Review of “The Golem and The Jinni” by Helene Wecker

This is yet another book I didn’t expect to like, since I am not a fan of fantasy or magical realism. But of course, I loved it.

It’s an immigrant story in a way, about two very different beings who end up in the melting pot of New York in 1899. One is a golem, and one a jinni.

In Jewish folklore, a golem is a human-like figure made out of clay and brought to life by esoteric magic known only to a select few adept at Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah. Golems – unnaturally strong and unquestionably obedient to their creators – were said to have been created from time to time in olden days to help defend Jews from anti-Semitic attacks.

In Wecker’s story, a Prussian man who cannot find a wife goes to a reclusive old man to request that a golem be made for him to serve as a wife. He packs up the golem and sets out for New York. He dies en route, however, and the golem is left to fend for herself. A kindly rabbi on the street recognized what she was, and took her in to protect her, naming her Chava.

Meanwhile, a parallel story is going on with the unexpected release of a jinni from an old copper flask in a tinsmith shop in New York’s Little Syria. Jinnis (or genies) are the products of Middle Eastern and Muslim mythology, and are said to be spirits made of fire. Many, however, can make themselves look like humans. The tinsmith who inadvertently releases the jinni, in the guise of a handsome young man, vows to protect him much as the rabbi did with Chava, and names him Ahmad.

It is only a matter of time before this woman of earth and man of fire meet, and realize they have more in common than might at first be apparent. As they navigate through their unexpected lives in America, they also get to know each other, helping each other to understand what it means to be human, and maybe even what it means to love.

Discussion: The author’s depiction of the ways the golem and the jinni taught each other how to be, and learned to respect each other’s perspectives, is thoroughly engaging. I also enjoyed the author’s exploration of what it might be like to wake up in an alien world, all alone, having to hide one’s true nature and learn to survive. There are the inevitable humorous moments, as when the jinni, who was born in the 7th Century, marvels at humans:

What drove these short-lived creatures to be so oddly self-destructive, with their punishing journeys and brutal battles?”

Or when the jinni is talking to his benefactor, Arbeely, trying to understand what Christianity is:

‘Let me see if I understand correctly now,’ the Jinni said at one point. ‘You and your relations believe that a ghost living in the sky can grant you wishes.’

‘That is a gross oversimplification, and you know it.’

‘And yet, according to men, we jinn are nothing but children’s tales?”

Later, he talks to Chava about it, who offers a more nuanced perspective:

‘…perhaps the humans did create their God. But does that make him less real? Take this arch. [They are in Central Park.] They created it. Now it exists.’

‘Yes, but it doesn’t grant wishes,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t do anything.

‘True,’ se said. ‘But I look at it, and I feel a certain way. Maybe that’s its purpose.”

And there are plenty of touching moments, such as when the rabbi who “adopted” Chava, and who is an aged widower, explains to her his idea of what love is:

All of us are lonely at some point or another, no matter how many people surround us. And then, we meet someone who seems to understand. She smiles, and for a moment the loneliness disappears.”

As an interesting side note, the author has said in interviews that she is Jewish and her husband is Arab American; their fathers were both immigrants to the U.S.

Evaluation: This author clearly loves her characters, and I couldn’t help but do the same! I was enchanted by this unusual, imaginative, and heartwarming story, and would love to see a sequel!

Rating: 4/5

Published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2013

National Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month Kid Konnection – Review of “Hot, Hot Roti for Dada-ji” by F. Zia

Aneel’s grandparents have come from India to stay with them in America. Dada-ji, as you learn in the Hindi glossary at the end of this book, means paternal grandfather. Aneel loves learning from Dada-ji how to stand on his head and sit like a lotus plant. He also loves hearing about his grandparents’ village while he sits “on his grandfather’s lotus lap.”

Dada-ji has great stories. He avers that eating “hot, hot roti” gives him superhuman strength. (Roti means “bread” in Hindi, and is basically a round, flat, unleavened bread cooked on a griddle.) Like Popeye and spinach, when Dada-ji eats roti, he claims he can wrestle water buffalos and tie cobras in a knot!

