Conversations with Rilke (Pushkin Press Classics) - Softcover

Betz, Maurice

 
9781805330288: Conversations with Rilke (Pushkin Press Classics)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1805330284 ISBN 13: 9781805330288
Verlag: Pushkin Press, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

An intimate portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke's life and art in interwar Paris by his friend and translator, offering unparalleled insight into the creative process

A stunningly written, deeply personal biography that's also a master class in the art of translation, perfect for fans of: Richard Holmes, Lydia Davis, Kate Briggs and Julian Green

From walks in the Luxembourg Garden to letters describing tea with an irascible Tolstoy, Rainer Maria Rilke's French translator, Maurice Betz, enjoyed a rare intimacy with the great poet. This book, inspired by their time working together on the 1st French translation of Rilke's only novel, invites the reader into that friendship, offering glimpses of Rilke's creative process and the glittering cultural scene of interwar Paris.

Betz first came to Rilke as an admirer, carrying a book of his poems in his kit bag while serving as a soldier in World War I. No other writer meant so much to him, and Rilke would come to mean even more once their fruitful partnership began, lasting until the poet's death in 1926.

Together they spent the spring and summer of 1925 editing Betz's translation of The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, a painstaking process interrupted by companionable walks through the streets of Paris and vivaciously told anecdotes from the poet's starry social world.

This elegant and poignant look at the great writer's final years, drawn from Betz's memories and the letters Rilke sent from his travels across Europe, provides a portrait of a brilliant mind, an evocation of a lost world, and a testament to an enduring friendship.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Maurice Betz (1898-1946) was a writer and prolific translator of Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann. He worked closely with Rilke on the French translations of his works while Rilke was alive, and continued translating the poet into French in the decades following his death.

Will Stone is a poet, essayist and literary translator of French, Franco-Belgian and German literature. Will's previous translations include Rilke in Paris, also by Maurice Betz, several works by Stefan Zweig, and poems by Georg Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke, all available from Pushkin Press.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

This first meeting with Rilke in Paris in early 1925 is the result of a correspondence which began with Betz pluckily writing to Rilke over the winter of 1922–23 to gain permission to translate an excerpt from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, for inclusion in a special issue of Les Contemporains. From his chosen sequestration, the remote Château de Muzot in the Valais region of Switzerland, Rilke replies positively. This is not a given, since Rilke is very particular about who translates his work and even more so into French, his most treasured language. However, he had been impressed with the poems in Betz’s Scafelati pour troupes, which the young translator had gamely included with his appeal. Furthermore, Betz, without his knowledge, has also been recommended to Rilke as an able translator from German by one Inga Junghanns, a singer who had not only once performed for Rilke but also had taken it upon herself to translate the Notebooks into her native Danish. Rilke is further persuaded when Betz’s translated excerpt in Les Contemporains reaches his hands in July 1923 and appears to honour the original. Endorsed by his author, an exuberant Betz is keen to proceed and translate the remainder of the Notebooks, which hitherto had only received the attention of André Gide.

The relationship between Rilke and Gide is worthy of a book in itself, and their correspondence between 1909 and 1926 offers a wealth of insights. In these always cordial and genuinely respect- ful exchanges both men show interest, at least on the surface, in translating each other’s works, but in practice this endeavour was barely consummated and was perhaps more of a token effort, an authentic desire lacking application. Perceptive to the work’s credentials as an opulent contribution to early-twentieth-century literature rather than a vestige of nineteenth-century romanticism, Gide had published several pages of his own translation of the Cahiers in La Nouvelle Revue Française in 1911. Rilke was thrilled and impressed with Gide’s effort and returned the favour by translat- ing the Frenchman’s short story of 1907, ‘Le Retour de l’enfant prodigue’. The act of literary translation always underscored the friendship and mutual respect between these two writers of stat- ure. This collegiality extended into Rilke’s early years at Muzot and beyond. Gide expressed a desire for Rilke and no other to translate his prose poem Nourritures terrestres from 1897, but Rilke was obliged to tactfully decline as he was then fully engaged with completing the Duino Elegies and could not afford to be distracted. Furthermore, he had the previous autumn started translating the poems of Paul Valéry. Though his letters to Gide allowed Rilke to develop his command of the French language, in the end his long-term correspondent was usurped by Valéry, who latterly won Rilke’s devotion as a translator. It was in any case Gide’s disinclina- tion to return to Malte which paved the way for Betz.

