with Chopin. It was totally an impulse buy:-). I didn’t even know they knew each other. One more book to read:-)
Maria wrote: "Your words are truly beautiful, Ilse. Melancholy and nostalgia aren’t prisons. I could feel the music’s power as I read your review.
Thank you so much."
Thank you so much for your kind comment, Maria. This story is such a beautiful illustration how melancholy and nostalgia can have a meaningful place in one's life without in the least sombering, freezing or paralysing it. Dybek managed to give the impression that Chopin's music itself is writing the story - just as the music writes itself into these lives, leaving a deep emotional impression even if only living on in memory. In the context of the Polish background of the characters, Dybek's choice for the music of Chopin makes it resonate profoundly in the story.
In 1896, Proust dedicated this poem to Chopin, which I add here as a greeting to you this morning:
Chopin, mer de soupirs, de larmes, de sanglots
Q’un vol de papillons sans se poser traverse
Jouant sur la tristesse ou dansant sur les flots.
Rêve, aime, souffre, crie, apaise, charme ou berce,
Toujours tu fais courir entre chaque douleur
L’oubli vertigineux et doux de ton caprice
Comme les papillons volent de fleur en fleur;
De ton chagrin alors ta joie est la complice:
L’ardeur du tourbillon accroit la soif des pleurs.
De la lune et des eaux pâle et doux camarade,
Prince du désespoir ou grand seigneur trahi,
Tu t’exaltes encore, plus beau d’etre pâli,
Du soleil inondant ta chambre de malade
Qui pleure a lui sourire et souffre de le voir…
Sourire du regret et larmes de l’Espoir!
I read this book recently and owe a review. After your great review, I want to reread it.
Ilse wrote: "Maria wrote: "Your words are truly beautiful, Ilse. Melancholy and nostalgia aren’t prisons. I could feel the music’s power as I read your review.
Thank you so much."
Thank you so much for your kin..."
Ilse, thank you so much. Your comment felt like a gift wrapped in generosity, and the poem you shared was truly lovely. I appreciate your kindness.
Maria.
John wrote: "I read this book recently and owe a review. After your great review, I want to reread it."
Your description of the tenderness and nostalgia really drew me in. Wonderful review, Ilse!
Linda wrote: "Lovely review, Ilse."
Thank you so much, Linda - I was surprised to discover that this story dates from the 1980s, the writing style seemed to evoke an earlier era.
Wonderful and caring review, Ilse! Thank you :)
That passage you included will send me looking for Stuart Dybek's writing, Ilse. And your further thoughts on the story conjure up those inhabitants of the music-haunted boardinghouse so well that I can see them vividly. It's as if I've viewed a painting that has a soundtrack accompanying it—a magical experience!
Jonathan wrote: "Sublime, Ilse. I caught this at a time when I'm actually going through a bit of a Chopin Mazurka phase :p The most Polish of Chopin's work!
Thank you very much for stopping by and leaving such an inspiring and generous comment, Jonathan, so glad to hear from you! I hope all is well with you and your family? So exciting that you are going through a Chopin phase at the moment, do you enjoy playing the mazurka's? I'll definitely check out that Chopin podcast when I see a chance, I very much enjoyed the short pieces on the different genres and forms that followed on a short biography I read on Chopin a couple of years ago (Chopin, by Camille Bourniquel) and with an ever growing love for his music, I am very eager to learn more. Last season, we had the luck to attend a few piano recitals in Brussels, among them Seong-Jin Cho playing Chopin's 14 waltzes. Recalling how mesmerized I was listening to the 24 preludes played by Jan Lisiecki, I am again tempted to look for tickets for the concert of Pavel Kolesnikov who will play the 21 nocturnes in October while I had the intention to skip the piano recitals this season because of pratical reasons - the chance to hear Chopin played by such superb musicians is very hard to resist :). All the best with working your way into Chopin!
What a beautiful review: words and image. What a beautifully written story, too - especially the paragraph you quote in full, which was my favourite (of many).
I wonder, is there a connection between chopin in winter and a winter in Majorca?
Life has to be lived forwards, but music brings us back (=tous les matins...purpose of music is to return the dead to us?) to our past, creating emotional bonds between generations, but I suppose those are lived out forwards too?
That quote you open with is amazing and then your review suggests such a vast topic that I find it difficult to believe this is a short story. Sounds like a truly epic one.