Aneel decides he needs to make some roti and everyone helps. Dada-ji eats one after another, all the while saying how good it is and how powerful he feels. Together, he and Aneel go outside and have some adventures. Dada-ji says to Aneel:

The power of the hot, hot roti came back to the lad from a village far, far away. Thank you, my tiger. Thank you!”

Evaluation: I love Dada-ji! Everyone needs a fun, supportive grandpa like him! It’s a great story, and the illustrations by Ken Min are very entertaining! As a bonus, there is a glossary of relevant Hindi terms in the back, and on their website, Lee & Low provides a recipe for “hot hot roti.”

Rating: 4.5/5

Published by Lee & Low Books, 2011

For more multicultural picture books, check out all the resources at The Birthday Party Pledge, a new website dedicated to promoting gifts of multicultural books to the children in our lives.

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For more reviews of books for children and teens, go to Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection, posted on Saturdays. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, leave a comment as well as a link on her site.

Review of “Purple Hibiscus” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Purple Hibiscus is a story told in the first person by Kambili, a 15-year-old living in a relatively wealthy house in Nigeria along with her older brother, Jaja; her mother, Beatrice; and father, Eugene. Eugene sees himself as the epitome of Christian piety, but beats his wife and children almost senseless when they exhibit what he deems to be wicked behavior (such as, for example, if the kids come in second rather than first in class).

In the background, a parallel story recounts the repression and turmoil of the current political regime. Kambili’s family is keenly aware that speaking out against injustice can get you imprisoned or even killed, just like speaking out at home can earn Kambili and Jaja a scalding by their father, or worse.

Kambili and Jaja are submissive and dutiful, “until Nsukka.” This is where their Aunty Ifeoma lives, and where they unexpectedly get to spend some time on a visit. There, they see a different vision of family, and learn how good it feels to be free – to laugh, even to cry.

But the regime is not about to give, nor is their father.

Discussion: There are so many momentous themes and symbols and parallels running through this very impressive book. One leitmotif is the tension between those Nigerians who slavishly parrot the colonialist lines (including the one that maintains that whites and everything about them are superior), and those who find value in their own culture and even appearance. Another is the hypocrisy of some fanatic forms of Christianity. The second class role of women is also a theme (and simultaneously a reflection of both the paternalism of the regime and of the father of this household), and leads to perhaps the biggest issue of the book: domestic abuse of women and children, and its enduring devastating effects (not only physical but mental).

Eugene is not just a cardboard evil character. He is loved and respected by those outside his family for his very generous charity and courage. The love that everyone feels for Eugene affects Kambili: though she is afraid of her father, she admires him, and wants nothing more than to please him and for him to love her. The mother wants the same things, although in part, her position is dictated by the strictures imposed on women by society. If Eugene doesn’t want her, her very survival will be in jeopardy. After a particularly brutal beating, she tells Ifeoma:

‘Where would I go if I leave Eugene’s house? Tell
me where would I go? … Do you know how many
mothers pushed their daughters at him? Do you know
how many told him to impregnate them even, and not
bother paying a bride price?”

There is some riveting dialogue in this book that bring to life the many forms of repression of the book, as with the following discussion of religion. At one point, Kambili, trying at all times to parrot the phrases she knows will make her father happy says:

God knows best… God works in mysterious ways.”

Then, Jaja, who has been infected the most by the “undertones of freedom”, snorts at her:

Of course God does. Look what He did to his faithful servant Job, even to His own son. But have you ever wondered why? Why did He have to murder his own son so we would be saved? Why didn’t He just go ahead and save us?”

Evaluation: While this may sound like it is a depressing book, it is not. It certainly has dark moments, but they are counterbalanced by examples of true family love and support; of those who practice a more truly “Christian” faith; and spectacular descriptions of the sights and sounds and smells of Nigeria, with the fragrance of frangipani and hibiscuses mixing with the curry, nutmeg, herbs, and oils. What amazingly complex characters! I am still trying to digest what I think of all of them. And what craftsmanship in the writing! It isn’t easy to weave in so many parallel themes without sounding didactic, and managing to engage our sympathies for every one of them.

