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A review by k_dellabitta
I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek
5.0
After reading of Dybek's collection of novel-in-stories, I Sailed with Magellan, it is hard to resist the sense that contested dreams, memories and what remains unspoken between us are what most deepen the love we have for others and for ourselves. These dreams, memories, and secret thoughts and feelings may fuel our greatest creations; may turn us into endearing fools; or bring us luck; may make possible living on for another day; or grant us a long circuitous lifetime. Even if these memories and dreams and hidden lives drive us mad; even if they kill us: even if they lead us on to countless other forms of destruction, Dybek shows us how they can still deepen our love for one other and for the beauty of our minuscule existence as it is lived in narrow alleyways, unclean waters, and a vast cosmos.
Dybek's stories are full of digressions that are as perfectly shaped as the finest cut pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Each digression, its own right, is a tale worth savoring. Together, they contribute to the richly symphonic whole collection of stories. Thus, while rendering an extraordinarily particular (sometimes humorous, sometimes brutal) portrait of life in the Polish immigrant community in the 1950s and 1960s Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods of Chicago, Dybek gives the reader so much more than a warm and nuanced reminiscence of time and place: he gives us access to dreams, story structures, and histories that draw us beyond that place, time, and particular community, toward what can make us fully human.
Dybek's stories are full of digressions that are as perfectly shaped as the finest cut pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Each digression, its own right, is a tale worth savoring. Together, they contribute to the richly symphonic whole collection of stories. Thus, while rendering an extraordinarily particular (sometimes humorous, sometimes brutal) portrait of life in the Polish immigrant community in the 1950s and 1960s Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods of Chicago, Dybek gives the reader so much more than a warm and nuanced reminiscence of time and place: he gives us access to dreams, story structures, and histories that draw us beyond that place, time, and particular community, toward what can make us fully human.