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tomstbr's review against another edition
5.0
I don't really read poetry but this felt exceptional. I will return to this as I feel there are many depths to these works. The prose/essays were of excellent standard too. Like a lighter, less brash Nietzsche.
belwau's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
alismcg's review against another edition
3.0
"Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you, like the winter that has just gone by. For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it will your heart survive."
"It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again, “invisibly,” inside us. We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible...this work, the work of the continual conversion of the beloved visible and tangible world into the invisible vibrations and agitation of our own nature..."
I think what impacted me most lept out at me from Rilke's prose ( "The Notebooks of Malte..." ) and - as with any 'selections' volume - one will be given only a taste of these ❤️ passages:
"in my depths I know that submission leads further than rebellion; it shames that which is usurpation, and it contributes indescribably to the glorification of the rightful power. The rebel pulls himself out from the attraction of one center of power, and he may perhaps succeed in escaping from its field; but beyond it he finds himself in the void and has to look around for another gravitational force to draw him in. And this one is generally even less legitimate than the first. Why not then see in the power we live in, the greatest power of all, unperturbed by its weaknesses and fluctuations? Somewhere the arbitrary will of itself collide against the law, and we save energy if we leave it to convert itself."
"It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again, “invisibly,” inside us. We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible...this work, the work of the continual conversion of the beloved visible and tangible world into the invisible vibrations and agitation of our own nature..."
I think what impacted me most lept out at me from Rilke's prose ( "The Notebooks of Malte..." ) and - as with any 'selections' volume - one will be given only a taste of these ❤️ passages:
"in my depths I know that submission leads further than rebellion; it shames that which is usurpation, and it contributes indescribably to the glorification of the rightful power. The rebel pulls himself out from the attraction of one center of power, and he may perhaps succeed in escaping from its field; but beyond it he finds himself in the void and has to look around for another gravitational force to draw him in. And this one is generally even less legitimate than the first. Why not then see in the power we live in, the greatest power of all, unperturbed by its weaknesses and fluctuations? Somewhere the arbitrary will of itself collide against the law, and we save energy if we leave it to convert itself."
piccoline's review
5.0
In some ways this book is beyond writing about for me at the moment. It is profoundly and transcendently beautiful and heavy. Some of the best writing on grief, love, art, and our yearning for and often futile grasping at the beyond.
I've perused many translations of Rilke's poetry, and there are other approaches I also enjoy, but Stephen Mitchell's work here stands above them, for me. The others feel too smooth. Here there is beauty but also the testing and folding and stretching of language aimed at something that must almost by definition remain beyond and ungraspable.
This collection (as stated in the title) also includes some prose work by Rilke, which I read last because it seemed less urgent to me... but then upon reading it found it to be, again, profound, beautiful, and challenging. (All the poetry is presented in bilingual form on facing pages. The prose includes only the English translation.)
I've perused many translations of Rilke's poetry, and there are other approaches I also enjoy, but Stephen Mitchell's work here stands above them, for me. The others feel too smooth. Here there is beauty but also the testing and folding and stretching of language aimed at something that must almost by definition remain beyond and ungraspable.
This collection (as stated in the title) also includes some prose work by Rilke, which I read last because it seemed less urgent to me... but then upon reading it found it to be, again, profound, beautiful, and challenging. (All the poetry is presented in bilingual form on facing pages. The prose includes only the English translation.)
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