The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is Rilke’s only novel and on a whole, its not very good. Still worth reading though. It was written while Rilke was living in Paris in 1910 and in the form of a semi-autobiographical diary for that time period, which plays out not at all unlike what you might find in a well maintained personal blog. While there are fantastic moments in the writing, which are worth digging for (after all this is still Rilke), they tend to be surround by superfluous details that paste into extended monotony. Although, part of this could be artistic styling. Ennui being a catalyst for all lots of human behavior. But still, it doesn’t become the most captivating read.
The narrative voice works within the ‘outsider poet’ stereotype, the lone black sheep whose anxiety from being separated from the flock works to increase his/her own internal world. In doing so, Rilke’s major themes of existentialism and individuality are woven into his narrator’s social observations, memories and imaginative whirlwinds, which include hallucinating wandering hands, experiencing the presence of ghosts and mirror images that become masters rather than mere reflections. So there is a touch of the gothic in The Notebooks of Malke Laurids Brigge, as a sort of maudlin tinted cross between Franz Kafka and Friedrich Nietzsche.
But the strongest current I found in the book explores the nature of writing itself. When I say ‘write’, I don’t mean as an ‘author’; more expressionistic than that. What begins to be realized is that writing becomes a means for Brigge to understand the bond between outer and the inner world. When Brigge writes ‘it’, ‘it’ no longer sits dormant in his inner world but becomes a living, breathing aspect that will play itself out in the outer world. While that is always the role of the imagination, what’s at work here is Brigge's increased awareness towards the role the imagination has upon his life. And with increased awareness, possibly then an ability to shape as well. If not the details, than the tone asserted with his processing.
While written a hundred years ago, these remain important concepts for the contemporary world. Urban life is still a fairly new development within the history of mankind. And with the further blending of cultures, the increased influence of a world economy, the new altars of materialism, the dangerous draw of fundamentalism, the nearly uncontrollable bombardment of the media (with its capability of influencing) and the inability to predict where our lives will be five years from the next, the open-ended aspects of alienation and the related potential for anxiety are only that much more important to understand in our current times.
The narrative voice works within the ‘outsider poet’ stereotype, the lone black sheep whose anxiety from being separated from the flock works to increase his/her own internal world. In doing so, Rilke’s major themes of existentialism and individuality are woven into his narrator’s social observations, memories and imaginative whirlwinds, which include hallucinating wandering hands, experiencing the presence of ghosts and mirror images that become masters rather than mere reflections. So there is a touch of the gothic in The Notebooks of Malke Laurids Brigge, as a sort of maudlin tinted cross between Franz Kafka and Friedrich Nietzsche.
But the strongest current I found in the book explores the nature of writing itself. When I say ‘write’, I don’t mean as an ‘author’; more expressionistic than that. What begins to be realized is that writing becomes a means for Brigge to understand the bond between outer and the inner world. When Brigge writes ‘it’, ‘it’ no longer sits dormant in his inner world but becomes a living, breathing aspect that will play itself out in the outer world. While that is always the role of the imagination, what’s at work here is Brigge's increased awareness towards the role the imagination has upon his life. And with increased awareness, possibly then an ability to shape as well. If not the details, than the tone asserted with his processing.
While written a hundred years ago, these remain important concepts for the contemporary world. Urban life is still a fairly new development within the history of mankind. And with the further blending of cultures, the increased influence of a world economy, the new altars of materialism, the dangerous draw of fundamentalism, the nearly uncontrollable bombardment of the media (with its capability of influencing) and the inability to predict where our lives will be five years from the next, the open-ended aspects of alienation and the related potential for anxiety are only that much more important to understand in our current times.
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