Rilke and Andreas-Salomé: A Love Story in Letters [Paperback]

Rainer Maria Rilke (Author), Lou Andreas-Salomé (Author), Edward Snow (Editor, Translator), Michael Winkler (Editor, Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 17, 2008

"Immensely readable...a significant piece of scholarship."—Fred Volkmer, New York Sun

He would become one of the most important poets of the twentieth century; she a muse of Europe's fin-de-siècle thinkers and artists. In this collection of letters, a finalist for the PEN USA translation award, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé, a writer and intellectual fourteen years his senior, pen a relationship that spans thirty years and shifting boundaries: as lovers, as mentor and protégé, and as deep personal and literary allies.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With more than twenty-five years of correspondence between "two old scribblers," world-renowned writer Rainer Maria Rilke and his sounding-board, one-time lover, friend and mentor Lou Andreas-Salome, Snow and Winkler have gathered an intimate portrait of an important literary relationship. Unfortunately, a falling-out in 1901 led Andreas-Salome to demand Rilke burn all the letters she had sent to him, which he obliged, making it difficult, in the beginning, to understand the nuance of their romance. As a poet courting an older, married woman, Rilke's early letters are fervid and eager, full of overblown romantic revelations: "all the roses in the world bloom for you and by means of you ... and only through an act of royal condescension do you maintain the pretense that they aren't really yours and allow Spring to keep them." Later, when Andreas-Salome's voice chimes in, the pair settle into a more introspective exchange, one frequently troubled by the insecure poet's vascillation between elation and despondency. Translated into elegant but stiff prose by Snow and Winkler, professors at Rice University who translated Rilke's Diaries of a Young Poet, this work is lustrous and illuminating, a perfect companion for fans of Rilke's poetry and the literary world of the early 20th century. 16 pages of illustrations.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

When Rilke first met Salomé in 1897, he was twenty-one, an aspiring poet, and she was a married woman of thirty-six who had published a multitude of books and essays on philosophical and literary subjects.Their correspondence was initially one-sided—Rilke, besotted, sent a torrent of mail, while Salomé wished she could make him "go completely away" - but the two developed a passionate partnership as friends, lovers, confidants, and counsellors. This collection of some two hundred letters, written over nearly three decades, enriches our picture of Rilke and Salomé with curious details: Rilke makes arrangements for Salomé's beloved dog, in advance of a visit; Salomé, practicing in mid-life as a psychoanalyst, claims success treating patients with Rilke's poems: "They heard your tone as that of Life."
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker - click here to subscribe. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (June 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393331903
• ISBN-13: 978-0393331905
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #771,899 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beauty and the Bitumen, July 4, 2008

By 

D. Laurie "Laurent-Pion" (Nowhere You Know) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rilke and Andreas-Salomé: A Love Story in Letters (Paperback)

There is no reviewing correspondence. There is present either only the (inevitably) voyueristic pleasure of gazing into dead mens dreams, or nothing at all, at which point we set the book down, and carry on composing our own secrets.
But the idea of positing a critical eye on one's letters (unless they are means exclusive of a recepient, as with Seneca) seems to me to be entirely ridiculous.
I can only say that I was happy to the point of giddiness to discover the recently published letters between Rilke and Andreas-Salome.
I devoured the book whole, and found myself inspired by Rilke's early uncertanties, and the almost frighteningly composed replies of his one time lover, now become mentor. It offered a glimpse into the world of this beautiful poet, who previously, seemed to have sprung fully formed into the author of the Duino Elegies, as though he were always the master we have come to admire.
And here, beset by dread, here overcome by an almost childish enthusiasm, we find him not stripped of his title rather enriched by his likeness to ourselves. And it's as though we always sensed beneath the richness of his language a kinship we could never adaquetely define, here at last the inexplicable is made manifest.
I do not speak to Andreas-Salome, she does not move me, but she was a freind of Rilke's and therefore deserves at least our respect.
If you are curious about the genesis and flowering of a poet, you will find no better testament than this collection, and much like the Memoirs of Pablo Neruda, you will find in the simplest relation, a poetry unto itself.

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Strange and intimate, June 26, 2007

By 

DOROTHY (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé: The Correspondence (Hardcover)

Wow!! It lets you inside so much intimacy and thoughts. A great read and an interesting learning experience.