Dear Monsieur Chopin, Getting to Know You Has Not Been Easy

A novelist’s mandate is to invent fleshed-out characters with believable details, even down to how they cleaned their teeth. Thorough research unearths many of these facts, which provide a skeleton onto which invented particulars can be attached to round out their personality. The trick is to invent details that are consonant with the character’s past, personality, and predilections.

For my historical novel, The Education of Delhomme, I researched Frédéric Chopin, the historical setting of the 1848 Paris worker uprisings, and important people surrounding him like George Sand. But this information often needs to be embellished to keep readers’ attention. Invented details, however, must ring just as true as the authentic ones. The result should provide a 360-degree understanding of that character, so much so that anyone would recognize him or her on the street.

Here is an example of how I blended truth with plausible fiction. Chopin obsessed about conveying his refined tastes through his attire, never venturing into public or even conducting a piano lesson in his own apartment wearing anything but his most flattering garb. He agonized about which of his numerous tuxedos, shirts, and cravats to wear for a concert. Knowing these facts helped me imagine a scene with Monsieur Dautremont (his real tailor) fussing over every stitch and wrinkle. This foppish trait also gave me the idea to have the piano tuner, who wanted to distract Chopin from giving the ring to nemesis George Sand, appeal to his vanity by suggesting it would impress his soirée hostesses if he wore it over his pink kid gloves.

I also learned that Chopin shrank into the background at public events. This personality trait helped me create the dinner scene at Nohant, where several of George Sand’s artist friends gathered for a sumptuous dinner. They drank, they quipped, they debated politics. Chopin, though, chose to leave the talking to others who craved the limelight (yes, we’re talking about you, Franz Liszt!) and Sand, of course, who was intolerant of men who relegated women to the kitchen and child-rearing. And write books? Not in this man’s world. All this was grist for a lively fictional dinner party.

In yet another example, I gleaned from reading between the lines of letters to family and friends, and the reflections of his students that Chopin was a droll, clever man and could offer up a bon mot when the time was ripe. So, at that same dinner party, I had him wisecrack about swelling the number of artists in the U.S. to two if Liszt accompanied him there. Everyone at the table had a good yuk at America’s expense.

Although I intended to have Chopin star in my novel, I soon realized he did not pass muster as a main character. He was too retiring, too quiet. Yes, he had dark moods and irascible moments. But in general, I felt as if I were waving my hand through a cloud as I tried to grasp his personality. And even though his music still enjoys worldwide acclaim since his death in 1849, he himself just wasn’t robust enough to support a through line to my book. So, I kept him as a minor character. From what I’ve read, he would be perfectly fine with that.

Nancy Burkhalter is an educator, writer, journalist, linguist, and piano tuner. She is the author of The Education of Delhomme: Chopin, Sand, and La France. Burkhalter holds a Master’s degree in journalism and English education as well as a Doctorate in linguistics from the University of New Mexico. She has taught composition for many years in the U.S., Germany, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Her overseas work led to an interest in comparative education, especially critical thinking. Both observations and research led to her book and blog, Critical Thinking Now.

Photo Credit: Austin Irving