50BC08 #21: Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke


rating: 5 of 5 stars
50 Book Challenge #21
pages: 66 (Dover, 2002)




There are works that surface time and time again in cultural circles: film, literature, music, etc. One of these is Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. The young poet, Franz Xaver Kappus, is unremarkable in this set of letters as we never see the poems he sent to Rilke, nor do we see his end of the correspondence. Yet, what Kappus realizes, and so too the reader, is that his offerings are absolutely unnecessary because we see them through Rilke's eyes. Rilke readily assumes the mantle of humble mentor, dispensing pearls of wisdom in a language that teaches the young Kappus that not all poetry is written in stanzas.

One wonders if Rilke was indeed writing to the world. His replies to Kappus are lofty but sincere, and filled with passages that seem destined for quotation:

"Do not search now for the answers which cannot be given you because you could not live them. It is a matter of living everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, one distant day live right into the answer."

For Rilke, bite-size gifts of mature sophistry (in the Classical sense of the word) will not suffice. In these letters to Kappus, Rilke seizes the opportunity to work out his own philosophy through provocative and probing questions. We learn that Kappus, during the course of his military service, has lost faith in God, and Rilke asks him, "Is it not much rather the case that you have never yet possessed him? ... Do you believe a child can hold him, him whom men bear only with difficulty, whose weight bows down on the aged?" Rilke is ready to be not only a literary mentor, but a theological counselor.

No subject is taboo for Rilke, who quite readily addresses sexual intimacy as he does some rather unconventional thoughts about women:

"Surely women, in whom life tarries and dwells more immediately, fruitfully and confidently, must have become fundamentally more mature human beings, more human human beings, than light man, whom the weight of no body's fruit pulls down beneath the surface of life, who, conceited and rash as he is, underrates what he thinks he loves."

Even in his criticisms of Kappus (both of his work and his character) he is ever gentle, crafting his words with the care of both poet and teacher. He is self-effacing, but sure in his prose. He tells the young Kappus: "And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become aware, it must become criticism." However, in the four year gap between the letter that contained those words and what would be his last letter to Kappus, we see that his final offering is tinged by reality and somewhat removed from the more romantic musings of his earlier letters:

"Art too is only a way of living, and one can prepare for it, living somehow, without knowing it; in everything real one is a closer, nearer neighbour to it than in the unreal semi-artistic professions which, while they make show of a relatedness to art, in practice deny and attack the existence of all art, as for instance the whole of journalism does, and almost all criticism and three quarters of what calls itself and likes to be called literature. I am glad, in a word, that you have overcome the danger of ending up there, and remain solitary and courageous somewhere in a raw reality."

As the translator comments, Kappus did indeed end up "there," publishing several "cheap popular novels." But in the end, the debt to Kappus is greater than his debt to, or at least reverence for, Rilke. The letters capture the spirit of a man, not yet old, but weathered by experience. In Kappus' military station Rilke saw much of himself, having been pressured to enter a military academy at a young age. We get a sense that Rilke is writing to a younger version of himself, encouraging the hope and youth that inspired him to write in his poem, "To Celebrate Myself":

I long to be a garden at whose fountains
my thronging dreams would pluck themselves new blooms.

A reader of Rilke's letters will indeed be ready to grasp a garden full of blooms.

Reading for a Cause: Darfur

Natasha, at Maw Books is kicking off a month-long Reading & Blogging for Darfur campaign. For each book you read or video you view, she will donate 50 cents to an organization for aid in Darfur. If you review said book or video on your blog, she'll donate 50 cents more. But wait! There's a whole lot of other ways you can help too! See here for the details.

With lecture prep a priority, I don't know how much I can get done this month, but I'm going to head over to the library to see what they have. I've already read What Is the What (goodness, a YEAR ago!), but there's much more to be done.

I hope you'll consider doing this!

50BC08 #19 Standing Room Only & #20 The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time (Haddon)

