by Rainer Maria Rilke, 1910
This is one of the classic novels of existentialism, but (without disrespect to Rilke) I feel like this is a book you have to read at a certain time of life. (It makes sense—existentialism is something you have to come to at a specific time in life, in my estimation. If you stumble upon it too early, you’re like the astonished crowd listening to Nietzsche’s madman. If too late, you’re too concerned with living life to worry about such impractical questions of existence.)
Anyway, I read this for the first time in college and was blown away. I thought it was so beautiful and insightful. At the time (and this hasn’t really changed) I was obsessed with the concept of being real and sincere vs. being “fake”—how we are able to be ourselves, how people’s expectations make us something else (beyond our control), how one’s image is not one’s own. It’s a concern that runs throughout the book.
“We discover that we do not know our role; we look for a mirror; we want to remove our make-up and take off what is false and be real. But somewhere a piece of disguise that we forgot still sticks to us. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not notice that the corners of our mouth are bent. And so we walk around, a mockery and a mere half: neither having achieved being nor actors.” p. 194
One aspect of being who we are has to do with speaking—the everyday things and the big things like telling one’s own story. Will you understand my story? the way I mean you to? Can I even explain it adequately? Do I want to? Is it worth saying? Does it become something less when spoken aloud?
“The fear that I may betray myself and tell all that I dread; and the fear that I might not be able to say anything because everything is beyond utterance.” p.61
Another aspect of the book is Brigge’s living in the city. It’s not Brigge’s main focus in his notebooks, but as a Danish poet navigating Paris for the first time, Brigge does comment on his surroundings—the people and the place.
“So, then people do come here in order to live; I would sooner have thought one died here.” p. 13 (cf. The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West, “people who come to California to die”—similar concept or no?)
I particularly liked the parts corresponding with my own life (of course). for ex., Brigge writing about the reading room he was sitting in, as I was sitting in a reading room, reading.
So basically, the book was full of thoughts and fears and concerns and ideas I could relate to.
I re-read this book last Thanksgiving while I was riding a train up to Seattle. I don’t know if it was because I had such fond memories that the book couldn’t live up to or because I don’t still have a lot of the same concerns (I feel like I still do, though), but I didn’t have the same reaction to the book the second time. I still found it insightful, but it didn’t move me in the same way.
I feel the need to own all the books that have impacted me in some way, but for the moment I’ll do without. I left my copy on the bookshelf at my hostel in Seattle, so hopefully someone will pick it up and it will be the right time for them.