I Sailed with Magellan
by
Stuart Dybek
Following his renowned The Coast of Chicago and Childhood, story writer Stuart Dybek returns with eleven masterful and masterfully linked stories about Chicago's fabled and harrowing South Side. United, they comprise the story of Perry Katzek and his widening, endearing clan. Through these streets walk butchers, hitmen, mothers and factory workers, boys turned men and men...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
October 1st 2004
by Picador
(first published November 15th 2003)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
1,030)
I have to agree with what is printed on the back of this book, courtesy of the LA Times: "Dybek's gift - a considerable one - is a sorcerer's ability to comix the commonplace and the grotesque..." Dybek can very much do that. He takes a simple day, and mixes into it the mystical, imaginary, fantastical... the grotesque. Everything. And he still makes it tangible, real, accessible. Maybe even more so. His description is spot on, in the way that things so specific are.
My only trouble with the sto...more
My only trouble with the sto...more
A few years back, I had the fortunate opportunity to have lunch with Stewart Dybek (though it's unlikely he'll remember it as much as I did). He was quite delightful during the meal as we talked about his work, my past delusions of being a creative writer, and my current studies at SIU-C.
So, flash-forward several years, and I finally get around to reading I Sailed with Magellan, his follow-up to Chicago Stories, with which I was more familiar. Regardless, my brief and pleasant encounter had not...more
So, flash-forward several years, and I finally get around to reading I Sailed with Magellan, his follow-up to Chicago Stories, with which I was more familiar. Regardless, my brief and pleasant encounter had not...more
Dybek writes love stories about southside Chicago. He tells stories like snapping tons of quick photographs, rushing depictions images of Polish families shopping during Sunday mass, saxophone bleating uncles, war veterans drinking while bartending, and intense moments of fleeting love. These are beautiful stories, filled with sensual experiences, even when characters are riding in old cars or listening to El pass them by in tiny apartments. Or maybe even more sensual because of those sounds and...more
alexsandar hemon name checked dybek as a great and influential writer to him in his recent occasional memoir The Book of My Lives and one can tell right off why. dybek is fantastic, and he conjures the old chicago neighborhoods of polish czech mexican black puerto rican russian packed in the strictly, though invisible (most everybody was terribly and equally poor, cept the rich banksters), demarcated territories. dybek uses smells and sounds as much as dialog and characterization and plot to bri...more
Sometimes you tear through a book in one day; other times, it takes years. Either way, it could end up as one of your favorites. I read the first four stories in I Sailed With Magellan several years ago. I got sidetracked, most likely by college, and never finished it--although I enjoyed it. At the time, I probably would've rated it like 3.5. More importantly, though, I just forgot about it; and when I saw it on my shelf, I didn't feel the slightest urge to pick it up and read it.
Then, last mont...more
Then, last mont...more
I wonder if the dominance of bildungsroman narratives in the shnovels (linked books of short stories) I've surveyed indicates a modern realization about the nature of growing up. It isn't linear or clean, a smooth line of story unspooling over years, and the collage approach of books like Local Girls and this one seems a better fit for our current understanding of memory and childhood.
At any rate, a bildungs-shnovel is more or less what this is; along the way, a portrait of place and yet another...more
At any rate, a bildungs-shnovel is more or less what this is; along the way, a portrait of place and yet another...more
"Like the Joyce of Dubliners, Stuart Dybek writes with an exquisite sense of place and an amazing sensitivity to the dreams and dislocations one encounters in the borderland between childhood and adulthood. His last work of fiction, The Coast of Chicago, is one of my favorite books, and I approached I Sailed With Magellan with high expectations. If The Coast of Chicago, with its unified setting, its young-to-old chronology, and its careful patterning (alternating short stories with lyrical “shor...more
with expectations so high after Coast of Chicago-I couldn't believe that Magellan surpassed it. I truly enjoed Perry's threading through the narrative. It was like listening to stories of extended families and communities where I have to pause to remember the relationship of my Mother's cousin's husband's best pal that ended up falling into a dumpster after golfing all day and drinking through the night-only to stumble off the path back to the Chrystler into the dumpster. I am incrediby biased t...more
Dybek's been called Chicago's James Joyce over and over again, and every collection he puts out gets hailed as his Dubliners. Unlike most of my favorite writers, dude does not shy away from love stories. This book made me knee-bucklingly nostalgic for stuff I never came remotely close to experiencing.
Stu Dybek is one of the best writers in America today--he's a writer's writer, but he's also a reader's writer. he writes with the cadence, phrasing and eye of a poet. But his characters are real, their dramas unique and poignant, the plots engaging and interesting, and the prose is all together lovely.
I was turned on to Dybek through a reading of one of his stories on Selected Shorts. This collection didn't disappoint. The strongest story is most likely Breasts, though Que Quieres left me with a longing to meet a character like the brother, and Orchids is really good as well. And the first one, Song, has to make you smile.