Ilse wrote: "do you enjoy playing the mazurka's?"
Oh, playing? No. Listening? Yes!
A misconception that I'm always eager to mend quickly as to not appear some sort of fraud is that I am very much a beginner on the piano. I am only just beginning to work my way through Bach's Little Preludes and even pieces such as Clementi or Diabelli Sonatinas would be a stretch goal for me. In fact, I've recently started an online course which follows the Russian tradition of piano playing in the vein of teachers like Heinrich Neuhaus and the brilliant Sviatoslav Richter so for the time being I've sucked up what little pride I had and taken it right back to basics to make reparations to the foundations of my self-taught technique.
Some of the Mazurkas are intermediate pieces though so they are within the realm of possibility as a long term goal. :)
Funny, I just looked up Kolesnikov and his most recommended recording is actually of the Mazurkas and it won a Diapason d'Or de l'Année. I'll have a listen. Regarding the Nocturne... Go on, get the tickets! 😉😁
Katia wrote: "What a wonderful scene you’ve reproduced here, dear Ilse. You made me go to my shelf and drag out Dybek’a story collection. I remember I’ve got it after reading the one of his stories online. "
Thank you very much dear Katia, the story you remember from Stuart Dybek sounds very promising as well! Because you thought it was a love story, you reminded me of that collection you read and tipped me years ago, My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro edited by Jeffrey Eugenides – and taking it from the shelf, guess what I discovered? A story by Stuart Dybek, “We didn’t” – could that by chance be the one you have read? What a lovely coincidence that you were also drawn to Chopin vicariously 😊 (Did you buy Un hiver à Majorque? To my shame, I still haven’t read it yet despite having bought a copy of it in my teens). Oddly enough I keep on reading about Sand – she features quite prominently in whatever I happen to read about the life of Chopin (and isn’t always treated kindly by Chopin biographers (eg Helse liefde, in which the Dutch author Frederik Bastet constructed a voluminous literary quartet out of the relationships of Chopin, Sand, Liszt and Marie D’Agoult ) but barely get to read what she actually wrote herself, with the exception of a novella and her correspondence with Gustave Flaubert, in which she comes across as a very loving, wise, patient and warm person. I think you just helped me to decide which book to take on holiday to France (in September), thank you so much my dear!
John wrote: "I read this book recently and owe a review. After your great review, I want to reread it."
John, thank you so much, that is very kind of you to say so. Please do let me know if you post a review, I am curious about the other stories in this collection. Did 'Chopin in Winter' resonate with you?
Ilse wrote: "Katia wrote: "What a wonderful scene you’ve reproduced here, dear Ilse. You made me go to my shelf and drag out Dybek’a story collection. I remember I’ve got it after reading the one of his stories..."
Thank you very much Ilse, my dear! It is this story indeed! What I would be doing without you - I've totally forgotten where I've read it and why! Definitely my memory is becoming very unreliable:-) But due to you the mystery is solved:-) Also I am very happy that you would take Sand on holidays with you! Some part of France is sufficiently close to Majorca:-) But whenever you go I hope you would enjoy the book. I want to read it as well soon. I've read the first page and got it straightaway. Though you seem to be much more knowledgeable about George Sand even before reading it. Hope the preparations are on the way for certain celebrations that I plan to email you separately about (though knowing me and my memory, it might be a delayed mail:-)))
Maria wrote: Ilse, thank you so much. Your comment felt like a gift wrapped in generosity, and the poem you shared was truly lovely. I appreciate your kindness.
You are very welcome, Maria, I am really happy to hear that you liked the poem, thank you for reading it and responding. Perhaps because I have been reading on Proust lately (a collection of short essays with fragments of the cycle), this story made me associate Proust with Chopin, what hadn't occurred to me before. Now I can not 'unhear' the possibility of such connection anymore, and apparently Chopin’s winding, undulating musical phrases have been compared to Proust's own long, looping, stream-of-consciousness sentences - a comparison that I find highly intriguing and exciting and worthwhile exploring further :)
Brooke wrote: "Your description of the tenderness and nostalgia really drew me in. Wonderful review, Ilse!"
So glad to hear that, thank you very much for your kind comment, Brooke! It was quite the atmospheric story, Dybek managed to evoke life as it was lived in that time and place with verve, the constraints of the community as well as the small escapes from them.
I felt transported while reading your incredible review, Ilse. This sounds like a gorgeous and dreamlike reading experience.