This would make one of the best book club discussion books that I have read in a long time!

Rating: 4.5/5

Published by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 2004

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Note: For more information about Ms. Adichie (pronounced “ah-DEE-chee-eh), you can watch her speak here on “The Danger of a Single Story” or read the transcript here. (Thanks to Nymeth for the lecture referral.)

Review of “Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution” by Nathaniel Philbrick

This is a very good, very detailed view of a very small window of American revolutionary history, from the beginnings of the patriot movement to the end of the siege of Boston in 1776.

With a story told so often, what does Philbrick do differently to justify this new volume?

For one thing, he includes many details that are generally omitted from popular representations of the rebellion of the colonists. For example, he explains why greed was a more salient motivation for the Boston Tea Party than outrage over an unfair tax, and he exposes the culture of collective violence that characterized Boston at that time. He records the hypocrisy of these early patriots, who wanted services and goods from the Crown, including military protection, but didn’t want to pay for these things, and who were outraged that the British would try to encroach upon their freedom by offering freedom to their slaves! They loved the idea of liberty, Philbrick points out, but not for everyone. They were quite pious (although there was enough prostitution to result in an area of Boston being named Mt. Whoredom), but they didn’t want Catholics to be able to practice. And they especially resented the way the British were trying to enforce treaties made with the Indians, so that they, the erstwhile recipients of God’s Manifest Destiny, could not expand into the West. [Many other colonists resented this as well, including one of the biggest land grabbers, George Washington.]

From Boston Magazine, 4/20/2013

Philbrick also does an excellent job of conveying just how confused and unorganized all the parties were in those early days – not just the patriots, who were from different colonies and had various and competing interests, but even the British, who weren’t sure how to proceed against an army of British subjects! The British also had to wait for orders that could take up to a month by ship to reach them, eliminating the advantage of acting swiftly and decisively.

Communications within the colonies weren’t much better. An informal network of couriers helped, but there was not really a clear central authority, and certainly no means of enforcement. The Battle of Bunker Hill (which actually took place on Breed’s Hill) was fought by a group of rival generals carrying out rival plans with separate groups of soldiers.

Thus, with the absence of good information and a definite line of command, rumors ran rife, and potential disasters from misinformation and political disarray were a continual threat.

The appointment and arrival of George Washington two and a half weeks after Bunker Hill changed a great many things: Washington sought to forge a national army, but it was slow going at first. And the appointment might not have happened at all, Philbrick argues, had Joseph Warren, the most esteemed man in Boston, not been killed on Breed’s Hill.

Dr. Joseph Warren, who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill just six days after turning 34

In fact, most of Philbrick’s book is focused on Warren, and his leadership of the Boston movement, which distinguishes this account from many others. We get to know some of the British officers as well, including Thomas Gage and William Howe. We also get a brief look at some of Washington’s more colorful cronies, including Henry Knox and Nathanael Greene.

The amazing Henry Knox, as pictured by Charles Willson Peale in 1784

Evaluation: The beginning of any revolution is a time of monumental import. This is a great story, and Philbrick tells it well. There are a lot of names and places thrown at you that may seem daunting if you are unfamiliar with the history of the American Revolution, but a good many of the characters are American icons, and should be fairly well-known. There is so much action and excitement, it is not a surprise to learn that a movie studio has purchased the dramatic rights!

Rating: 4/5

Published by Viking, a member of the Penguin Group, 2013

Note: The book includes a number of helpful maps and pictures.

Review of “Boy 21” by Matthew Quick

I put off reading this forever. From the blurbs I thought: boys, basketball, drugs, violence, ugh. But there were competing pressures: (1) the author is Matthew Quick, who wrote Silver Linings Playbook; (2) I keep seeing rave reviews for this one; and finally (3) the cover kept calling out to me, with its promise that something really, really good was somehow in this book. And it was!