Stylistically, he reminds me a bit of Thom Jones, but that might actually be more a matter of theme. He is very much "his own" writer, carrying in the tradition of loner mal...more
Stylistically, he reminds me a bit of Thom Jones, but that might actually be more a matter of theme. He is very much "his own" writer, carrying in the tradition of loner mal...more
Some of the stories interested me and others did not and felt excessively prolonged. My favorite was "A Minor Mood" as it perfectly described the nuances I remember when I was once a member of the marching band surrounded by the scents, sights, and sounds of the university band room. Some of the stories read a little crass, but that is due to the perspective of the character telling the story and only reflects the author's ability to spin a story well. While I do appreciate the author's vocabula...more
While there was no single story in this collection that I loved as much as my favorites from Coast of Chicago, I think that overall, this is probably the better book. The echoes between the stories, for some reason, really distracted me, although they probably would be more appropriately seen as a masterful interweaving of stories. I read the book over the course of several months, which I think was wise, because when I read the last 100 pages in one big push, I found myself rolling my eyes a bi...more
This was one of the 2005 RUSA Notable Books winners. For the complete list, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rus...
Feb 05, 2010
Ginger B.
added it
Not only does this book show the close relationship between brothers, it shows the urban neighborhood as a small town that is both restrictive and protective.
This is a book for boys. I'm sorry to dismiss it in that way, but it was written by, for, and about boys. Women (or girls) only ever appear in its pages as sex objects. (There's a whole short story just called "Breasts," about men/boys' amazing experiences with them. Grrreat.) I guess that's fine if those are the stories you need to tell, but I'd rather not waste my time reading them. (*The only reason I picked up this collection is because it appeared on Francine Prose's list of Books to be Rea...more
This is somewhere between a 3 and 4 star read.
Structurally, this is a really fascinating book. It's a novel in stories, which functions on two levels: each chapter is a short story and the stories work together to form a larger image--which I believe is tremendously hard to pull off. The downside is that there were stories or places within stories that lost my interest, which probably speaks more to taste than literary ability. Dybek is no doubt a gifted writer. The structure and style of this...more
Structurally, this is a really fascinating book. It's a novel in stories, which functions on two levels: each chapter is a short story and the stories work together to form a larger image--which I believe is tremendously hard to pull off. The downside is that there were stories or places within stories that lost my interest, which probably speaks more to taste than literary ability. Dybek is no doubt a gifted writer. The structure and style of this...more
Interconnected stories about Chicago. sometimes I didn't totally understand how the stories connected. All in one neighborhood or one family in the neighborhood - I guess.
I think I heard Dybek speak at a ALA program in Chicago which would have been appropriate and also would explain why one story seemed very familiar.
My favorite story was "We Didn't" which may be the one that was read to us.
Worth reading if you like short stories - much of it was serious, but there were definitely some funny bit...more
I think I heard Dybek speak at a ALA program in Chicago which would have been appropriate and also would explain why one story seemed very familiar.
My favorite story was "We Didn't" which may be the one that was read to us.
Worth reading if you like short stories - much of it was serious, but there were definitely some funny bit...more
I think Dybek is, sometimes, brilliant. There are few short story writers that I am interested in, and I'm always interested in his work. "If I Vanished," which was published in The New Yorker this past summer, was a gorgeous and haunting piece of fiction. Lovely and thoughtful and strange.
However, this collection is like a warm-up--it's not his real work, not his real triumph. It's valuable to see it, to witness him learning and making his way though stories. But I anticipate much greater thin...more
However, this collection is like a warm-up--it's not his real work, not his real triumph. It's valuable to see it, to witness him learning and making his way though stories. But I anticipate much greater thin...more
I loved this book from the beginning. I identified with each passage of his youth having grown up in Chicago, with the exception that he was a male. He has the ability to clearly describe images and even smells that were indigenous to Chicago city neighborhoods in the 60's and 70's. From the well know "street people" to first loves. It was about "coming home", growth, hard-working middle class people and life in the big city. He quietly reminded us that Chicago is the "heartbeat" of the midwest.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Stuart Dybek has published three short story collections: Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, The Coast of Chicago, and I Sailed With Magellan; and two volumes of poetry: Brass Knuckles and Streets in Their Own Ink. He has been anthologized frequently and regularly appears in magazines such as the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine and the Paris Review.
He has received numerous awards, incl...more
More about Stuart Dybek...
He has received numerous awards, incl...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“I recalled the afternoon when the two of us stood beating erasers, and Camille confided that she'd done penance for stories - stories that I'll never know if she wrote or only imagined writing. She'd wanted me to tell her a secret from my dreams, a secret from my dreams I hadn't had as yet, and so I didn't quite understand what she was after.
"It's about feeling," Camille had insisted.
I didn't understand then that she was talking about risk.”
—
2 people liked it
More quotes…
"It's about feeling," Camille had insisted.
I didn't understand then that she was talking about risk.”

Loading...

view 2 comments



















