May I recommend Benjamin Lytal’s Unrreal City: Rilke’s Phantasmagoric Fiction in The Nation for November 6, 2008? Simply go to http://www.thenation.com and search for “rilke”. Lytal’s article supplements your presentation of Rilke’s novel beautifully; and where it adds counterpoint, and asks whether the author/poet is straining too hard for effect, it only succeeds in pointing up the comedy and making the novel still more of an inviting read.

Also, he goes into helpful detail about Pike’s new translation vs. Mitchell’s standard.