50 BOOK CHALLENGE #19 TITLE: Standing Room Only: Strategies for Marketing the Performing Arts AUTHORS: Philip Kotler and Anne Scheff YEAR: 1997, Harvard Business School Press PAGES: 560 GENRE: non-fiction, marketing, textbook, arts management RATING: 4 out of 5 stars Kotler and Scheff have managed to write a textbook that is relevant, well-organized AND interesting! While the style is characteristically dry, the prose is peppered with plenty of real-life case studies that help elucidate both the marketing concepts themselves and the application thereof. The chapters are helpfully broken into sub-categories which makes for easy note-taking and comprehension. I can see why this has been the Arts Marketing bible for so long. The only thing we need is an updated version with more intense focus on internet marketing, etc. 50 BOOK CHALLENGE (2008): #20 TITLE: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time AUTHORS: Mark Haddon YEAR: 2003, Vintage Books (Random House) PAGES: 226 GENRE: fiction RATING 4.5 out of 5 stars The Boston Globe called this book, "gloriously eccentric..." which is an inaccurate way to represent this story by Mark Haddon. If anything, Haddon enters the world of autism and demystifies it, making it less eccentric. We see the world through the eyes of fifteen year-old Christopher Boone, who abhors the color yellow, but calms himself by solving complicated math problems in his head. The reader learns to re-calibrate his or her own emotional responses a la Christopher, for whom things hurt according to their logical content or lack thereof. This book has many strengths, and Christopher's father is perhaps one of the best examples of a sympathetic but highly flawed character. While Christopher is undoubtedly the book's protagonist, the non-autistic reader will more likely empathize with Christopher's father, who is capable of both great love and great destruction. Aside from Christopher's discussions with his therapist Siobhan, the book wisely veers away from preachy explanations about autism. Even the therapy sessions are more about interpersonal connection than outlining the intricacies of autism, and it is this that helps the reader to connect to Christopher in something other than sympathy. We engage with Christopher's world, not the world of autism...and this is right as autism spectrum disorders defy generalizations or easy categories. The end result, if anything, is that the eccentricity of general humanity is exposed. We become conscious of our everyday lack of logic. The novel is just as much about the human condition as the autistic condition.

50BC08 #18: Divine Intervention

It has been awhile. I didn't quite get through all my nun reads. I guess I hit my saturation point, so I need a break. So what could be farther from nuns than extraterrestrial machine-gods?

Divine Intervention by Ken Wharton

rating: 3 of 5 stars


I will preface this review by admitting that when it comes to science-fiction, I tend to favor the fictional elements over the scientific ones. I don't mind a book that is science heavy, but I'm pretty particular about how that science is communicated. I'm not fond of the model that has two characters casually chatting about quantum physics (much in the same way I hate commercials that show women sitting around talking about their feminine supplies).

Wharton, when he does this, does manage to give it good context (most of the time), so it doesn't get tiresome. The book is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy in its attempts to address science and theology, but Wharton's aim is different. His crafting of the Randall family is really well-done, and we come to appreciate them for their individual strengths and foibles. Daddy Randall is a preacher and believes in "God" but not the "God" of his son, Drew. Drew, who is a deaf-mute and communicates through a transmitter, has regular talks with God. Mommy Randall is an atheist, but turns out to be far more-open minded than Daddy Randall.


This would be an interesting premise by itself, but Wharton successfully places the Randalls on Mandala, a long-standing colonized planet. In fact, the whole theology of Mandalans is based around a "Journal" kept by the Captain (capital "C" intentional) of the original ship that colonized the planet, the Walt Disney. But they have become their own planet, and the news that a ship containing thousands of cryogenically frozen Earthlings is on its way to Mandala isn't received as happy news by everyone.

Where the book fails, is the Epilogue. I would like to see a law against Epilogues (I'm looking at you Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). I much prefer to leave things hanging than a quick tie-up of all loose ends in 3 to 10 pages. Wharton's Epilogue, especially after all the complex relationships he has introduced, comes off as trite.

Epilogue aside, it is a good read. The scientific reasoning is mixed with personality differences and theology which makes for much more interesting reading than your standard dialogue about semi-conductive materials.

#17: The Tulip and the Pope

50 BOOK CHALLENGE 2008 #17: The Tulip and the Pope: A Nun's Story
AUTHOR: Deborah Larsen
YEAR: (2005, Knopf, hardcover)
GENRE: memoir
PAGES: 256


The Tulip and the Pope: A Nun's Story by Deborah Larsen

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book had a lot of unexplored potential. To be fair, I think writing a memoir about one's time as a nun (after the fact) must be a very difficult task. Karen Armstrong expresses this in her preface to The Spiral Staircase, her account of leaving her convent and a sequel to her memoir of her experiences as a nun (Through the Narrow Gate). Armstrong says:



Writing Through the Narrow Gate, some twelve years later, was a salutary experience. It made me confront the past, and I learned a great dal. Most important, I realized how precious and formative this period of my life had been, and that despite my problems, I would not have missed it for the world. Then I attempted a sequel: Beginning the World was published in 1983. It is the worst book I have ever written and I am thankful to say that it has long been out of print. (xvii)


Deborah Larsen's account of entering the convent of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1960 is a conflicted memoir--not in her feelings about her time as a nun, but in her choice of narrative voice. She has tried to accomplish in one memoir what Armstrong struggled to do in three. She explains in her author's note: " My remembrance of 1960-1965 never felt like a conventional narrative, thought it had progressions. My sense was more of a string of paper lanterns...lit spottily against the dark along a dock, where some days, even now, waves dash." This explains, but does not ameliorate the odd sense of detachment for the reader.


A lot of value in memoir is hindsight. Larsen's reluctance to allow herself deeper reflection upon the events of the 60s left this reader disappointed. It isn't until Larsen considers leaving the convent that the narrative becomes potentially more interesting. Not only has she been released to re-engage with the world in the memoir, but it seems that Larsen-as-author releases her cloistered style as well and the reader begins to understand the point of the first two-thirds of the book:


If you are capable of pushing, then a you is assumed; you must exist if you can push.