Finley McManus is a high-school senior who lives in a working class Irish and Black mob-dominated town outside of Philadelphia with his depressed single father and his amputee alcoholic grandfather (“Pop”). We don’t know how they got into those straights, but Finley, the narrator, isn’t talking about it. He doesn’t like to think about unpleasant aspects of his life and so instead, he plays basketball, practices basketball with his girlfriend Erin (who also is a good player), and makes out with Erin when it’s too dark to play. Erin and Finley are not harassed by local gangs only because Erin’s older brother Rod provides protection for the whites in the neighborhood.

Everything in Finley’s life changes when his coach insists he befriend a new kid, Russ Washington, who is the son of friends of the Coach. Russ’s parents were recently murdered, and Russ has taken on the persona of “Boy21” from Outer Space. Coach wants to help him get back to “real life” and especially, to basketball, because back in LA, Russ was a big basketball phenom. But Russ not only plays Finley’s position, he wears Finley’s number. Can Finley give up what is so vital to his sanity to help someone else? Can Boy21 return to Earth?

Discussion: This is the first book in a long time that, for me, approached the quality of a John Green book. It has heart and soul and characters you just fall in love with. At times it’s hilarious. It skirts around being heartbreaking but never really falls over the cliff, because the love and hope and faith of the characters keep both them and you from tumbling over the edge. Does the girl, Erin, remind me of Jennifer Lawrence in the movie “Silver Linings Playbook”? Well, yes, but that’s not a bad thing! And the young boy, Finley, is a doll. Erin, who is his girlfriend, is trying to explain to Finley why the troubled Boy21 likes him:

It’s because you’re a good person. It’s because you’re easy to be around. It’s because you are you. You don’t put demands on people and you never say anything negative – ever. So many people suck the life out of everyone they’re around, but you don’t do that. You give people strength just by being you.”

I wish I were like that. But since I’m not, it’s great to “get to know” characters who are, in a book like this.

Evaluation: Matthew Quick wrote Silver Linings Playbook, and you can recognize many of its same qualities in this terrific book: warmth; quirky humor; love and loyalty of family and friends; the role sports plays in cementing relationships; and the tragedy and beauty of the human condition. Highly recommended!

Rating: 4.5/5

Note: While sports plays a role, this is not a sports story!

Published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc., 2012

Review of “The Art of Power” by Jon Meacham

When it comes to history, it’s very hard for me to be bored or indifferent. While I had quibbles with this take on Thomas Jefferson, I loved listening to the audiobook all the same. The time of the founding of the United States is just a great story, no matter how it is told.

Meacham is an author who is willing to acknowledge some of Jefferson’s most glaring shortcomings, but would like us to focus on those aspects of Jefferson that in the final analysis make him an enduring icon. In particular, Meacham is impressed by Jefferson as a polymath, and he goes into great detail about how broad Jefferson’s interests were, how forward-looking, and how impressive he seemed to his peers. (Personally, I think I also might have time to develop skills in a lot of areas if I had 200 slaves.)

On the subject of slaves, Meacham’s view is that Jefferson tried to push for abolition, but when it proved to be politically unpopular he abandoned his efforts. He further contends that we must not judge Jefferson by the standards of our own time. Meacham does briefly admit that there were plenty of eminent people in Jefferson’s own time who had the courage and perseverance to fight for slavery and who refused to own slaves themselves, but this information is downplayed.

Meacham also spends a great deal of time detailing the reasons justifying Jefferson’s mistrust of Hamilton, but hardly any time at all explaining why that mistrust may have been misplaced, and no time whatsoever on the steps Jefferson surreptitiously took to destroy Hamilton and his career.

He does fully expose how, in contrast to Jefferson’s voluminous writings about the evils of a strong executive (and the evils of those who would advocate such a position), Jefferson in fact expanded the power of the presidency more than any U.S. president prior to himself. Meacham avers this demonstrates Jefferson’s practicality, rather than his hypocrisy.

