Customer Reviews

Dvorak in Love

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This book is told from the point of view of many different narrators, all of whom have some connection with Dvorak and his American sojourn. Some chapters are virtual novellas, others are just funny stories. As ever, Skvorecky's range is prodigious. He can speak with the voice of Czechs and Americans, men and women, blacks and whites, the old and the young. Dvorak himself is glimpsed only from the outside, by those around him, and it is not necessary to know more about him than that he was a great musician in order to enjoy -- and be moved by -- this comic novel.

If the Nobel Prize committee made decisions based on a writer's skill and range and mastery of literary form, Skvorecky would have won years ago. He's without doubt the funniest great writer alive. If you haven't read him yet, you have a treat awaiting you.

Who doesn't like Dvorak's powerful and heart stirring music. This book tries to show the same impact the man made on his family, colleagues and friends. Each chapter could stand on its own,with the characters voicing their thoughts and feelings about Dvorak in their own unique way, both in style and in feeling. I thought the novel expressed the overall feeling of a man of great humanity, humility and almost too ordinary to pay much attention to, while at the same time celebrating his genius. A subtle and insightful novel.

Skvorecky and Dvorák were both born in Bohemia and this fictionalised account of Dvorák is an interesting read but it is certainly not biographical in style. It reads more like a fictionalised version of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition". The narrative unfolds through a variety of characters who encounter Dvorák mostly during his time in America. The thread of the tale is the platonic love between Dvorák and his sister-in-law, Countess Josephine. Josephine's sister, the plainer four years younger Annie, is besotted By Dvorák and eventually succeeds in marrying him. "Dvorák in Love: A Light Hearted Dream" is a slightly misleading title as most of the book is a homage of the love various musical and Czech immigrants had for Dvorák. The book encaptures the influence of environment, birdsong, nature and American melodies, particularly Black spiritual, on Dvorák's music. One particularly endearing tale is about a tuba player who Dvorák first encounters playing a sousaphone in a street brass band. I enjoyed Skvorecky's The Cowards more but this patriotic homage to a national hero by a fellow Bohemian who emigrated to Canada is well worth reading.

Probably the highest compliment I can pay to this amazing book is that right after I finished it I started listening to Dvorak nonstop. So many themes are explored here, and each with disarming subtlety. Skvorecky is a musician with the pen.