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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
there is so much i could say about this book, but i don't know whether i could do it justice. in the first few pages, rilke/malte writes:
"I am learning to see. Why, I cannot say, but all things enter more deeply into me; nor do the impressions remain at the level where they used to cease. There is a place within me of which I knew nothing. Now all things tend that way."
everything rilke writes enters deeply. he sees things, but he also sees beyond them, or perhaps above them. he unravels all the threads of interconnectedness and makes the most inarticulable feelings seem so bright and clear.
"In the old days, people knew (or perhaps had an intuition) that they bore their death within them like the stone within a fruit. Children had a small one within and adults a large one. Women bore theirs in the womb and men theirs in their breast. It was something people quite simply had..."
"I lay there, surfeited with myself, and waited for the moment when I would be commanded to layer it all back into me, in an orderly fashion, in proper sequence...Then in a fit of fury I tossed it all inside me in a heap and crushed it together; but now I couldn't get myself to close up. And then I screamed, half open as I was, I screamed and screamed."
"...the very worst happened, and I lost all sense of myself: I simply ceased to exist. For a second I felt an indescribably, poignant and futile longing for myself...They stood there and laughed: my God, they simply stood there and laughed. I was crying, but the mask prevented the tears from flowing out, and instead they ran down my face inside it, and dried, and ran and dried again."
"I recalled people I had once left, and it was simply beyond me that one could part from other human beings."
"In later years, I would occasionally wake at night to find the stars so very real, and so brimful of significance, that I could not understand how people could bear to miss out on so much world."
"I am learning to see. Why, I cannot say, but all things enter more deeply into me; nor do the impressions remain at the level where they used to cease. There is a place within me of which I knew nothing. Now all things tend that way."
everything rilke writes enters deeply. he sees things, but he also sees beyond them, or perhaps above them. he unravels all the threads of interconnectedness and makes the most inarticulable feelings seem so bright and clear.
"In the old days, people knew (or perhaps had an intuition) that they bore their death within them like the stone within a fruit. Children had a small one within and adults a large one. Women bore theirs in the womb and men theirs in their breast. It was something people quite simply had..."
"I lay there, surfeited with myself, and waited for the moment when I would be commanded to layer it all back into me, in an orderly fashion, in proper sequence...Then in a fit of fury I tossed it all inside me in a heap and crushed it together; but now I couldn't get myself to close up. And then I screamed, half open as I was, I screamed and screamed."
"...the very worst happened, and I lost all sense of myself: I simply ceased to exist. For a second I felt an indescribably, poignant and futile longing for myself...They stood there and laughed: my God, they simply stood there and laughed. I was crying, but the mask prevented the tears from flowing out, and instead they ran down my face inside it, and dried, and ran and dried again."
"I recalled people I had once left, and it was simply beyond me that one could part from other human beings."
"In later years, I would occasionally wake at night to find the stars so very real, and so brimful of significance, that I could not understand how people could bear to miss out on so much world."
Great book. Kind of like Proust for beginners, I'd say, but more surreal. No plot, just a series of vignettes, like so many strokes in an impressionist painting.
About three years ago, I read this book one summer when I was lonely and depressed. A fling I had with a girl had failed to turn into anything lasting and I had to suffer the indignity of working a summer job with her which involved being in close proximity. I lived in an inaccessible part of town; the job sucked, and I despaired about my future. The book helped immensely. In the titular Malte's loneliness and spiritual transformation, I found a sort of balm to my condition and I told myself that I would try and love someone in the way Rilke talks about towards the end of the book. Now, now that I have recently separated from my girlfriend of a little over a year, I turn to this book again. What have I learned?
I'm really not sure. I understand much of this book with my heart and not with my head. There are parts of which still speak to me but in a language I'm not sure I can easily put down in words. The fragmented nature of the book, the way a picture of the main character arises from the spaces between the vignettes just as much as from the vignettes themselves, the character's arc from an unstable city dweller in the Notes From the Underground mould to a spiritual mystic, the brief aphorisms which stab in their precision . . . it's all very hard to explain.