Maybe that was it.

There must be an identity or at least an entity; there must be a you.

Or was it the act of pushing, your choosing, your summoning up courage, created the you? (205)

I'm not sure Larsen's switch in style was conscious, but it makes for a disparate reading experience with the first part of the book.

What Larsen does accomplish however, is a beautiful set of vignettes from both inside and outside the community. She appreciates the nuns' aesthetic sense: "Black became us almost thrillingly, I thought. Clerical, but classy." Moments like this make the reader smile as she recognizes the nineteen year old in the nun.


For some, this memoir will feel remarkably undramatic--Larsen moves from a state of naive obedience to disciplined questioning. However, it is this lack of drama that gives the book a good part of its value. Larsen has demystified the choice to enter a convent, and reveals obedience, chastity, and poverty to be simply another set of options in the lives we choose to lead.

50BC08 #15 & #16: Crafts and Nuns

50BC08 #15: Artful Cards
AUTHOR: Katherine Duncan Aimone
GENRE: crafting, scrapbooking, how-to

Artful Cards: 60 Fresh & Fabulous Designs by Katherine Duncan Aimone

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really liked what this book had to offer in terms of ideas and explanations. It covers basics and some more advanced techniques. Unlike other card/scrapbooking books, this is more than just layout after layout. The ideas are creative and will help you develop our own offshoot ideas.


50BC08 #16: Bad Faith: A Sister Agatha Mystery
AUTHOR(S): Aimée and David Thurlo
YEAR: 2002 (read 2003 Thorndike Press large print ed.)
GENRE: mysteries, fiction, series

Bad Faith by Aimee Thurlo

rating: 3 of 5 stars


Well, this was a fun start to my month long NunRead. :-) I've long been a fan of nun mysteries (Sister Steve of the Father Dowling series on TV, Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma)...actually make that clergy mysteries, period. Of course Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose is on top of the list.

This first book in the Sister Agatha series has the earmarks of a first novel in a series in that it is lacking in character development but has all the components of a good story. Nuns make pretty good sleuths and convents tend to be inherently mysterious, partially because they are cloistered away from society. The Thurlos hit the mark with the right amount of sub-mysteries (those mini-plots you need as diversions from the main Whodunit); false leads (proving the prime suspect innocent); and an interesting sleuth. When the protagonist is a nun, there is a reconciling of past and present lives that is the most interesting. While we get SOME of that with Sister Agatha, we don't get nearly enough.


In addition to wanting more of Agatha's back story (no doubt revealed in later books in the series), the lack of physical description of any of the characters was particularly vexing in the case of the Reverend Mother who, unlike most of the other featured nuns, seems to have very little history or personality beyond her wisdom. I felt in this respect, and in some of the revealed secrets of the convent, the authors relied on too many clichés. The Thurlos work arduously to present an accurate portrait of modern convent life, but it comes across as proselytising, particularly when put forth through Agatha's thoughts about and conversations with Sheriff Tom Green.


I wanted Agatha to be more spunky. Her upbraiding of Tom Green became tiresome, as it was too one-sided. Supposedly he's a good guy and we are supposed to sympathize with him because his wife is an over-protective shrew, but he is definitely postured as the quasi-enemy. The gradual peace accord between Sister Agatha and Tom doesn't really work because their relationship doesn't follow any kind of rhythm. The character of Tom Green presents an excellent opportunity for complexity, and I hope this is further developed in later offerings in the series.

All that said, there is something unavoidably whimsical and entertaining about a nun with a broken vehicle (irreverently called the "Anti-Chrysler"), who rides a Harley without a second thought, and plays billiards. In some respects, it is probably a good thing that the Thurlos chose not to show more of their hand in regard to Sister Agatha's character. They crafted a mystery that is good enough to get me to read the next in the series.

July 2008 Theme Read

Well, I've decided that every few months I will try to do a Theme Read. July's theme?
Nuns.

That's right. I've always had this fascination with/respect for nuns. Medieval nuns. Renaissance nuns. Modern nuns. Singing Nuns. And yes, I suppose even Flying Nuns. I'm not Catholic, but the cloistered life has always intrigued me. Evidence of this fascination is plentiful on my bookshelf of unread books. Most of the selections for the month are from there. Two out of the three library books I checked out today are nun-related (unintentional!)

So here's the list (keep in mind I have about 7 other books (un-nun-related) going). The genres vary wildly:

Aimée & David Thurlo, Bad Faith (A Sister Agatha Mystery) (2002); mystery
Deborah Larsen, The Tulip & The Pope: A Nun's Story (2005); memoir, non-fiction
Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004); memoir, non-fiction
Mark Salzman, Lying Awake (2000); fiction
Anne H. King-Lenzmeier, Hildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision (2001); non-fiction
Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh, Women in the Vanishing Cloister: Organizational Decline in Catholic Religious Orders in the United States (1993); non-fiction