Evaluation: In sum, one might call this a modified hagiography of Jefferson. It isn’t totally uncritical, but it doesn’t seem to me to be totally honest or objective either. Nevertheless, it is good reading (and listening) and I recommend it as supplemental reading with other accounts of Jefferson.

Notes on the audio production: I thought actor Edward Herrmann did a very good job at narrating, and the text (in spite of my complaints about its selectivity) never lost my interest.

Rating: 3.5/5

Published by Random House Audio, unabridged on 15 compact discs, 2012.

Note: For a more detailed review of this book, see the one posted on our sister blog, Legal Legacy, here.

Review of “Adaptation” by Malinda Lo

This is a young adult scifi novel that combines some familiar tropes with some new twists.

Reese Holloway and David Li, juniors at Kennedy High School in San Francisco, are in Arizona for a national debate competition when planes start falling out of the sky. All of them allegedly crashed because of bird strikes. Reese, texting her BFF Julien, finds out that there are theories of a government cover-up of even more crashes than have been publicized, combined with a suspicious media blackout. Thus, Reese, David, and their debate coach decide to drive back to San Francisco instead of risking their lives in the air. But much goes wrong on the way, and Reese and David end up in a life-threatening accident close to Area 51.

[Area 51 is a secret military base in Nevada. Rumors have abounded over the years that this is where the military has sequestered extraterrestrials, and that this secret has been kept from the public (with or without government complicity, depending on the particular conspiracy theory).]

Reese, it must be noted, has been harboring a secret crush on David. Maybe David likes her back or maybe not. The accident makes all that moot. And when David and Reese are released from their hospital after a month of being in medical-induced comas to save their lives, all they know is that they are now different somehow … in a very freaky way.

Moreover, after they are back home, Reese meets a very striking girl, Amber, and develops a crush on her too.

Is this coming of age? Or something spookier? Because nothing has been the same since Reese and David were OPERATED ON in Area 51!

Discussion: For me, this book exhibited both strengths and weaknesses.

What I liked:

You have to love a book full of bisexual, gay, and straight characters and everyone is cool about it.

And did I mention mixed races of all sorts?

What I didn’t like:

Reese is 17, but she usually acts much younger. She can be incredibly naïve, immature and stupid for someone her age.

The girl-with-the-gay-best-friend plotline is getting old…

The actions taken on the roads by panicky people and a suddenly-fascist military seemed pretty unlikely to me.

The government official characters (each with names like Special Agent X) seemed more like over-the-top movie caricatures (wearing dark glasses of course) than realistic officials under those same circumstances.

Last but not least, there is a scene that is so Richard Dreyfuss-and-the-mashed-potatoes that I couldn’t believe the author would include it without having to include an acknowledgement to “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”!

Evaluation: Easy recipe for this book: Take a well-worn movie plot full of well-meaning aliens and evil government officials and re-tell it for a YA audience. Throw in all sorts of diversity. Add a semi-cliffhanger at the end so readers will be back for Book Two. (Some readers, that is…. Probably not this reader.)

Rating: 2.5/5

Published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc., 2012

National Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month Kid Konnection – Review of “Red Kite, Blue Kite” by Ji-li Jiang

Red Kite, Blue Kite is a lovely story that takes place during the Cultural Revolution in China. Tai Shan loves to fly kites from the rooftop with his father, Baba. Tai Shan’s is red and Baba’s is blue.

One day, Baba is arrested:

Then, a bad time comes. My school is shut down. Soon all the schools are shut down. People wearing red armbands smash store signs and search houses. Men and women are sent to labor camps to work.

Baba is one of them.”

Fortunately, Baba’s camp is not too far away, and for a while he can visit every Sunday. When he is no longer allowed to leave the camp, he proposes to Tai Shan that he fly his red kite every morning, and Baba will answer with his blue kite at sunset. Tai Shan loves the idea of sharing a secret signal, and flies his red kite in the morning:

Before sunset, I go back to the hill and climb the elm tree. I wait and wait. Finally, Baba’s blue kite sways into the white clouds. The kite waves at me and whispers, ‘Here I am, my son.’”

