Posted on: June 30, 2008
Papa Hemingway at his desk. 1939.
It’s quite possible I couldn’t pick two writers further apart from one another to deal with back to back. Temperamentally, artistically, biographically. Rilke and Hemingway. Yet both men were profoundly influenced by their days in Paris, and both men learned much about their art at the knee of an older woman. Perhaps it’s less than dime-store psychology to also suggest that both men had “issues” with their relationship to female sexuality. Issues that led to very different attempts to resolve that conflict – internally and externally. But, issues nonetheless. People really are complex.
Finished Humphrey Carpenter’s book about Americans in Paris, and was reminded that the core material for The Sun Also Rises was a rather banal little trip taken by Hemingway and a few friends to see the bulls in Pamplona.…
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Posted on: June 27, 2008
Vsevolod Garshin, by Ilya Repin. 1884.
No, this post won’t be about old Vsevolod. He’s already had more than enough great press lately, I imagine. Just thought his visage captured a certain weariness, bafflement and astonishment at the task of reading and writing, and that this was apropos of other things. The artist Repin was apparently good at that, too – good at painting moments like this, having tackled Tolstoy as well as the composer Rimsky-Korsakov in other portraits. And, of course, old Vsevolod looks like a 19th century Spiderman, lost in a Bohemian funk. But that’s another story altogether.
Wanted to follow up on yesterday’s post about Rilke, and elaborate a bit on my translation of The Panther, on what went into it, and how it came to be.…
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Posted on: June 26, 2008
Castle Duino, Italy. Photo by Johann Jaritz.
Rainer Maria Rilke was a sublime poet, one of the greatest lyric poets of the 20th century, and quite possibly a lousy human being. His Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus rank among the finest works of art in any language, taking us softly, profoundly to the nexus between life and death, pain and redemption, mourning and new hope. Through his poetry and other writings, he conveyed a level of empathy and understanding toward women that may surpass any poet in the last 100 years. Though it seemed he rarely showed that insight and understanding in real life, at least if we are to believe several recent accounts about Rilke’s life and loves.
If those portraits of the real Rilke are accurate, it wouldn’t be the first time such an apparent contradiction occurred.…
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