This was a difficult real. For me mainly because Rilke is always referring to people I don;t know much about, often political, sometimes artistic.
Also the work is very fragmented, which obviously is part of the point, but it doesn't make it any easier to read.
Apart from that though Rilke had some really interesting philosophical ideas and I found myself spending so much time rereading sentences because of their sheer beauty. Some amazing prose in there. I could tell why he's known mostly for his poetry!
Shame it's his only novel really. I would have been interested to read more. But this is one of those books you can reread a million times, although it does need patience to get through, and every time find something new and understand it a little bit better than you did the last time you read it.

Minus one star just for the struggle.