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Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel

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The short, adventuresome life of Arthur Rimbaud is a seemingly endless contradiction of terms. For one who thought his own life boring and a failure as a poet, Rimbaud has succeeded in the century since his death in being one of the more endearing writers of his time. That his productivity was limited to a mere four-year period in his teens, makes Rimbaud ever the more seductive.

Edmund White nicely captures Rimbaud, ever the idealist but with a side of realism that belies his own thoughts and travels. His relationship with Paul Verlaine was perhaps in a strange way the most settling time in Rimbaud's life, even with all of the rages and furies between them. It is this association around which White centers, reflecting their sexuality within the context of the day. It is a terrific and enlightening part of the book and one that helps the reader to understand both men.

The question remains why Rimbaud stopped writing. Would he have been more favorably looked upon had the body of his work been much larger? Or is his treatment due more to the smaller number of offerings coupled with his personal reputation during his life. One cannot say for sure, though White seems to prefer the latter. Rimbaud led a full life of sorts in his short, thirty-seven year existence and this biography is a welcome addition to the cumulative lore and knowledge of this wanderer poet.

The Starkie and Fowlie biographies were my introduction to Rimbaud's life. As scholastic in tone as those two were, Edmund White seems determined to make the leap to a more conversational, anecdotal overview. Not critical in tone - he lets the work speak for itself - nor overly technical, White's own writing seems at times clumsy and repetitive, rarely hitting the smooth and dazzling pace and associative depth of his subject. The overall effect of this very concise book is one of making the complex comings and goings of Rimbaud more approachable and graspable, less an academic reading experience than an empathetic one: "Pity the wood that finds itself a violin".

What are we to make of such a life? Rather than a "double life", it seems to me Rimbaud deliberately and consciously divided himself from the rest of the world, as well as from the main body of literature. Of course, too often, the rebellious element of artistic movements are simply reactionary: standing against the entrenched as much as for (one of perhaps many) alternatives. Rimbaud's talent transcends simple opposition, but his choices in life clearly took him to a more radical point, one removed from even the need of art.

Still, there lingers a sense of disbelief that any person with such a gift could literally walk away from writing, or that any creative artist could or would set aside the arts for a "regular" life. Personally, I don't find it so hard to accept. The creative life is an often demanding and thankless one. If the artist is an honest critic of his own work, then his own work - no matter how well judged by peers or history - can offer a subjective wealth of disappointment and frustration, regardless of the presence or absence of commercial success. And, often enough, success can simply demand that the artist, now answerable to a market, simply continue to issue redundant, bankrupt artefacts. More so for Rimbaud than virtually any other artist, the second act of his working life seemed capable of breaking the spell of his own writing, demonstrating that the seemingly unknowable aspects of life, those he tried to attain by deranging his senses, could make themselves known in many and terrifying ways, completely free of the artifice of art.

This is a carefully researched and entertaining biography of the vagabond poet Rimbaud's life. Beginning with a moving personal note about what Rimbaud means to the biographer, White goes on to describe the poet's early life, literary maturation and later frustrated drive for financial success with his typically warm and engaging writer's tone of voice. Rimbaud's intelligence and extremely difficult personality are brought alive with stories of his family life, literary associations and tumultuous relationship with the poet Verlaine. The evolution of Rimbaud's poetry which seems to take place in hyper-speed is intelligently explained with examples of the poet's work and how it relates to the poet's experiences and radical artistic vision. White is also careful to disentangle some of the popular myths about this mysterious poet's life.

It is mesmerizing reading about the quickfire creation of Rimbaud's ambitious output before his total withdrawal from art and the artistic community. Passages of the poet's work are sublimely beautiful and one can't help wonder what sort of literary works he would have created in his adult life if he had kept writing. That such a young man made such an enormous impact on his early champions speaks more about the bewitching influence of adolescent gusto, particularly from such a handsome and frustrated youth, rather than the quality of his writing. Nevertheless, the enduring influence the poet had on successive generations of artists is clear.

White's concise, unsentimental book is a good introduction to the life of this poete maudite. Unsparing in his descriptions of the self destructive antics of both Rimbaud and Verlaine, White nevertheless engaged my sympathy for both of them - no mean feat. A little editorial oversight could have caught a couple of repetitive passages, but they do nothing to mar the flow of the book. Indeed this is a book that can be read at one reading, and I sat up late into the night mesmerized by the tale of mounting self destructive genius.

