The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke
By: Rainer Maria Rilke / Translated By: Ulrich Baer / Narrated By: Ethan Hawke
Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
Oh gosh, how on earth can I admit that I maaaaay not have liked this all that much?!?
Cuz seriously, after listening to the absolutely pheNOMenal The Dark Interval, letters collected and translated by Ulrich Baer about loss and sorrow, after being so moved by that book, after experiencing such healing, I went and snapped this book up. EsPECially because Rilke said that his poetry was one thing, yeah wonderful yeah yeah yeah, but his letters! Now THERE were the places he sent his heart out. How could I not run to this audiobook, especially as it’s narrated by an actor I’m well, if not fond of, okaaaay with, certainly? How could I miss with this one? I’ve heard Rilke quoted like crazy throughout the over a 1/2 century I’ve trotted along on this planet. Of course I’d find wisdom and beauty galore. I mean, The Dark Interval had me crying and desperate to embrace Life, embrace Death as an old friend, accept Death as the entity who would be enveloping all my earthly loves.
So I’m totally amazed that this might, quite possibly, be the hardest review I’ve ever had to write.
It’s like this, I fell asleep several times throughout it, listened to it several times hoping that wisdom and beauty would jump out at me… but oh WOE, it did not.
I know, I know—I’ve read the reviews on both book and audiobook, and all proclaim it to be utterly beautiful and supremely transformative, so I’m reeeeally feeling kinda sorta bad about myself with a: It’s not you, it’s me kinda thing. It HAS to be me; I mean, it’s RILKE for cripes sake!
But I swear to you that, I dunno, maybe it was the introduction that did me in? Cuz see, it gives background on Rilke, how he was a self-proclaimed homely little man (No problem there), how he lived beyond his means, like constantly, and hit people up for money (Hmmm….), and how he dumped his wife and daughter and traipsed about, way the heck away from them, never bothering to be a husband or father, testing out new relationships but finding those women lacking also (Okay so, like, that’s where I go: ACK!!!).
So when I listened to some of his words of wisdom on life, faith, even on art, I was rather scrunching up my face and viewing thoughts traipse across my mind with a somewhat jaundiced eye. I kept seeing a homely little man talk about how the young will never create real art, that they’re so young and inexperienced it all comes out as someone screaming their thoughts rather than putting forth anything beautiful. And when he spoke of faith and having a personal relationship with God (Altho’ one person said in the book Baer didn’t capitalize the “G”), I kept wanting to shout: Personal relationship? What, are ya gonna dump Him too if you get bored? And don’t EVEN get me started on the bits on Love where he says it’s work, work, work; it’s the most godawful chore, he tells us. Don’t expect happiness from it…
I mean, huh?
Ethan Hawke did a decent job, and I was sooo very glad that at least there was a male at the helm for this recording. But ya gotta admit, the man has a bit of a nasal-whine to his voice, so maybe that added to my desire to smack somebody as Rilke continued to say Love was fantastic/Run from it, avoid it like the plague/You’ll be sorreeeeeeee. All in all, smooth tones, good emphasis in Hawke’s performance, but like I said, I dozed off several times, plus I wanted to throttle someone… namely a homely little man who sent letters of wisdom instead of paying back large sums of money he borrowed to live in elegant villas and hotels.
Okay, so I disliked this quite a bit, but one thing I CAN say is that I’ll be revisiting The Dark Interval cuz truly, that was an AWEsome collection of letters, absolutely brilliant.
That book was balm for this blister of a book. I’m scarred, I tell you.
Maybe skip the Introduction…?
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