Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

An interesting, if older, work that marries literary critisim and the twinned biography of Paris and Rilke. I enjoyed it, and found, with the photos, that it was rather lovely, but it is for a limited audience of Rilke fans.

My prior knowledge of Rainer Maria Rilke’s writing was limited to Letters To A Young Poet (1929) which is a truly inspiring collection of Rilke’s replies to the letters of Franz Kappus, an aspiring poet, who sought Rilke’s advice on how to become a better writer, but I’ve been intrigued to learn more about the life of this enigmatic and influential poet, so I was excited to read this book which focuses on the time period that Rilke spent in the city that inspired him the most.

Rilke in Paris (translated by Will Stone) contains fragments of Rilke’s letters and diary entries about his Paris experiences, his Notes on the Melody of Things, as well as observations from his first translator and close collaborator Maurice Betz that together provide a very brief yet engaging glimpse into Rilke’s life in Paris and how his experiences in France shaped him as an artist.

Rilke arrived in Paris for the first time on 28 August, 1902, to write a monograph on the famous French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), who is widely considered to be the father of modern sculpture, and it seems that meeting Rodin was a pivotal moment in Rilke’s artistic development. The excerpts from letters and diary entries form an impression of Rilke as a pretty solitary, introspective young man, who was constantly seeking guidance on how to lead a creative life. In Rodin, who was known for his incredible artistic skills and rigorous work ethic, it appears that Rilke finally finds what he’s been looking for, however, the master-disciple relationship between the two artists didn’t play out exactly as Rilke had envisioned it. Rodin assigned him the role of his personal secretary (but basically treated him as a lowly intern) and, while it’s apparent from Rilke’s account that he carried some resentment about it, Rodin actually managed to give him some very valuable advice and much-needed direction that would help Rilke develop his writing skills.

The most notable testament to Rilke’s creative time in Paris is his semi-autobiographical novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Briggs (1910) that encapsulates his experiences in Paris and shows how much he grew as a writer and drew inspiration from his contemporaries in the Parisian literary community of the time. At the same time, despite how much he loved living in Paris, it was fascinating to learn that Rilke often struggled with fitting in and being accepted by some of his peers and heroes in the Parisian literary scene. Fortunately, Rodin came to the rescue again, reminding him that he should be focusing all of his energy on his art, instead of getting too involved in the endless, superficial gatherings of the Parisian social scene that threatened to interfere with his work.

Rilke in Paris focuses on a very specific period in the poet’s life and provides a concise overview of Rilke’s time in Paris without going into too much detail. While I think this book might be better suited for aficionados of Rilke’s work, it could also serve as a good primer before diving into a more comprehensive autobiography on Rilke or even a more detailed study of this creative period in Rilke’s life, such as the relatively recent non-fiction book You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin by Rachel Corbett.

Interesting insights into the world of Rilke and this period in Paris, with some helpful and evocative illlustrations. Helped improve my understanding of a specific time and place in history of which I previously had little knowledge.

This is really one for the Rilke aficionado rather than the general reader. I don’t know a lot about Rilke and have read very little but nevertheless I still got quite a lot from this exploration of his time in Paris, and found his thoughts and impressions of the city, with added observations from his translator Maurice Betz, very interesting. Rilke first went to Paris in 1902 to study Rodin, and on subsequent visits met many of the key names in the world of the arts. This short volume also includes Rilke’s essay on poetry “Notes on the Melody of Things” although I’m not quite sure what this has to do with the rest of the book. Overall an enjoyable excursion with Rilke through Paris and its inhabitants.

I have loved Rilke's poetry and letters. They tempted me to learn German in my twenties. This is a slender compilation of his letters and diaries from his Paris days, strung together by his translator, Maurice Betz, and first published in 1941.

