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A review by lavrendy
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
3.0
I put this one on my list when bell hooks listed it as one of her biggest inspirations to write when she was a teenager. It’s apparent even from the title how this would fuel young creatives and each is page brimming with beautiful meditations on life, love, solitude, and hope.
Some parts were a bit too preachy for my taste, especially the ones that discussed womanhood (something I don’t think men ever have many helpful insights on.) The prose read similarly to scripture, likely because of how religious the author was, and I found myself thinking back on how vigorously I would search for guidance and comfort as a teenager. Imagine if we all had a wise mentor to correspond with about loneliness and hating our jobs!
If I had personally received these letters in my teens or even early 20s I would have eaten up every word. But reading this at 26, as someone that’s accepted that I prefer reading over writing, I was able to savor the few bites that resonated and disregard the opinions I disagreed with. (I recognize that 26 is young and I still know nothing about life or anything really haha. But! I’m confident enough now in what I believe that I don’t have to buy everything someone says just because they’re older, famous, etc.)
All that being said, this review is basically longer than the book itself so it’s worth a read lol.
Some parts were a bit too preachy for my taste, especially the ones that discussed womanhood (something I don’t think men ever have many helpful insights on.) The prose read similarly to scripture, likely because of how religious the author was, and I found myself thinking back on how vigorously I would search for guidance and comfort as a teenager. Imagine if we all had a wise mentor to correspond with about loneliness and hating our jobs!
If I had personally received these letters in my teens or even early 20s I would have eaten up every word. But reading this at 26, as someone that’s accepted that I prefer reading over writing, I was able to savor the few bites that resonated and disregard the opinions I disagreed with. (I recognize that 26 is young and I still know nothing about life or anything really haha. But! I’m confident enough now in what I believe that I don’t have to buy everything someone says just because they’re older, famous, etc.)
All that being said, this review is basically longer than the book itself so it’s worth a read lol.