Alexandra wrote: "Wonderful and caring review, Ilse! Thank you :)"
Thank you very much for reading this and leaving such a kind comment, Alexandra :) This was a moving tribute to the beauty and power of Chopin's music, an excellent find for someone who adores Chopin like this reader does ;)
Ilse, this gem of a review, polished to a brilliant shine, has led me to a new to me author. Many thanks! I look forward to meeting Dybek at some future date. And you have sent me off to listen to Chopin this morning as I start my day. 😄
A most wondrous review, Ilse - and introduction (for me) to this author and this story. Thank you.
tender, atmospheric and dreamlike -- so the story itself echoes Chopin's music, wisps trailing like smoke through every mysterious nook and cranny in the old dwelling, even under the water of the bathtub.
It sounds so poignant, achingly lovely. Thank you. And although you are focusing on this story, the title The Coast of Chicago is rather intriguing as well.
Fionnuala wrote: "That passage you included will send me looking for Stuart Dybek's writing, Ilse. And your further thoughts on the story conjure up those inhabitants of the music-haunted boardinghouse so well that ..."
Thank you so much for your generous comment and putting that lovely picture in my mind of the painting with soundtrack, Fionnuala 😊– being able to evoke the power of music with words is quite a feat (thinking of that saying that ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture’), and Dybek persuasively makes the music pivotal in the story, as if the music is a character too. Stuart Dybek was another delightful discovery thanks to the short story reading group, so I am happy his writing also spoke to you and that you consider reading him. The readers who contribute to the group have truly terrific reading taste and I appreciate their efforts to present the stories greatly. I rarely manage to read them, but the ones I could read so far were rewarding and fascinating reading experiences.
Oh, also, may I please know about the short story reading group, if it's open to new members?
Your prose mirrors the very music you describe, it moves with a delicate, rhythmic cadence that feels as deliberate and soulful as a Chopin nocturne. Exquisite review, Ilse!
Lovely review, Ilse. So sensitive and wise.
Cecily wrote: "What a beautiful review: words and image. What a beautifully written story, too - especially the paragraph you quote in full, which was my favourite (of many)."
Thank you so much, Cecily. I loved your review, how you evoked that the story sang for itself and the subtlety of Dybek's observations. I thought that paragraph moving, and of a lyrical beauty, almost a prose poem, a very fine of fusion of music, silence and longing.
I love this review Ilse, as a short story lover I was tempted to add. It's clearly an atmospheric read, the photo you shred supports that too!! Great review as usual 🤗🎈
Jan-Maat wrote: "I wonder, is there a connection between chopin in winter and a winter in Majorca?
Life has to be lived forwards, but music brings us back (=tous les matins...purpose of music is to return the dead..."
Having still not read the Sand novel yet, I am not sure if there’s a connection, but I hope to find out soon 😊. I think Dybek chose Chopin because of Chopin's supreme place in Polish culture. In Dybek’s story, the harsh Chicago winter mirrors the bleakness and isolation in the lives of the characters, the drab, the cold and the darkness intensifying their shared confinement in the apartment building, the music of Chopin offering them beauty in contrast. The characters huddle near stoves and heaters and come together in mind around the sound of Chopin drifting through the cold walls:
“Michael, come in here by the heater, or if you’re going to stay in there put the burners on,” Mom called.
I lit the burners on the stove. They hovered in the dark like blue crowns of flame, flickering Dzia-Dzia’s shadow across the walls. His head pitched, his arms flew up as he struck the notes. The walls and windowpanes shook with gusts of wind and music. I imagined plaster dust wafting down, coating the kitchen, a fine network of cracks spreading through the dishes.
Life has to be lived forwards, but music brings us back (=tous les matins...purpose of music is to return the dead to us?) to our past, creating emotional bonds between generations, but I suppose those are lived out forwards too?
You word beautifully how the music works differently – and yet the same- for the different generations in this story, who each have their dead to mourn and a past to come to terms with, but who understand that they have to live on, in a country new to them, to tune in to new music and to find common ground that enables them to bond. (Music returning the dead to us is such a powerful thought, I definitely want to re-read 'Tous les matins du monde', even if I start crying only thinking about it).
david wrote: "Wonderful, Ilse!"
Thank you very much for reading this, David! A delightful story, I was impressed with Dybek's fine writing.
