Scan barcode
A review by helgamharb
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke
4.0
*Note: I suggest not to read this book if you are lonely, depressed, unhappy or dissatisfied with your life.
To be loved means to be consumed by fire. To love is to glow bright with an inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away; to love is to endure.
Rilke wrote this semi-autobiographical novel in 1902 after his move to Paris; "a city where there is no forgiveness".
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge ('Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge') are random thoughts and daydreams of a man who is suffering depression and is consumed by paranoia; who sees only the poverty, filth, sickness, cruelty, despair, hopelessness and death.
There is no beginners' classes in life. What is required of you is always the hardest thing, right from the start.
These introspections are often accompanied by his reminiscences about his childhood, his mother who also was suffering from depression after the death of her daughter and the ghosts he used to see at their ancestral castle.
His mother used to tell him:
'Never forget to make a wish, Malte. One should never stop making wishes. I do not believe that they come true, but there are wishes that keep, a whole life long, and one couldn't live long enough for them to come true anyway.'
In a letter of 18 July 1903 he writes to his friend Lou Andreas-Salomé:
'Paris was an experience similar to that of the military school; just as in those days i was seized by an immense, fearful amazement, so now i was beset by horror of everything that is known, as if in some inexpressible confusion, as life.'
Malte suffers from rootlessness. He is afraid of death, but he is also afraid to be loved by others. Any kind of affection is unnerving. He seeks only one love and that is the love of God. But is he ready to accept that bliss?
The woman who loves always surpasses the man who is loved, because life is greater than fate. Her devotion aspires to be infinite: that is her happiness. But the nameless grief of her love has always been this: that she is required to limit that devotion.
To be loved means to be consumed by fire. To love is to glow bright with an inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away; to love is to endure.
Rilke wrote this semi-autobiographical novel in 1902 after his move to Paris; "a city where there is no forgiveness".
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge ('Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge') are random thoughts and daydreams of a man who is suffering depression and is consumed by paranoia; who sees only the poverty, filth, sickness, cruelty, despair, hopelessness and death.
There is no beginners' classes in life. What is required of you is always the hardest thing, right from the start.
These introspections are often accompanied by his reminiscences about his childhood, his mother who also was suffering from depression after the death of her daughter and the ghosts he used to see at their ancestral castle.
His mother used to tell him:
'Never forget to make a wish, Malte. One should never stop making wishes. I do not believe that they come true, but there are wishes that keep, a whole life long, and one couldn't live long enough for them to come true anyway.'
In a letter of 18 July 1903 he writes to his friend Lou Andreas-Salomé:
'Paris was an experience similar to that of the military school; just as in those days i was seized by an immense, fearful amazement, so now i was beset by horror of everything that is known, as if in some inexpressible confusion, as life.'
Malte suffers from rootlessness. He is afraid of death, but he is also afraid to be loved by others. Any kind of affection is unnerving. He seeks only one love and that is the love of God. But is he ready to accept that bliss?
The woman who loves always surpasses the man who is loved, because life is greater than fate. Her devotion aspires to be infinite: that is her happiness. But the nameless grief of her love has always been this: that she is required to limit that devotion.