The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge - Softcover

Rilke, Rainer Maria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393308812 ISBN 13: 9780393308815

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992

Synopsis

A masterly new translation of one of the first great modernist novels In the only novel by one of the German language?s greatest poets, a young man named Malte Laurids Brigge lives in a cheap room in Paris while his belongings rot in storage. Every person he sees seems to carry their death with them, and with little but a library card to distinguish him from the city?s untouchables, he thinks of the deaths, and ghosts, of his aristocratic family, of which he is the sole living descendant. Suffused with passages of lyrical brilliance, Rilke?s semi-autobiographical novel is a moving and powerful coming-of-age story.

About this title

Review

"There have been books that have struck me like lightning and left me riven, permanently scarred, perhaps burned-out but picturesque; and there have been those that created complete countries with their citizens, their cows, their climate, where I could choose to live for long periods while enduring, defying, enjoying their scenery and seasons; but there have been one or two I came to love with a profounder and more enduring passion, not just because, somehow, they seemed to speak to the most intimate 'me' I knew but also because they emobodied what I held to be humanly highest, and were therefore made of words which revealed a powerful desire moving with the rhythmic grace of Blake's Tyger; an awareness that was pitilessly unsentimental, yet receptive as a sponge; feelings that were free and undeformed and unashamed; thought that looked at all its conclusions and didn't blink; as well as an imagination that could dance on the heads of all those angels dancing on that pin. I thought that [Rilke's] Notebooks were full of writing that met that tall order." -- William H. Gass

"One of the world's most beautiful books."
-"The Philadelphia Inquirer"

About the Author

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is considered one of the greatest poets who ever wrote in the German language. His most famous works are Sonnets to Orpheus, The Duino Elegies, Letters to a Young Poet, and The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. His collected work is comprised of hundreds of other poems, essays, plays, and stories. M. D. Herter Norton is a publisher and translator. Together with her husband William Warder Norton, she founded the publishing company W. W. Norton & Company. Her work as translator includes the translation of works by Rainer Marie Rilke.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0393308812
• ISBN 13: 9780393308815
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240