This slim volume left me completely lost. My basic problem is in deciding who should be its audience.
If you are in love with Rimbaud you should simply stay away from this book. White does not offer anything you have not heard before - major difference from academic biographies is that he seldom indicates his authorities but for some it may be a plus: there are no boring footnotes.
If White is fascinated with Rimbaud he fails to convey this fascination completely. The quality of translations he included is rather doubtful - unless you have a penchant for a vista translations which have little ambition beyond grasping the meaning precisely leaving the form aside (or to be described separately).
If you are in love with White... Well... Hasn't he published a novel recently? Read it instead.
My impressions were eerily similar to those White's Proust left me with - both books could be summed up in the following manner: nothing much happens, nothing much happens, he writes something which when summed up sounds quite trivial, nothing much happens, he dies, some people whose names may ring a bell remember him afterwards, thank you all dear. Plus a bibliography which fails to provide basic data for further research (as if White was painfully aware of the fact that his presentation of the subject matter can hardly make anyone interested in any further research...) in which my favourite part was "most of these books are out of print anyway" - have you ever heard of libraries, honey?
Just one example of originality. White goes on for a while trying to decide the issue of copulation - suggesting that Rimbaud was a top only to conclude some pages further that it is just as possible that they did not practice penetration at all. Charming but if we are talking about Verlaine and Rimbaud it is perfectly clear who was the dominating force when they started writing. What they did in bed is of secondary interest as our data is slim if not outright nonexistent.
If you have never heard of Rimbaud before and your French is not exactly up for the task the only useful part is the end of bibliography when White lists English translation of his poems. If you also fell under the spell of this noisy adolescent from the Ardeness, there are decent biographies of him to be found quite easily. This one comes short both as entertainment and as scholarship so don't bother.

The brevity of White's RIMBAUD: THE DOUBLE LIFE OF A REBEL only increases one's amazement at the bizarreness of the way poet-adventurer-businessman Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) chose to live his life, the hardships he endured, and the magnitude of his accomplishment as a poet (his "mature" work being written between the ages of 17 and 21). White, a scholar of French literature who teaches at Princeton, seems to have a good sense of the best biographical and critical sources available in French and English. His translations of Rimbaud's poems and letters for the most part seem good, though I found myself wondering whether the French word "negre" is best translated with the derogatory term in English as White does in several places. White does a good job of tracing and debunking a couple of the myths that continue to work their way into Rimbaud biographies, such as Enid Starkie's claim that Rimbaud was raped by Prussian soldiers as a teenager and claims by others that Rimbaud participated in slave trading during his time in Africa. The book has a helpful bibliographic essay but, sadly, no index.

The Book Discussion Group met at the LGBT Center in NYC and had a very nice sized group, probably because the book was generally found to be a good read AND very interesting. Most of us liked the small biography and found the story fascinating since we didn't know what to expect. Those who had seen the movie "Total Eclipse" with Leonardo DiCaprio may have had a hint of his life, but the rest of us were completely blown away by Rimbaud's outlandish behavior, his anti-social outbursts, his disrespect for everyone around him, and his outlandish affair with the married Verlaine. We understood how teenagers and the punk movement (including Patty Smith and Richard Hell) might model their lives after Rimbaud, or believe they're following in his footsteps (such as Bob Dylan), but Joe thought that he was bi-polar or at least had serious mental problems.

We thought that Edmund White did a good job of pointing out the early and queer and obnoxious parts of Rimbaud's life, but we would have liked to have a couple of complete poems (yeah - I know that's outside the purpose of a quick biography) and a little more information about his later "straight" life in Africa. And we did not buy White's theory that Rimbaud was the original "Miss Thing." Pleeeeeaase, darling, you're a very smart man but leave the drag-speak to those who know what they're doing.

The question remained: Why did Rimbaud give up all his queer behavior and become an African trader and gun-runner, never writing anything significant after he was 20? There are longer and more detailed biographies out there, but this is a terrific introduction to a major literary character who changed poetry and who still affects young authors, but it may seem rushed and flat if you expect more nuanced information.

I recently read Edmund White's biography of French poet Arthur Rimbaud. I bought the book partly because of its cover : the picture of Rimbaud's portrait done by Henri Fantin-Latour. Over the last decades, I had read a few books on Rimbaud who had such a fascinating life and death (I am French speaking and studied French literature).

Mr White's biography is very pleasant to read. I enjoyed it and it led me to read Rimabaud's Lettres du Harar and another book I have : « Somebody Else », an account of his years in Africa.

I recommand Edmund White's oeuvre without hesitation. Claude Simard

This is a well-written, interesting and fun book for anyone who is interested in Rimbaud. However it is more of an overview of his life not an in-depth study like some of the other bios out there. If you have any knowledge of Rimbaud I would suggest going for a different book but for a first timer to Rimbaud it is an excellent introduction.

Rimbaud might have been possessed by genius---for how else could one explain the poetic inventions of an adolescent willing to sacrifice all for success, including his writing, which didn't gain the notoriety he expected, hence deciding to pursue more lucrative, albeit, seemingly more immediate sources of income---but after weighing the waxing, posthumous admiration we bear for his scant oeuvre alongside his haphazard, yet startlingly peripatetic existence of caprice & folly, one may be left to wonder: Was the arrogant twerp worth the bother?
Was our gorgeous planet loath to harbor such a remarkable spirit ... or, like most geniuses, was he alienated by our incompetence to dare the impossible?