The young Alsatian arrived at the apposite moment, and to Rilke appeared to possess the required sensitivity to bring his cherished prose work into the language he knew by now more intimately than any. Yet Rilke would not relinquish all control and would be very much present through the process as a guiding force, respectfully but firmly proffering his counsel.

The first, long-anticipated encounter between Rilke and Betz in Paris connects the warm correspondence to the collaborative work which proceeds during the spring months of 1925. The account of this first meeting is typical of so many of Betz’s clear-eyed observations, which capture the complex subtleties of his revered subject’s demeanour and only apply any mild criticism judicially. ‘He approached me with outstretched hand, with an eagerness dictated by his natural politeness, but where a true joyfulness broke through…’ One can’t help but be reminded of a similar recollection of an enamoured Stefan Zweig meeting the Belgian poet Émile Verhaeren for the first time. The first impression of the other in the act of welcome appears to leave a powerful imprint on the psyche which resists deterioration over time. Betz lingers over Rilke’s distinctive appearance and clothing:

Rilke had this somewhat strange silhouette that I would become accustomed to seeing over the months that followed and which barely changed during his stay in Paris. He sported a grey felt hat, with round brim and flat base, light gaiters, suede gloves and a grey cloth overcoat…

Betz recalls that the two men quickly leave the lounge of the Foyot, where the presence of an English woman busy writing letters unsettles the ambiance. This passing remark, which could almost go unnoticed, is, in fact, revealing. For it sets the two men as an article and brings them together in their own conspiratorial entity; the outside world, represented by the English woman, perhaps a tourist writing letters home or postcards, is the Paris they wish to avoid. On the walk that follows down to the Seine they return by rue de Grenelle, a route which leads to a highly significant moment for Rilke. At no. 5 were the then offices of the Gallimard publishing house, from whose basement Rilke, with Betz at his side, collects a box of his possessions and papers. These were the few things which Gide, through protracted and strenuous efforts, had managed to reclaim from Rilke’s flat when Rilke, sojourning in Germany in the summer of 1914, was unable to return to Paris due to the outbreak of war. The loss of his possessions, abandoned in the flat at 14, rue Campagne Première in Montparnasse, dealt a terrible blow. In Vienna Rilke had lamented his catastrophic loss to Stefan Zweig, who immediately galvanized his network of contacts to come to Rilke’s aid. He contacted Romain Rolland, who in turn contacted Gide, still in Paris. Gide leapt into action but by then the bulk of Rilke’s possessions had been auctioned off, having earlier been seized by the city authorities, who would have had few scruples when it came to the belongings of an enemy alien. However, he was able to procure from the concierge a box or two of Rilke’s papers which had been overlooked. It was these precious documents and effects that Rilke was finally reacquainted with in the basement of the Gallimard offices.

Following the meeting at the Foyot, Rilke makes a preliminary visit to the apartment of Betz and his wife, and is enraptured by the romantic view of a still-bare, wintry Luxembourg from the fifth-floor balcony. Betz notes how Rilke clearly felt the attraction of being at a high vantage point, almost floating over the city, above the throng:

He also liked that the apartment was separated from the street below by the balcony which ran along the entire façade, so that we could imagine ourselves raised aloft above the city, to a great height, as in a balloon basket, and that even leaving the windows open we enjoyed a feeling of isolation and intimacy.

On the next visit they get down to work. Each day, unless he hap- pened to be ill-disposed through sickness, fatigue or some pressing obligation elsewhere, for he was much in demand, Rilke would arrive in Betz’s apartment around 10 a.m. They would then spend a few hours together, sitting at either side of a small card table until lunchtime, poring over the manuscript of the Cahiers until it was time to carefully place the marker at a certain page and resume their labours the following day.

The relationship between Rilke and Betz is undeniably com- panionable, sympathetic, and their friendship clearly burgeons over these months of close proximity, enhanced...

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Verlag
Pushkin Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1805330284
ISBN 13 
9781805330288
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
197
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Pushkin Press
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London
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