Customer Reviews

The Poetry of Rilke: Bilingual Edition

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I agree with Mr. Horne's review of the quality of this book. The boards are cheap and thin, with no cloth. The paper is thin and cheap enough to yellow as quickly as a paperback. The cut of paper on the top of my book is uneven (though this is, most likely, a flaw peculiar to my copy).

Snow's translations of Rilke are some of the best. It's a shame that North Point Press brought them out in such a shoddy edition. Users that don't own Snow's previous translations might find this a great single volume for Rilke. However, they would be advised to wait for the paperback, due to the poor quality of this pressing. Or, if interested in hardbacks, they might want to purchase the individual originals, second hand. Though the translations of the Elegies are nearly recomposed in this volume, I can hardly think that Snow would discredit his earlier versions of the Elegies (or any of his other complete translations of Rilke's books of poetry).

It's hard to think of any 20th century poet more worthy of intense study and close reading than Rainer Maria Rilke, whose demanding, and often hermetic work requires (and has not always received) sensitive and skilled translations. Rilke's ideal translator needs to inhabit his works--and to have more than a "touch of the poet" him/herself.

Edward Snow might feel more comfortable--as I've read--being described as an academic than a poet, but his deft, lyrical translations of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry have won him almost universal acclaim in recent years. He is justly revered as one of Rilke's best English language translators ever. Thus it's a real joy to have an extensive collected works edition of these skillfully rendered translations, featuring many previously uncollected poems and new versions of several he has included in previous individual volumes.

I note that several customers have been less than thrilled with the physical item, and I too have been distressed in recent years with various publishing short cuts and downright shoddy product. I feel compelled to rate this work of literature as a work of literature, however. I might advise those who have concerns about the quality of the physical item to examine it in an actual brick and mortar (and if satisfied, then consider ordering it online if that's your preference). Sometimes that's the only way of alleviating online anxiety about an actual purchase.

This review addresses the actual book. Given the competition from electronic books, the internet, free downloads, paperbacks, you'd think publishers of VERY EXPENSIVE hardcover editions would go all out to produce a beautiful edition. Instead, they give you cheap cardboard covers that will dim in a year, paper that turns brown in two, and bindings that begin to crack in three. Oh, and they charge you $50 for one book. I am very disappointed that Northpoint Press could not have produced a beautiful volume that I would treasure rather than a cheap edition, cheaper than the old book club editions of yesteryear, that will deteriorate. Where is their pride? And how can they compete? My volume from another publisher of Ginsberg's collected poems is already filled with brown pages.

I have both Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus and the Duino Elegies from the same publisher and the binding is at one-third cloth.

All I can say to publishers is--if you want me to spend fifty bucks, then I expect a quality edition or I will eschew buying further volumes. I am sure I'm not the only reader who feels this way. Remember, ONE VOICE SPEAKS FOR TEN THOUSAND!

So very happy to stumble upon this edition while browsing through a bookstore but, alas, when I discovered the PRICE just could not (quite) bring myself to purchase it...It is a shame that the publisher is asking so much for this book. Listen to the previous reviews-the binding/paper quality,etc. are NOT well constructed. The poetry/translations,surely, are. Wait for the paperback. Pay less for a book that will not stand the test of time (in construction) but will (in regard to its content.)Thanks go to Mr. Snow, with my apologies...

I have found Edward Snow's translations to be by far the best with respect to poetic translations, certainly a much more difficult endeavor than merely producing a linguistic translation. Having been able to read Rilke alongside a native German, we both agree that Snow captures the essence of the poetry with his translations. I am very pleased with this new collection and once through it will compare it to Snow's earlier translations since it is mentioned in the forward that he has redone some of his earlier work, notably on the Elegies.

As for the quality of the book, two things I would suggest to those who denigrate this volume. First, the publishing industry isn't what it once was, and with the advent of electronic media it is becoming increasingly more expensive to produce quality books, even in paperback format. I recall a time when a hardback book of this size would have cost only $10 or $20. Therefore caveat emptor, you pays your nickle, you takes your chances. Second, to use the oft quoted adage, one should not judge a book by its cover. I personally buy books for their content, not the binding. Lovers of good poetry will want to add this volume to their collections whether in hard or paperback editions.

So you get Orpheus, the Elegies, and the Uncollected books complete.

You also get a spread from The New Poems First Part, New Poems Other Part, Book of Images, Book of Hours. The spread is very much wider and/or complete if you acquire them individually. The revisions Snow made are not radical enough to justify picking this up for their own sake if you own any of his translations already, and they are, in most every case the choices he ought to have made in the first place (and even then they are merely adequate, crutch&crib-like things].

I wouldn't pay more than 15 for this in paperback - or hardcover. The initial retail price of 50 or so that I am reading about from other reviewers is absurd. Albeit a subsidiary of Farrar-Faber, the cardboard cover slats is tacky, tisk-tisk nortpoint press.

In summa: good material for the price (if you can get it) otherwise the cost of getting the individual books isn't prohibitive enough to settle for a narrower spread. A great introductory volume to get, less ideal for the initiated. [Don Paterson's Orpheus is as good as they say it is. Get that before you get this.]

True, the paper isn't the best quality . . . but the content is beautiful and so is the cover art. I asked for this book for my birthday last year and I really love it. I'm glad that was before these other reviews were here or they would have scared me off! I guess it depends what you are looking for, but for me this book has been wonderful. I'm happy I have a hard-cover copy as it looks great with the cover art. The content, bi-lingual text, and quality of translation are all terrific. Beauty beauty beauty.

I have so many big books, I was expecting this one to have many more poems than it does. Rilke wrote a tremendous number of poems, and this certainly has some of the best ones, but I was looking forward to the opportunity to wallow in all that I already knew with much more to explore as an aside. Now that I am retired, I have way too much time on my hands to evaluate products within a frame of reference that imagines some limits on all that a single person might find useful within a single lifetime. I have lived with poems from Rilke for many years. I don't know the German, but can accept getting just a single poem on each set of two pages. I looked for something that I had difficulty understanding in the 20 German Poets translated by Walter Kaufmann and don't find what Kaufmann described as a dedication of 1924: Fur Helmuth Freiherrn Lucius Von Stoedten in this book. Everything that is more venturous than even life itself is hardly appreciated by everybody. I'm probably lucky the poem before it in 20 German Poets is on page 575 to tell everybody: For in you the god is waiting to consult. Walter Kaufmann, when faced with the same span of contradictions, wrote: For the god requires helpful counsel from the man.