A thoughtful if imperfect primer on Rilke for the self-improvement minded.
Burrows and Dowrick tease out the timeless wisdom of a beloved poet in this nonfiction work.
For over a century, the writings of Rainer Maria Rilke—the Austrian poet who died in 1926—have encouraged readers to embrace life’s contradictions. “He himself saw language as a tool of inquiry,” write the authors in their introduction, “sent out like a ‘probe’ to the limits of human imagination and experience as ‘bees of the invisible,’ as he once famously put it. This adds up to a quite new way not just of seeing life, but of more fully embracing and valuing it.” With this book, Burrows and Dowrick use Rilke’s writings to explore topics like beginnings, questions, and mistakes. The chapters, which can be read in any order (the authors alternate writing duties), operate as self-contained essays, each inspired by a particular quote from one of Rilke’s poems or letters. The chapter titled “Where Do I Belong,” for example, begins with Rilke’s haunting poem “Entrance,” which Dowrick uses as a launching pad to consider the tensions of conformity and belonging. (Her close reading of the poem draws in ideas from Rumi and John O’Donovan as well as her husband’s work as a pediatrician among the First Nations of Australia’s Northern Territory.) Burrows and Dowrick are correct in their assertion that Rilke’s words have a surprisingly contemporary resonance. Though they sometimes consider Rilke’s words within the context of his own life and time, more often they look outward, which can occasionally lead to broad or slightly cliche insights like, “Finding a way to be curious, to be open to the unknown, to be ready to be surprised is not the goal of life’s journey. It is that journey itself.” Worse, they occasionally get caught in loops of abstracted self-help speak: “Such self-honoring may become a chance to discover the fertile wisdom already waiting in your own life, plus how to live into its depths.” More a book for readers of motivational nonfiction than for fans of literature, this work will undoubtedly bring new audiences to the great poet.
A thoughtful if imperfect primer on Rilke for the self-improvement minded.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781958972533
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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