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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
Let me be honest; I have loved almost everything I have read by Rilke, and it has mostly been poetry - except of course, the letters. And even those, I have read mostly in translation. Now I have a feeling, and I may be totally wrong about this - correct me, if you know better / have a more discerning eye for the language than I do with my out-of-touch German - I have a feeling that Rilke sounds better in translation than he does in the original German; and I wonder if the credit lies with the translators? Either way, the prose in this book was far too clunky for me to look beyond its weight and form, and into the content. I couldn't focus on anything but how difficult it was to read every new line. Maybe experimental writing shouldn't be read in translation at all (though I can think of cases where that's totally untrue.) The book just didn't work for me, no matter how much I wish it had. It was about death and how death lives in us all, yet we have so distanced ourselves from its reality that we have lost a bit of ourselves.. or something to that effect. A compelling idea that didn't translate well to this novel (if it can be called that.)
A book of sketches, meditations, remembrances -- truly the diary of a poet.
Beautifully written meditation and string of thoughts
(To be loved means to be consumed by fire. To love is to glow bright with an inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away; to love is to endure.)
Die tiefgründigen Gedankengänge des Malte Laurids Brigge wirken oft so überraschend nachvollziehbar, auch wenn man selbst nie darüber gegrübelt hat. Mich persönlich hat diese Gedankenlast jedoch zunehmend erschlagen, zumal "Die Aufzeichnungen" kein Roman mit rotem Faden im klassischen Sinne ist.
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
A classic modernist text that encapsulates so many themes of early twentieth-century literature: the flâneur, the alienated outcast, stream-of-consciousness narration, the psychology of the divided self, fin de siècle degeneration, etc. We even get a scene of early electroshock therapy.
The narrative is not quite stream-of-consciousness but not quite a “notebook" -- more like a collage with pieces of prose poetry sprinkled throughout. The Introduction compares it to Huysmans or Hamsun, but I see more of a similarity to Musil and Pessoa. In any case, I don’t think Rilke’s novel rises to the level of any of those writers. His fiction is not trailblazing, nor is it the pinnacle of the modernist novel (despite ticking all the boxes mentioned above). His poetry is both, which is why I prefer it to this novel, which would have been more of a curiosity had it not been written by the premiere poet of the early 20th century.
The narrative is not quite stream-of-consciousness but not quite a “notebook" -- more like a collage with pieces of prose poetry sprinkled throughout. The Introduction compares it to Huysmans or Hamsun, but I see more of a similarity to Musil and Pessoa. In any case, I don’t think Rilke’s novel rises to the level of any of those writers. His fiction is not trailblazing, nor is it the pinnacle of the modernist novel (despite ticking all the boxes mentioned above). His poetry is both, which is why I prefer it to this novel, which would have been more of a curiosity had it not been written by the premiere poet of the early 20th century.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No