I am comforted by such lines as Perhaps it is new, our surviving these: the year and love. Blossoms and fruit are ripe when they fall; animals are self-aware and find each other and are content with this. But we, who have undertake God, can never finish. We keep putting off our nature, we need more time. What is a year to us? What all the years? Before we have even begun God, we are already praying to him: let us survive this night. And then the being ill. And then love. I am unsettled by such lines as To be loved means to be consumed. To love is to give light with inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away, to love is to endure . (Did I do that? Was I possessive? Did my partner do that? What happened?) And I find a weird sort of metaphysical solace in this line, which arises from the text like blooming flower: Outside much has changed. I don't know how. But inside and before you, O my God, inside before you, spectator, are we not without action? We discover, indeed, that we do not know our part, we look for a mirror, we want to rub off the make-up and removed the counterfeit and be real. But somewhere a but of mummery still sticks to us that we forget. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows, we do not notice that the corners of our lips are twisted. And thus we go about, a laughing-stock, a mere half=thing: neither existing, nor actors .
Is there a plot to this book? Yes and no. Yes, the character changes. No, nothing much happens, nothing big anyway. It's the little things that get captured. The everyday occurrences which can lead to revelations if one is open for them. I'll probably be reading this book for a long time.
I'm really not sure. I understand much of this book with my heart and not with my head. There are parts of which still speak to me but in a language I'm not sure I can easily put down in words. The fragmented nature of the book, the way a picture of the main character arises from the spaces between the vignettes just as much as from the vignettes themselves, the character's arc from an unstable city dweller in the Notes From the Underground mould to a spiritual mystic, the brief aphorisms which stab in their precision . . . it's all very hard to explain.
I am comforted by such lines as Perhaps it is new, our surviving these: the year and love. Blossoms and fruit are ripe when they fall; animals are self-aware and find each other and are content with this. But we, who have undertake God, can never finish. We keep putting off our nature, we need more time. What is a year to us? What all the years? Before we have even begun God, we are already praying to him: let us survive this night. And then the being ill. And then love. I am unsettled by such lines as To be loved means to be consumed. To love is to give light with inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away, to love is to endure . (Did I do that? Was I possessive? Did my partner do that? What happened?) And I find a weird sort of metaphysical solace in this line, which arises from the text like blooming flower: Outside much has changed. I don't know how. But inside and before you, O my God, inside before you, spectator, are we not without action? We discover, indeed, that we do not know our part, we look for a mirror, we want to rub off the make-up and removed the counterfeit and be real. But somewhere a but of mummery still sticks to us that we forget. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows, we do not notice that the corners of our lips are twisted. And thus we go about, a laughing-stock, a mere half=thing: neither existing, nor actors .
Is there a plot to this book? Yes and no. Yes, the character changes. No, nothing much happens, nothing big anyway. It's the little things that get captured. The everyday occurrences which can lead to revelations if one is open for them. I'll probably be reading this book for a long time.
I heard this as an audiobook. It's practically impossible to understand or follow. It's too high for me I guess. Some passages are interesting and suggestive, but overall it's just too incomprehensible. Good luck to those who decide to try it. :)
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Need to reread
Easily one of the best books I've read all year and probably one that will stay at the top of my list for years to come.
There is something I want to carry around with me from every page, whether it's just a short string of words or a body of paragraphs. A meditation on life and death that is devastating, insightful, striking, and beautiful.
The imagery sings, or sometimes howls, off the page: a building on fire, the people looking on in silence until the walls come crashing down. We’re going somewhere here. We’re captive passengers on a journey through a man’s mind as he strives to experience life: to “feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning,” all the while surrounded by the death that grows inside him and waits to have a life of its own.
There are big themes in here: truth, love, memory, fate, self-deception, religion, time. There's enough on these pages to keep you engaged over the course of a lifetime.
Another reviewer writes: "If you read this book at the right time of life, no other book will ever be as important to you." I tend to agree. But I already know it's meant to be read more than once, and at various stages of life.
There is something I want to carry around with me from every page, whether it's just a short string of words or a body of paragraphs. A meditation on life and death that is devastating, insightful, striking, and beautiful.
The imagery sings, or sometimes howls, off the page: a building on fire, the people looking on in silence until the walls come crashing down. We’re going somewhere here. We’re captive passengers on a journey through a man’s mind as he strives to experience life: to “feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning,” all the while surrounded by the death that grows inside him and waits to have a life of its own.
There are big themes in here: truth, love, memory, fate, self-deception, religion, time. There's enough on these pages to keep you engaged over the course of a lifetime.
Another reviewer writes: "If you read this book at the right time of life, no other book will ever be as important to you." I tend to agree. But I already know it's meant to be read more than once, and at various stages of life.
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
a mix of crime & punishment and catcher in the rye… 160 pages of nonsense but yk it happens
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes