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ausma23's review against another edition
5.0
I’m usually such a slow reader of letters (god knows I’ve been stuck inside of Kafka’s Letters to Milena and Nabokov’s Letters To Vera for years), but I devoured these in a week. I haven’t been so in awe of the way a book is edited in a while, but my adoration for this collection is certainly owed in part to how expertly and with such obvious care it is compiled. Footnotes expounding on the letters’ contents immediately follow each one (as opposed to being relegated to the back), allowing the reader to understand the full context of Paul and Ingeborg’s lives and careers into which their correspondence fits. A real narrative emerges from the biographical details, and the timeline falls into place more naturally. More than just an intimate portrait of their affair, I came to understand this compilation as a glimpse at two scarred people using poetry as a means of overcoming the horrors of World War II, and surviving life — and often, too, themselves — on a daily basis. Their letters speak pain and love and tenderness, and reveal a desperate desire to make their traumas felt to one another in order to reach a deeper understanding. One is able to trace the waxing and waning of their on-and-off affair through mental illnesses, spousal problems, and professional controversies. Some months or years they were on the same wavelengths; others, one would send off several distressing letters only to be met with the addressee’s radio silence. Longer letters in which their emotions poured forth left me speechless in their honesty, and I’d feel a catch in my throat when I read the words “unsent draft” beside the letter’s heading; usually a more muted, restrained revision of the same letter was actually postmarked, the words flattened by the fear of saying something wrong. So much is gleaned from the crossed lines and scrapped drafts, what was never said, the ways they failed each other just as often as they championed one another’s work. And yet what they were able to say, their candor — not at all rare in these letters — astounds.
The inclusion of their letters to each other’s spouses (Paul to Max Frisch and Ingeborg to Gisèle Lestrange) further illuminate the care they had for one another, most of all in the glaring absence of the intimate language, the intensity that radiates forth from the letters meant only for each other’s eyes. The commentary and poetological afterword are fascinating in the examination of the effects of the poets’ relationship on their work, down to the individual words that are paralleled and referenced between their poems. I was just staggered again and again at the thought of the massive undertaking the research for this collection and the supplementary materials must’ve been; the translators’ and editors’ efforts to create a truly lifelike portrait of the two poets is certainly evident and incredibly powerful.
The inclusion of their letters to each other’s spouses (Paul to Max Frisch and Ingeborg to Gisèle Lestrange) further illuminate the care they had for one another, most of all in the glaring absence of the intimate language, the intensity that radiates forth from the letters meant only for each other’s eyes. The commentary and poetological afterword are fascinating in the examination of the effects of the poets’ relationship on their work, down to the individual words that are paralleled and referenced between their poems. I was just staggered again and again at the thought of the massive undertaking the research for this collection and the supplementary materials must’ve been; the translators’ and editors’ efforts to create a truly lifelike portrait of the two poets is certainly evident and incredibly powerful.
maria_1605's review against another edition
5.0
“Tu citești acum. Mă gândesc la vocea ta”
Paul Celan către Ingeborg Bachmann, Paris, 11.01.1958
Paul Celan către Ingeborg Bachmann, Paris, 11.01.1958
mariasboeger's review against another edition
5.0
Hjertetid er en rigtig god brevveksling mellem to af efterkrigstidens toneangivende digtere. Der er en god vekslen mellem breve og digte. Digtene er med til at give brevene dybde, som brevene alene ikke kan give. Hjertetid er en rigtig god introduktion til Bachmanns & Celans forfatterskaber. Personligt kan jeg bedst lide Paul Celans melankolske lyrik.
flingornas_herre's review against another edition
4.0
Känns skumt att betygsätta någons personliga korrespondens. men trots allt, såhär: en stark trea på korrespondensen som sådan. Med efterföljande bilagor och efterord blir det sammantagna betyget en klar fyra. Det intressanta med boken ligger i det oskrivna - de långa perioderna med tystnad från den ena eller andra parten, de aldrig skickade utkasten och bilagorna samt de kryptiska meddelandena Bachmann och Celan sänder varandra genom till exempel dedikationer.
soavezefiretto's review against another edition
4.0
Such a sad and beautiful love-story. It's never enough when two broken people find each other...
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