The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

 

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The poet Rilke here constructs a supposed prose novel which is, in my eyes, a series of extended free-verse poems. I find myself closing the book (after revisiting a few key passages a second and third time) harboring the same feelings one has after visiting a world-class art museum for a day, say the Vienna Secession Building, the Art Institute of Chicago, or the Saint Louis Art Museum. One is amazed, nearly overwhelmed by the breadth of the work housed therein and left haunted by the lingering ringing of the brain and eyes from being assaulted by so much beauty at once. One doesn't often think of the curation of the museum: the hard work done by those behind the scenes who labor to present the work of the artists, performing a sort of sacral homage to, or even worship of, the works. Of course, the best curators do all they can to let the artwork speak for itself. They disappear, are unseen and un-lauded, but it is their presentation that lets us enjoy the works to their fullest.

I use the analogy deliberately, as Rilke here presents a series of literary/poetic "portraits" of events from the life of Malte Laurids Brigge. If you're looking for plot, you won't find much of it here. But you will find several vignettes, in no particular order, from scenes of an obsessive unrequited romance to family drama to a very well-done ghost story that set my neck hairs on end with it's sudden unexpectedness. Rilke is a curator of these beautiful, often dark scenes, but also the creator.

It is strange, then, that through Brigge (and we cannot know if the author shared the character's observations), he seems to question whether a creator is necessary at all for drama, in particular and, by implication, all art, even the work he is writing at that very moment.

All of my poems . . . originated in a diferent manner, and so they are not poems. - And when I wrote my play, what a mistake I made. Was I an imitator, and a fool, that I needed a third person to describe the fate of two people who were making things difficult for each other? How easily I fell into the trap. And I ought to have known that that third person who is present in every life and every literature, that ghost of a third who has never existed, is quite without meaning, and must be disavowed. He is one of the pretexts of Nature, who is always trying to distract humankind's prying attentions from her inmost secrets. He is the screen behind which a drama occurs. He is the noise that precedes the voiceless silence of true conflict. One has the impression that every dramatist to date has found it too dificult to speak of those two who are in fact the crux; the third, precisely because he is so unreal, is the unproblematic part of the task, and they have all been able to deal with him. From the very start of their plays, one senses their impatience to bring on this third person. They can hardly wait. Once he makes his appearance, all is well. But how tedious it is if he is late: nothing whatsoever can happen without him, everything comes to a standstil, drags, and hangs fire.

There are shades of Samuel Beckett here, a precursor, perhaps, to the disappearing narrator of his (in)famous trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnameable. But in the end, Brigge abandons the notion of abandoning creators and concludes that all that is left for him is to write.

And write he does. Beautifully. As one might expect, the words are carefully chosen, but with the "novel" form, Rilke is allowed more leeway in his choices. He is not as constricted in his word choice, not beholden to the multivalent nature of poetry. He is allowed to breathe a little, and while I am enamored of Rilke's use of words in his poetry (particularly auf Deutsch), there is something to be said for being able to ease into this work without so much cerebral demand.

That is not to say the work is easy. Far from it. The displays that Brigge (i.e., Rilke) constructs are not presented in an overall exhibition that follows any sort of discernable order. The narrative "jumps" through time and space; so much so, in fact, that many have rightfully called the novel plotless. If you've followed my reviews or blogposts, you'll already know that I don't mind and, in fact, sometimes prefer books and stories that end without clear resolution, so plotless books are merely a reverse-extension of such endings. I don't mind not having a plot, but those who do will really struggle with this work and it's "jumpiness". But if you're one to wallow in beauty and big ideas and not feel compelled to have an end toward which you are driven, you'll do just fine.

Note that the lack of plot does not mean that there is a lack of progression. On the contrary, as philosophical queries blossom from Brigge's pen and the answers beckon from afar, one can see a simultaneous growth of a man coming to grips with the inevitability of death, even as he shrinks from societal norms, eventually casting those "norms" aside altogether, at least as a philosophical exercise, flattening the supposed hierarchical distinctions between mendicant and monarch. Ultimately, Brigge becomes answerable only to (insert your favored name for God here) for his writing. But in seeking divine approval, he (and we) falls short of favor, a mimetic travesty of the great "I Am":

Outwardly, a great deal has changed. I do not know how. But within and before You, Lord, within ourselves and before You who look on, are we not without action? We do discover that we do not know our part; we look for a mirror; we should like to remove our make-up and whatever is false and be real. But somewhere a forgotten piece of our disguise still adheres to us; some trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not realize that the corners of our mouths are twisted. And thus we go about, a laughing-stock and a demi-being, with neither a real existence nor a part to play-act.

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