But one day Baba’s kite doesn’t appear, and Tai Shan finds out Baba must be transferred far away. Baba now asks Tai Shan to fly both kites every day:

When you fly our kites, know that I am looking at the same sky and thinking about you.”

Tai Shan flies the kites, and is happy:

I smile with hope. Baba is watching. He is with me. We are above but still under, neither here nor there. We are free, like the kites.”

Finally, one sunny afternoon, Baba returns, and everyone in the village celebrates by flying kites.

Evaluation: I have to admit I was scared reading this book, because, having an adult’s knowledge of China during the Cultural Revolution, I was not optimistic! But the author based this story on the actual experience of a family friend whose father did survive. And I think most children will not be predisposed to be as pessimistic as I! For innocent children, this is a beautiful story of familial love and hope, and Greg Ruth’s ink-and-watercolor illustrations are very appealing.

Rating: 4.5/5

Published by Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group, 2013

Product Details
Reading level: Ages 5 and up
Hardcover: 32 pages
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1423127536
ISBN-13: 978-1423127536

For more multicultural picture books, check out all the resources at The Birthday Party Pledge, a new website dedicated to promoting gifts of multicultural books to the children in our lives.

***

For more reviews of books for children and teens, go to Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection, posted on Saturdays. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, leave a comment as well as a link on her site.

Review of “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” by Maria Semple

I loved this book. According to the author, many people claim THEY are just like “Bernadette” and I feel the same way. But I am right. It is I who am like Bernadette; the author captured me entirely! Well, except for the genius part. But the road rage, the people rage, the rage over injustice and the rest of it? Totally me!

Bernadette Fox is a former recipient of a genius grant because of her innovative architectural design. Now she is a frustrated angry housewife but loving mother to Bee, 15 and gifted. Bernadette’s husband Elgin is a top-level designer at Microsoft, who puts in long hours and exercises religiously when not at work. The family lives in a crumbling former school at the top of Queen Anne Hill, a neighborhood in Seattle.

As you can glean from the title, the plotline concerns the sudden apparent disappearance of Bernadette.

Much of the fun in this mostly-epistolary satirical book comes from the setting: from the climbing blackberry vines on the hill to the status-climbing parents at Bee’s school; from the hilarious send-up of the Seattle lifestyle to the ubiquity and comic possibilities of outsourcing; and of course from the hypocritical and fickle nature of humankind.

But this delightful book isn’t all about carping; it’s also about love, and how one will literally go to the ends of the earth for it. I’d call this a “don’t miss this” book!

Evaluation: After reading this, I immediately emailed everyone I knew looking for a good book. This one is imaginative, funny, and poignant, with witty and penetrating social commentary that is right on target.

Rating: 5/5

Note 1: Sandy of You’ve GOTTA Read This says the audio version featuring narrator Kathleen Wilhoite is terrific.

Note 2: Jim also enjoyed this book a great deal, but he wouldn’t give it a 5 because after he gave Moby Dick a 5 he feels he can never give anything else a 5. Plus, he thinks I gave it a 5 because, as he writes, “Jill overrates this very good book because the eponymous Bernadette is so much like Jill.” [...to which I would respond: pffftt.]

Published by Little, Brown and Company, 2012

Poetry Month Review – “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke was a poet born in Prague (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) in 1875. He is generally labeled a “mystic” and has developed something of a cult following over the years.

Posters of Rilke fill college dorms. This one includes a portrait done in 1906 by Paula Modersohn-Becker, an early expressionist painter, along with a quote from the first of the Letters to a Young Poet

Rilke’s poems are considered quite difficult to translate from the German, and frankly, I even have trouble understanding them in English. His letters, on the other hand, are quite comprehensible and even inspirational.