Ilse wrote: "Jan-Maat wrote: "I wonder, is there a connection between chopin in winter and a winter in Majorca?
Life has to be lived forwards, but music brings us back (=tous les matins...purpose of music is t..."
Oh, I am sorry, I did not know that "tous les matins du monde" had that effect on you. I f I had known, I would have saved mentioning it until dome day when you really wanted to cry, but couldn't, to be used as the literary equivalent of chopping an onion.
Jeroen wrote: "That quote you open with is amazing and then your review suggests such a vast topic that I find it difficult to believe this is a short story. Sounds like a truly epic one."
Jeroen, you astutely point out what distinguishes some good short stories from great ones, having a much wider range than you would assume to find within the scope of only a couple of pages. The depth Dybek reaches in this story is quite impressive, while at first it seems to capture a short period in a child's memory, it beautifully opens to the past, present and future. Glad you liked that quote as well and have a lovely weekend!( I loved those lines so much that I couldn't resist reading them five times, almost like a poem).
Jonathan wrote: "Ilse wrote: "do you enjoy playing the mazurka's?"
Oh, playing? No. Listening? Yes!
A misconception that I'm always eager to mend quickly as to not appear some sort of fraud is that I am very much ..."
Jonathan, as a totally unmusical person, for whom the compulsory learning to play the recorder at school was sheer torture (even more for the neighbours 😉), almost every piece of music sounds excruciatingly difficult to play to my ears, so I am awestruck each time I read your reviews on the books on music, on musical technique and learning you devour and how devoted you are to learn to play the piano, the thoroughness of your approach again shining through your desire to go back to the basics - for me the sheer ability to read a score and voice it in sound is pure magic. I’ve only heard Pavel Kolesnikov playing piano quatre mains so far, with his partner – and particularly how they played Schubert makes me curious about the Nocturnes, so if I see a chance, sure, I will happily succumb to the temptation, despite all the stress if we will be able to get back home from Brussels 😊.
Katia wrote: Also I am very happy that you would take Sand on holidays with you! Some part of France is sufficiently close to Majorca:-) But whenever you go I hope you would enjoy the book. I want to read it as well soon. I've read the first page and got it straightaway.
Glad to be of service and thank you for making me laugh, dear Katia – and for giving me a little push to put that anthology of Eugenides next to the bed, where it can keep the rest of the pile of books company that I want to read 'soon'(The Maia! Independent people! Elsa Morante! ) – more realistically, I will not be able to start it soon, because I’ve just embarked on that bulky collected stories of William Trevor, of which I intend to read one every Sunday morning for the coming months (or years 😉).
It’s promising that the first page of Sand gripped you sufficiently to go for it! For years I wasn’t so inclined to read Sand, her novels having the reputation of being rather mediocre (and it didn’t help that I mostly associated her with her many impersonators on costumed balls for lawyers 😉), but now I am all ready and curious to finally read her ((view spoiler)).
I love stories with atmosphere in them, Ilse but I have never heard of this writer, so thanks for the introduction.
This is a nice, lyrical review, Ilse. The quote you excerpted is music in words. This seems like a beautiful story with many life lessons. Thanks for this writeup and I also appreciate you clarifying that you were reviewing the one story.
Jonas wrote: "I felt transported while reading your incredible review, Ilse. This sounds like a gorgeous and dreamlike reading experience."
Jonas, thank you so much for your generous comment! This is the type of short story that has everything why I enjoy the genre: a tight composition, a well-drawn atmosphere, slices of life of characters of which the reader can wonder and imagine how their lives will unfold further off the pages - and this story on top made a wonderful use of the music of Chopin to give the relations between the characters depth.
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Jan-Maat
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Jul 26, 2026 12:43PM
Dybek sounds a bit too close to Dybbuk for comfort ! ;)
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Jan-Maat wrote: "Dybek sounds a bit too close to Dybbuk for comfort ! ;)"Fortunately no ghosts in the one story that I read from this collection, not even Chopin's :)!
Your words are truly beautiful, Ilse. Melancholy and nostalgia aren’t prisons. I could feel the music’s power as I read your review.Thank you so much.
