Auguste Rodin
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
An “elegant translation” of Rilke’s writings on sculptor Auguste Rodin that “offers a fresh look at an unlikely mentorship” and two extraordinary artists (The New York Times Book Review).
Sculptor Auguste Rodin was fortunate to have his secretary Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the most sensitive poets of our time. These two pieces discussing Rodin’s work and development as an artist are as revealing of Rilke as they are of his subject.
Written in 1902 and 1907, these essays mark the entry of the poet into the world of letters. Rilke’s description of Rodin reveals the profound psychic connection between the two great artists, both masters of giving visible life to the invisible. Michael Eastman’s evocative photographs of Rodin’s sculptures shed light on both Rodin’s art and Rilke’s thoughts and catapult them into the 21st century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Essayist, novelist, and literary critic Gass (Cartesian Sonata) looks back on a long life of sentences in this thoroughly engaging book. In the quietly humorous "Slices of Life in a Library," Gass recalls learning "what provisions to smuggle in by briefcase" and his moral dilemma over whether to steal an overlooked first edition of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. An academic air persists throughout, and though occasionally sentimental, Gass grounds each anecdotal essay in a germane world event, disposition, human flaw, or intellectual concern. Infused with a wistful melancholy, "Retrospection" sees Gass resuscitating some very early, amusing, poetical pursuits while musing on his own authorial habits, among them "jingling" and "whoring and metaphoring." In addition to ruminations on his own writing life, Gass also gives the greats good and bad their due, genially and deftly deconstructing Proust, exploring the appeal of the mad philosopher by putting Nietzsche under the philological microscope, and offering his own take on the life of the controversial Nobel Prize-winning "Nordic Nazi" Knut Hamsun. "The Biggs Lectures in the Classics" are intimate and detailed in evaluating more abstract topics, such as form and metaphor. While these and other lectures are successful on the whole, one senses that some of the charm of occasion and place must have been lost in transcription. Though lacking a sense of flow, the erratic nature and unconventional narrative arc is appealing and not only warrants, but rewards revisiting.
