Posted by Steven on 1/7/2010, 10:00:21, in reply to "Re: recent reading"
76.186.51.185
I haven't read much of note lately except a couple of general histories of China. I've been intending to read Little, Big this year, but haven't gotten to it yet.
I'm planning to start read Rilke's Notebooks soon. Reading his poetry as well is a great idea. I have the Selected Poetry translated by Stephen Mitchell, which I started reading last night. I also have the complete Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus translated by A. Poulin, Jr. Both are bilingual editions, and there is quite a bit of overlap between the two. My German is good enough to get the literal meaning of perhaps 90% of the text (Rilke's German is actually quite easy) but I still have to rely on the translations for the interpretation.
From the sampling of his poetry I've read so far, it appears that Rilke will be giving us a lot of metaphors involving sight and blindness just as Canetti did. Rilke also seems to be rather entranced with the power of his own artistic sensibilities.
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