Sublime, Ilse. I caught this at a time when I'm actually going through a bit of a Chopin Mazurka phase :p The most Polish of Chopin's work!I found. Some months ago now, a podcast called, fittingly, 'The Chopin Podcast' with Ben Laude and Garrick Ohlson, 2 instructors from the 'tonebase piano' website. In each episode they cover a different 'genre' or form of Chopin composition and go into such wonderful detail. The very fact that you have such a love for Chopin tells me you would adore it but at the same time, maybe the practical troubleshooting of specific pieces would not be of as much interest to you and I know that not everyone is a fan of peaking behind the curtains at how a piece is constructed. Anyway, I found it spellbinding, much like this little sonatina of a review, and thought to let you know. All the best :)
What a wonderful scene you’ve reproduced here, dear Ilse. You made me go to my shelf and drag out Dybek’a story collection. I remember I’ve got it after reading the one of his stories online. I believe it was about a first love. And it was incredible moving. But since then I have not read him as those things go. This story seem to be a good place to comeback to him. Also just yesterday I’ve bought in a used bookshop the memoir by George Sand about her winter in Mallorca she spent with Chopin. It was totally an impulse buy:-). I didn’t even know they knew each other. One more book to read:-)
Maria wrote: "Your words are truly beautiful, Ilse. Melancholy and nostalgia aren’t prisons. I could feel the music’s power as I read your review.Thank you so much."
Thank you so much for your kind comment, Maria. This story is such a beautiful illustration how melancholy and nostalgia can have a meaningful place in one's life without in the least sombering, freezing or paralysing it. Dybek managed to give the impression that Chopin's music itself is writing the story - just as the music writes itself into these lives, leaving a deep emotional impression even if only living on in memory. In the context of the Polish background of the characters, Dybek's choice for the music of Chopin makes it resonate profoundly in the story.
In 1896, Proust dedicated this poem to Chopin, which I add here as a greeting to you this morning:
Chopin, mer de soupirs, de larmes, de sanglots
Q’un vol de papillons sans se poser traverse
Jouant sur la tristesse ou dansant sur les flots.
Rêve, aime, souffre, crie, apaise, charme ou berce,
Toujours tu fais courir entre chaque douleur
L’oubli vertigineux et doux de ton caprice
Comme les papillons volent de fleur en fleur;
De ton chagrin alors ta joie est la complice:
L’ardeur du tourbillon accroit la soif des pleurs.
De la lune et des eaux pâle et doux camarade,
Prince du désespoir ou grand seigneur trahi,
Tu t’exaltes encore, plus beau d’etre pâli,
Du soleil inondant ta chambre de malade
Qui pleure a lui sourire et souffre de le voir…
Sourire du regret et larmes de l’Espoir!
I read this book recently and owe a review. After your great review, I want to reread it.
Ilse wrote: "Maria wrote: "Your words are truly beautiful, Ilse. Melancholy and nostalgia aren’t prisons. I could feel the music’s power as I read your review.Thank you so much."
Thank you so much for your kin..."
Ilse, thank you so much. Your comment felt like a gift wrapped in generosity, and the poem you shared was truly lovely. I appreciate your kindness.
Maria.
John wrote: "I read this book recently and owe a review. After your great review, I want to reread it."
Your description of the tenderness and nostalgia really drew me in. Wonderful review, Ilse!
Linda wrote: "Lovely review, Ilse."Thank you so much, Linda - I was surprised to discover that this story dates from the 1980s, the writing style seemed to evoke an earlier era.
Wonderful and caring review, Ilse! Thank you :)
That passage you included will send me looking for Stuart Dybek's writing, Ilse. And your further thoughts on the story conjure up those inhabitants of the music-haunted boardinghouse so well that I can see them vividly. It's as if I've viewed a painting that has a soundtrack accompanying it—a magical experience!
Jonathan wrote: "Sublime, Ilse. I caught this at a time when I'm actually going through a bit of a Chopin Mazurka phase :p The most Polish of Chopin's work!Thank you very much for stopping by and leaving such an inspiring and generous comment, Jonathan, so glad to hear from you! I hope all is well with you and your family? So exciting that you are going through a Chopin phase at the moment, do you enjoy playing the mazurka's? I'll definitely check out that Chopin podcast when I see a chance, I very much enjoyed the short pieces on the different genres and forms that followed on a short biography I read on Chopin a couple of years ago (Chopin, by Camille Bourniquel) and with an ever growing love for his music, I am very eager to learn more. Last season, we had the luck to attend a few piano recitals in Brussels, among them Seong-Jin Cho playing Chopin's 14 waltzes. Recalling how mesmerized I was listening to the 24 preludes played by Jan Lisiecki, I am again tempted to look for tickets for the concert of Pavel Kolesnikov who will play the 21 nocturnes in October while I had the intention to skip the piano recitals this season because of pratical reasons - the chance to hear Chopin played by such superb musicians is very hard to resist :). All the best with working your way into Chopin!