After wading through half of Betz's introduction, I skimmed the rest of his passages as much as I could. France and French culture were key to Rilke's development as an artist, he says, and so was the isolation of life in Paris, alone in a crowd, enjoying the fresh outsider's perspective in that stimulating, beautiful, and for him, somewhat frightening environment. Betz has Rilke on a pedestal, and echoes his writing style, including his most operatic tones. Only, of course, he's not Rilke. "An expressive ingredient for the precarious alchemy of his inwardness" is an example of how he likes to put things. Or, after Rodin rejects Rilke, "with a painful accent but not without dignity, the poet bade farewell to the artist whose bewitchment, in spite of everything, he continued to suffer." To be fair, this is Rilke himself writing to Rodin about the same event: "So there you are, great master, become invisible to me, as if by some ascension carried off to the heavens which are yours."

I do love books like this for the first-person view of another time and place. It's not the best of those I've read, but Rilke's descriptions, and the insights into his writing process, made it worth the price of admission. Which was only my time, since I got it free from NetGalley. And it made me want to dip into Rilke again, without a middle man.

“I sense that to work is to live without dying.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke, the German poet, was very inspired by the city of Paris when he arrived in 1902. During his time in Paris he went from receiving some recognition for his work (he had just published his first verses in Germany when he arrived in Paris) to being quite a celebrated figure in the writing community. When he was forced to leave Paris during the duration of World War I, it was very draining for him, and his writing was negatively affected during that time. It was only when he returned to Paris that the muse returned. Rilke wrote The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Briggs, a work of prose that encapsulates his Paris experiences. It shows that the city allowed his genius to bloom. While in Paris, he was inspired by Rodin, Cézanne, and the Franco-Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren. This book was beautifully written by Maurice Betz, who worked closely with Rilke. It is interspersed with Rilke’s own writing, hence the shared writing credit.

Though Rilke loved Paris and was deeply inspired by it, he did not always find his relationship with Paris’ literary community fulfilling. Rilke was enthralled by the French poet Paul Valéry, but did not receive the same level of attention from the poet, much to his disappointment. Towards the end of his time in Paris, Rilke became slightly disillusioned by the social scene, which threatened to engulf his writing time. Rilke learned from Rodin that “total sacrifice was the recipe for greatness.” Paris provided the right habitat for Rilke to sacrifice for his art.

“Paris had unceremoniously torn Rilke out of his safe, somewhat fey nineteenth/century draped musings and thrown him headlong into the modern bear pit of a newfound expressivity.”

If you are not familiar with Rilke’s work, I highly suggest reading The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Briggs and some of his poetry before reading this book. This book is fascinating. Like Martin Bailey’s The Sunflowers are Mine, it focuses on a smaller section of Rilke’s life (rather than being an all-encompassing biography), but Rilke’s time in Paris was arguably the most important and creatively fulfilling time in Rilke’s life and thus to understand the man it is essential to know about his relationship with the city that so inspired him.

Thank you to Net Galley and Hesperus Press for the digital copy of this book.

Grade: B+

"I am in Paris; those who learn this are glad, most of them envy me. They are right. It is a great city; great and full of strange temptations." from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Ranier Maria Rilke

I was in my late 20s when I discovered Ranier Maria Rilke. Although I have revisited his poetry over the years and read biographies and books about Rilke it has been forty years since I last read The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, the composition of which figures in Rilke in Paris.

I opened up my copy and was amazed to find underlinings and notations and bent pages and bookmarks. How could I have forgotten this book?

"I have succumbed to these temptations, and this has brought about certain changes, if not in my character, at least in my outlook on the world, and, in any case in my life." from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Ranier Maria Rilke

Rilke in Paris focuses on the writer's time in Paris. Rilke first came to Paris in 1902 as a young man. By 1926 he had died of leukemia. Betz plumbs letters and excerpts from Rilke's works to illustrate the city's influence on Rilke, forming his artistic vision, especially as related to his writing of the highly personal Notebooks.

Also included is Rilke's poem essay Notes On the Melody of Things.

The book is a concise overview of Rilke's life from the young poet seeking a mentor through his development as a writer, including his influences. I was interested to read how Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy influenced Rilke.