This little volume is the latest of one of many translations of Rilke’s famous set of ten letters he wrote between 1902 and 1908 to a “fan” – an aspiring poet. The young man, Franz Kappus, 19, sent Rilke some poems and asked him if he would evaluate them, and whether he, Kappus, should risk all by becoming a poet full-time. Rilke, then only 28, answered generously, at length, and in great detail about what constitutes creativity and poetry, and how to channel the former into the latter. (What a dream-come-true for a “fan” of an author!)

Rainer Maria Rilke in September 1900

The letters give you a sense of Rilke’s great facility with words, and provide an interior portrait of an artist (himself) that is revelatory and moving.

Don’t stop at the first letter; in it Rilke claims no one can help another with writing. But thereafter, Rilke goes on to advise Kappus about how and where to find the creative thoughts within himself. (Not only within: he does go on a bit about how “creativity of the spirit has its origin in the physical kind, is of one nature with it and only a more delicate, more rapt and less fleeting version of the carnal sort of sex.”)

Poetry and sex. Who knew?

But here, perhaps, is a better example of the beauty of his writing, when he explains to Kappus how Rome has helped his equanimity:

No, there is not more beauty here than elsewhere, and all these objects which generation after generation have continued to admire, which inexpert hands have mended and restored, they mean nothing, are nothing, and have no heart and no value; but there is a great deal of beauty here, because there is beauty everywhere.

Infinitely lively waters go over the old aqueducts into the city and on the many squares dance over bowls of white stone and fill broad capacious basins and murmur all day and raise their murmur into the night, which is vast and starry and soft with winds. And there are gardens here, unforgettable avenues and flights of steps, steps conceived by Michelangelo, steps built to resemble cascades of flowing water – giving birth to step after broad step like wave after wave as they descend the incline. With the help of such impressions you regain your composure, win your way back out of the demands of the talking and chattering multitude (how voluble it is!), and you slowly learn to recognize the very few things in which something everlasting can be felt, something you can love, something solitary in which you can take part in silence.”

Discussion: Can the prowess of Rilke be evinced through this (or any) translation? I have no idea. Rilke himself said in a letter to his long-time friend/lover Lou Andreas- Salomé that when he wrote on the same subject in French as well as German, the content “developed very differently in the two languages: which argues strongly against the naturalness of translation.”

Lou Andreas-Salomé, psychoanalyst, writer, and associate of Rilke, Freud, Nietzsche, Wagner, and others

I cannot read Rilke in German, and thus I don’t feel able to say how good this particular translation is, although it is easy enough to find and compare others. Take, for example, the passage cited above about Rome. In this version, the translator has Rilke saying that “inexpert hands” have mended the beautiful objects of Rome. Another version I checked uses “workmen.” My impression is that restoring objets d’art is an extremely painstaking process requiring great skill, so I don’t find those concepts fungible. But, I have no idea what the passage says in the original German, so I have no knowledge about which construction is closer to Rilke’s intent. And in any event, otherwise I thought that this beautiful passage comes forth much clearer in this translation than the other. Generally, however, among translations, I think there is more variation in the associated matter (intro, notes, and the like) than in the text itself.

What I can say that I found Rilke’s thoughts riveting. In the course of talking about creativity, he also muses on power relationships, love, gender roles, sickness and health, cowardice and fortitude, and how to think about what happens in life generally. I especially like this passage:

… imagining an individual’s existence as a larger or smaller room reveals to us that most people are only acquainted with one corner of their particular room … That way, they have a certain security. And yet … perilous uncertainty … is so much more human. …

How can we forget those ancient myths found at the beginning of all peoples? The myths about the dragons who at the last moment turn into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses, only waiting for the day when they will see us handsome and brave? Perhaps everything terrifying is deep down a helpless thing that needs our help.”

A beast can become a prince…

These letters will give you a very good sense of Rilke’s genius, his quixoticism, and lots of ideas to think about as well. And I particularly enjoyed being able to read something by Rilke that I actually understood….

A 1902 portrait of poet Rainer Maria Rilke by Helmut Westhoff

Note: This edition was translated and edited by Charlie Louth, and contains an introduction by Lewis Hyde.

Published by Penguin Classics, 2013