What a beautiful review: words and image. What a beautifully written story, too - especially the paragraph you quote in full, which was my favourite (of many).
I wonder, is there a connection between chopin in winter and a winter in Majorca?Life has to be lived forwards, but music brings us back (=tous les matins...purpose of music is to return the dead to us?) to our past, creating emotional bonds between generations, but I suppose those are lived out forwards too?
That quote you open with is amazing and then your review suggests such a vast topic that I find it difficult to believe this is a short story. Sounds like a truly epic one.
Ilse wrote: "do you enjoy playing the mazurka's?"Oh, playing? No. Listening? Yes!
A misconception that I'm always eager to mend quickly as to not appear some sort of fraud is that I am very much a beginner on the piano. I am only just beginning to work my way through Bach's Little Preludes and even pieces such as Clementi or Diabelli Sonatinas would be a stretch goal for me. In fact, I've recently started an online course which follows the Russian tradition of piano playing in the vein of teachers like Heinrich Neuhaus and the brilliant Sviatoslav Richter so for the time being I've sucked up what little pride I had and taken it right back to basics to make reparations to the foundations of my self-taught technique.
Some of the Mazurkas are intermediate pieces though so they are within the realm of possibility as a long term goal. :)
Funny, I just looked up Kolesnikov and his most recommended recording is actually of the Mazurkas and it won a Diapason d'Or de l'Année. I'll have a listen. Regarding the Nocturne... Go on, get the tickets! 😉😁
Katia wrote: "What a wonderful scene you’ve reproduced here, dear Ilse. You made me go to my shelf and drag out Dybek’a story collection. I remember I’ve got it after reading the one of his stories online. "Thank you very much dear Katia, the story you remember from Stuart Dybek sounds very promising as well! Because you thought it was a love story, you reminded me of that collection you read and tipped me years ago, My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro edited by Jeffrey Eugenides – and taking it from the shelf, guess what I discovered? A story by Stuart Dybek, “We didn’t” – could that by chance be the one you have read? What a lovely coincidence that you were also drawn to Chopin vicariously 😊 (Did you buy Un hiver à Majorque? To my shame, I still haven’t read it yet despite having bought a copy of it in my teens). Oddly enough I keep on reading about Sand – she features quite prominently in whatever I happen to read about the life of Chopin (and isn’t always treated kindly by Chopin biographers (eg Helse liefde, in which the Dutch author Frederik Bastet constructed a voluminous literary quartet out of the relationships of Chopin, Sand, Liszt and Marie D’Agoult ) but barely get to read what she actually wrote herself, with the exception of a novella and her correspondence with Gustave Flaubert, in which she comes across as a very loving, wise, patient and warm person. I think you just helped me to decide which book to take on holiday to France (in September), thank you so much my dear!
John wrote: "I read this book recently and owe a review. After your great review, I want to reread it."John, thank you so much, that is very kind of you to say so. Please do let me know if you post a review, I am curious about the other stories in this collection. Did 'Chopin in Winter' resonate with you?
Ilse wrote: "Katia wrote: "What a wonderful scene you’ve reproduced here, dear Ilse. You made me go to my shelf and drag out Dybek’a story collection. I remember I’ve got it after reading the one of his stories..."Thank you very much Ilse, my dear! It is this story indeed! What I would be doing without you - I've totally forgotten where I've read it and why! Definitely my memory is becoming very unreliable:-) But due to you the mystery is solved:-) Also I am very happy that you would take Sand on holidays with you! Some part of France is sufficiently close to Majorca:-) But whenever you go I hope you would enjoy the book. I want to read it as well soon. I've read the first page and got it straightaway. Though you seem to be much more knowledgeable about George Sand even before reading it. Hope the preparations are on the way for certain celebrations that I plan to email you separately about (though knowing me and my memory, it might be a delayed mail:-)))
Maria wrote: Ilse, thank you so much. Your comment felt like a gift wrapped in generosity, and the poem you shared was truly lovely. I appreciate your kindness.You are very welcome, Maria, I am really happy to hear that you liked the poem, thank you for reading it and responding. Perhaps because I have been reading on Proust lately (a collection of short essays with fragments of the cycle), this story made me associate Proust with Chopin, what hadn't occurred to me before. Now I can not 'unhear' the possibility of such connection anymore, and apparently Chopin’s winding, undulating musical phrases have been compared to Proust's own long, looping, stream-of-consciousness sentences - a comparison that I find highly intriguing and exciting and worthwhile exploring further :)
Brooke wrote: "Your description of the tenderness and nostalgia really drew me in. Wonderful review, Ilse!"So glad to hear that, thank you very much for your kind comment, Brooke! It was quite the atmospheric story, Dybek managed to evoke life as it was lived in that time and place with verve, the constraints of the community as well as the small escapes from them.