Beautiful black and white photographs of Rilke's Paris illustrate the text.

An entirely different conception of all things had developed in me under these influences; certain differences have appeared that separate me from other men, more than anything heretofore. A world transformed. A new life filled with new meanings." from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Ranier Maria Rilke

We encounter Rilke as a solitary whose quest for authenticity separated him from others so that even when they were in the same city he only dined with his wife weekly. He believed his mentor, the sculptor Rodin, when he preached that artists must give up personal life and happiness for their art. Rilke had presented himself to Rodin and was taken in, working as a personal secretary in exchange. A break forced Rilke on his own, and he took residence in Paris, and over the next twenty years, he returned to "the same Paris" between his wanderings across Europe.

Rilke spent time in the Luxembourg Gardens, observing and learning from the beauty and the ugliness he saw. I recalled one of my favorite paintings from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, In the Luxembourg Gardens by John Singer Sargent, even if it was painted in 1879. I wanted to be transported into that scene.

"For the moment I find it a little hard because everything is too new. I am a beginner in my own circumstances." from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Ranier Maria Rilke

I love to learn how writers work. Betz offers us a detailed look into the "Genesis" of The Notebooks. First came Rilke's encounter with the story of a poet who had lived in Paris for some time, and feeling a failure, died at age thirty-two. Rilke saw the Notebooks as a "sequel to The Stories of God." He became haunted by his imagined poet Malte. He worked on the book for years; "Prose must be built like a cathedral," he wrote Rodin.

"My God, if any of it could be shared! But would it be then, would it be? No, it is only at the price of solitude." from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Ranier Maria Rilke

The Notebooks "is a confession and a lyrical novel of sorts, a study in psychology and a treatise on the interior life," Betz wrote, "a moving example of maturation through solitude and lucid contemplation of the loftiest problems in life." I am glad to have read Rilke in Paris for it has brought The Notebooks back into my life.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Super dense and hard to get into. It really felt like one overly verbose long sentence with no real point of interest. DNF at 30% .

Interesting albeit rather monotonous and outdated at times; "Rilke in Paris" details the poet's life and travels.

<blockquote>‘I sense that to work is to live without dying…’</blockquote>

This book details the poet Rilke's life in Paris, with splashes of his travels outside of France.

I've only read his "Letters to a Young Poet", which is a gracious and posthumous collection of letters. This book contains not only journals and letters by Rilke, but observations of Paris, much of what would envelop and become Rilke's "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge".

Overall, this is a tidy, and quite short book, but it does contain many perceptions of Paris that are deeply interesting, especially those about death.

<blockquote>The overriding atmosphere in all Rilke’s communication is one of the overt presence of death, exemplified by the hospitals that he sees on his perambulations. ‘I see now why they figure so often in Verlaine, Baudelaire and Mallarmé, you suddenly feel that in this city there are legions of the sick, armies of the dying, whole populations of the dead.’</blockquote>

I liked reading about Stefan Zweig having seen Rilke on a bus:

<blockquote>Zweig also recounts an earlier sighting of Rilke, when he chanced upon the poet riding the top deck of an omnibus, as if in a trance, curiously out of place amongst the other passengers. The sight of Rilke awkwardly embedded in this modern vehicle, silently passing in anonymity and unaware of his friend’s presence, had clearly touched Zweig.</blockquote>

And oh, the suffering paragraphs:

<blockquote>I know of no incantation; it is God who must pronounce it when the times are completed. I can only wait patiently. I can only bear with faith that deep source that lives on these long days sealed within me, heavy as a stone. But life is there, and it wants to use me for everything, my stone and me. So then, I am lost and I suffer…</blockquote>

In summary, this book was interesting but brief; I'd like to have read a bit more about the context, which to me seems faint, apart from the actual descriptions of where Rilke physically roamed Paris. The good bits were Rilke's quotes interspersed with faint information.