E IN TRANSLATION
of art and literature . It is semi-autobiographical , and without a plot . It features diary entries , childhood memories , internal monologues and strange fever-dream episodes and paranoia . Paris is not romanticized ; there are illnesses and cracks in the sidewalk , as well as impermanence , mortality , the passage of time — all topics he had mused on in regard to Cezanne ’ s work in his letters to Clara .
The novel isn ’ t an easy read . but it has moments of such painterly beauty , that it ’ s worth the effort :
Today there was a beautiful fall morning . I walked through the Tuileries . Everything toward the east that caught the sun was dazzlingly bright , and where the sunlight fell , the mist hung like a gray curtain of light . Gray amid gray , the statues warmed themselves in gardens that had yet to be unveiled . Solitary flowers stood up in the long beds and said “ Red ” with a startled voice . ( p . 12 )
In my “ Rilke journey ,” I ’ ve now come to the very slim work Letters to a Young Poet ( translated by Stephen Mitchell ), in which Rilke gives advice and feedback to a student . These ten letters are probably Rilke ’ s most famous works and contain tenderness , generosity , and great insight , though also a slight preachiness and arrogance , especially seeing as the first were written when Rilke was just twenty-eight . I ’ ll return to the love poems next , with the knowledge that though he is a German “ great ,”’ he is also a human , like us all .
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