I felt transported while reading your incredible review, Ilse. This sounds like a gorgeous and dreamlike reading experience.
Alexandra wrote: "Wonderful and caring review, Ilse! Thank you :)"Thank you very much for reading this and leaving such a kind comment, Alexandra :) This was a moving tribute to the beauty and power of Chopin's music, an excellent find for someone who adores Chopin like this reader does ;)
Ilse, this gem of a review, polished to a brilliant shine, has led me to a new to me author. Many thanks! I look forward to meeting Dybek at some future date. And you have sent me off to listen to Chopin this morning as I start my day. 😄
A most wondrous review, Ilse - and introduction (for me) to this author and this story. Thank you. tender, atmospheric and dreamlike -- so the story itself echoes Chopin's music, wisps trailing like smoke through every mysterious nook and cranny in the old dwelling, even under the water of the bathtub.
It sounds so poignant, achingly lovely. Thank you. And although you are focusing on this story, the title The Coast of Chicago is rather intriguing as well.
Fionnuala wrote: "That passage you included will send me looking for Stuart Dybek's writing, Ilse. And your further thoughts on the story conjure up those inhabitants of the music-haunted boardinghouse so well that ..."Thank you so much for your generous comment and putting that lovely picture in my mind of the painting with soundtrack, Fionnuala 😊– being able to evoke the power of music with words is quite a feat (thinking of that saying that ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture’), and Dybek persuasively makes the music pivotal in the story, as if the music is a character too. Stuart Dybek was another delightful discovery thanks to the short story reading group, so I am happy his writing also spoke to you and that you consider reading him. The readers who contribute to the group have truly terrific reading taste and I appreciate their efforts to present the stories greatly. I rarely manage to read them, but the ones I could read so far were rewarding and fascinating reading experiences.
Oh, also, may I please know about the short story reading group, if it's open to new members?
Your prose mirrors the very music you describe, it moves with a delicate, rhythmic cadence that feels as deliberate and soulful as a Chopin nocturne. Exquisite review, Ilse!
Lovely review, Ilse. So sensitive and wise.
Cecily wrote: "What a beautiful review: words and image. What a beautifully written story, too - especially the paragraph you quote in full, which was my favourite (of many)."Thank you so much, Cecily. I loved your review, how you evoked that the story sang for itself and the subtlety of Dybek's observations. I thought that paragraph moving, and of a lyrical beauty, almost a prose poem, a very fine of fusion of music, silence and longing.
I love this review Ilse, as a short story lover I was tempted to add. It's clearly an atmospheric read, the photo you shred supports that too!! Great review as usual 🤗🎈
Jan-Maat wrote: "I wonder, is there a connection between chopin in winter and a winter in Majorca?Life has to be lived forwards, but music brings us back (=tous les matins...purpose of music is to return the dead..."
Having still not read the Sand novel yet, I am not sure if there’s a connection, but I hope to find out soon 😊. I think Dybek chose Chopin because of Chopin's supreme place in Polish culture. In Dybek’s story, the harsh Chicago winter mirrors the bleakness and isolation in the lives of the characters, the drab, the cold and the darkness intensifying their shared confinement in the apartment building, the music of Chopin offering them beauty in contrast. The characters huddle near stoves and heaters and come together in mind around the sound of Chopin drifting through the cold walls:
“Michael, come in here by the heater, or if you’re going to stay in there put the burners on,” Mom called.
I lit the burners on the stove. They hovered in the dark like blue crowns of flame, flickering Dzia-Dzia’s shadow across the walls. His head pitched, his arms flew up as he struck the notes. The walls and windowpanes shook with gusts of wind and music. I imagined plaster dust wafting down, coating the kitchen, a fine network of cracks spreading through the dishes.
Life has to be lived forwards, but music brings us back (=tous les matins...purpose of music is to return the dead to us?) to our past, creating emotional bonds between generations, but I suppose those are lived out forwards too?
You word beautifully how the music works differently – and yet the same- for the different generations in this story, who each have their dead to mourn and a past to come to terms with, but who understand that they have to live on, in a country new to them, to tune in to new music and to find common ground that enables them to bond. (Music returning the dead to us is such a powerful thought, I definitely want to re-read 'Tous les matins du monde', even if I start crying only thinking about it).
david wrote: "Wonderful, Ilse!"Thank you very much for reading this, David! A delightful story, I was impressed with Dybek's fine writing.
Ilse wrote: "Jan-Maat wrote: "I wonder, is there a connection between chopin in winter and a winter in Majorca?Life has to be lived forwards, but music brings us back (=tous les matins...purpose of music is t..."
Oh, I am sorry, I did not know that "tous les matins du monde" had that effect on you. I f I had known, I would have saved mentioning it until dome day when you really wanted to cry, but couldn't, to be used as the literary equivalent of chopping an onion.
Jeroen wrote: "That quote you open with is amazing and then your review suggests such a vast topic that I find it difficult to believe this is a short story. Sounds like a truly epic one."Jeroen, you astutely point out what distinguishes some good short stories from great ones, having a much wider range than you would assume to find within the scope of only a couple of pages. The depth Dybek reaches in this story is quite impressive, while at first it seems to capture a short period in a child's memory, it beautifully opens to the past, present and future. Glad you liked that quote as well and have a lovely weekend!( I loved those lines so much that I couldn't resist reading them five times, almost like a poem).
Jonathan wrote: "Ilse wrote: "do you enjoy playing the mazurka's?"Oh, playing? No. Listening? Yes!
A misconception that I'm always eager to mend quickly as to not appear some sort of fraud is that I am very much ..."
Jonathan, as a totally unmusical person, for whom the compulsory learning to play the recorder at school was sheer torture (even more for the neighbours 😉), almost every piece of music sounds excruciatingly difficult to play to my ears, so I am awestruck each time I read your reviews on the books on music, on musical technique and learning you devour and how devoted you are to learn to play the piano, the thoroughness of your approach again shining through your desire to go back to the basics - for me the sheer ability to read a score and voice it in sound is pure magic. I’ve only heard Pavel Kolesnikov playing piano quatre mains so far, with his partner – and particularly how they played Schubert makes me curious about the Nocturnes, so if I see a chance, sure, I will happily succumb to the temptation, despite all the stress if we will be able to get back home from Brussels 😊.
Katia wrote: Also I am very happy that you would take Sand on holidays with you! Some part of France is sufficiently close to Majorca:-) But whenever you go I hope you would enjoy the book. I want to read it as well soon. I've read the first page and got it straightaway. Glad to be of service and thank you for making me laugh, dear Katia – and for giving me a little push to put that anthology of Eugenides next to the bed, where it can keep the rest of the pile of books company that I want to read 'soon'(The Maia! Independent people! Elsa Morante! ) – more realistically, I will not be able to start it soon, because I’ve just embarked on that bulky collected stories of William Trevor, of which I intend to read one every Sunday morning for the coming months (or years 😉).
It’s promising that the first page of Sand gripped you sufficiently to go for it! For years I wasn’t so inclined to read Sand, her novels having the reputation of being rather mediocre (and it didn’t help that I mostly associated her with her many impersonators on costumed balls for lawyers 😉), but now I am all ready and curious to finally read her ((view spoiler)).
I love stories with atmosphere in them, Ilse but I have never heard of this writer, so thanks for the introduction.
This is a nice, lyrical review, Ilse. The quote you excerpted is music in words. This seems like a beautiful story with many life lessons. Thanks for this writeup and I also appreciate you clarifying that you were reviewing the one story.
Jonas wrote: "I felt transported while reading your incredible review, Ilse. This sounds like a gorgeous and dreamlike reading experience."Jonas, thank you so much for your generous comment! This is the type of short story that has everything why I enjoy the genre: a tight composition, a well-drawn atmosphere, slices of life of characters of which the reader can wonder and imagine how their lives will unfold further off the pages - and this story on top made a wonderful use of the music of Chopin to give the relations between the characters depth.