Rimbaud
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'White's streamlined life of Proust is a blueprint for good biography. It is serious vivacious, racy and its publication is a literary event.' - The Times 'Edmund White is one of the three or four most virtuousic living writers of sentences in the English language' - Dave Eggers
Product Description
Rimbaud, among the greatest of French poets, notorious for his life as well as his works, is evoked by a hugely distinguished biographer. Poet and prodigy Arthur Rimbaud led a life that was startlingly short, yet dramatically eventful and accomplished. His long poem "Une Saison en Enfer" (1873) and his collection "Illuminations" (1886) are central to the modern canon. Having sworn off writing at the age of twenty-one, Rimbaud drifted around the world, ultimately dying from an infection contracted while gun-running in Africa. He was thirty-seven. Distinguished biographer, novelist, and memoirist Edmund White, brilliantly explores the young poet's relationships with his family and his teachers, as well as his notorious affair with the older and more established poet Paul Verlaine. He reveals the sometimes elusive, sometimes blatant, themes of sexual taboo that haunt Rimbaud's works, offering incisive interpretations of the poems and his own artful translations to bring us closer to this great and mercurial poet.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This slim volume left me completely lost. My basic problem is in deciding who should be its audience.
If you are in love with Rimbaud you should simply stay away from this book. White does not offer anything you have not heard before - major difference from academic biographies is that he seldom indicates his authorities but for some it may be a plus: there are no boring footnotes. Which, however, does not indicate that it is the result of original research. It is not.
If White is fascinated with Rimbaud he fails to convey this fascination completely. The quality of translations he included is rather doubtful - unless you have a penchant for a vista translations which have little ambition beyond grasping the meaning precisely leaving the form aside (or to be described separately).
If you are in love with White... Well... Hasn't he published a novel recently? Read it instead.
My impressions were eerily similar to those White's Proust left me with - both books could be summed up in the following manner: nothing much happens, nothing much happens, he writes something which when summed up sounds quite trivial, nothing much happens, he dies, some people whose names may ring a bell remember him afterwards, thank you all dear. Plus a bibliography which fails to provide basic data for further research (as if White was painfully aware of the fact that his presentation of the subject matter can hardly make anyone interested in any further research...) in which my favourite part was "most of these books are out of print anyway" - have you ever heard of libraries, honey?
Just one example of "originality". White goes on for a while trying to decide the issue of copulation - suggesting that Rimbaud was a top only to conclude some pages further that it is just as possible that they did not practice penetration at all. Charming but if we are talking about Verlaine and Rimbaud it is perfectly clear who was the dominating force when they started writing. What they did in bed is of secondary interest as our data is slim if not outright nonexistent.
If you have never heard of Rimbaud before and your French is not exactly up for the task the only useful part is the end of bibliography when White lists English translation of his poems. If you also fell under the spell of this noisy adolescent from the Ardeness, there are decent biographies of him to be found quite easily. This one comes short both as entertainment and as scholarship so don't bother.
If you are in love with Rimbaud you should simply stay away from this book. White does not offer anything you have not heard before - major difference from academic biographies is that he seldom indicates his authorities but for some it may be a plus: there are no boring footnotes. Which, however, does not indicate that it is the result of original research. It is not.
If White is fascinated with Rimbaud he fails to convey this fascination completely. The quality of translations he included is rather doubtful - unless you have a penchant for a vista translations which have little ambition beyond grasping the meaning precisely leaving the form aside (or to be described separately).
If you are in love with White... Well... Hasn't he published a novel recently? Read it instead.
My impressions were eerily similar to those White's Proust left me with - both books could be summed up in the following manner: nothing much happens, nothing much happens, he writes something which when summed up sounds quite trivial, nothing much happens, he dies, some people whose names may ring a bell remember him afterwards, thank you all dear. Plus a bibliography which fails to provide basic data for further research (as if White was painfully aware of the fact that his presentation of the subject matter can hardly make anyone interested in any further research...) in which my favourite part was "most of these books are out of print anyway" - have you ever heard of libraries, honey?
Just one example of "originality". White goes on for a while trying to decide the issue of copulation - suggesting that Rimbaud was a top only to conclude some pages further that it is just as possible that they did not practice penetration at all. Charming but if we are talking about Verlaine and Rimbaud it is perfectly clear who was the dominating force when they started writing. What they did in bed is of secondary interest as our data is slim if not outright nonexistent.
If you have never heard of Rimbaud before and your French is not exactly up for the task the only useful part is the end of bibliography when White lists English translation of his poems. If you also fell under the spell of this noisy adolescent from the Ardeness, there are decent biographies of him to be found quite easily. This one comes short both as entertainment and as scholarship so don't bother.
Format:Paperback
Although on my guard, I did find the assertions and digressions of Edmund White frank and refreshing. He begins the enchantment by describing a prodigious genius who was reading and writing Latin poetry as a school-boy. He found the influence of his strict,religious and ambitious mother, who never completely abandoned him, suffocating. He had a demonic urge to break all constraints. He used his precocious sexuality as a weapon on Verlaine and others to destructive effect. He developed a boorish grossness in defiance of bourgeois gentility and convention. He deconstructed his individual and social self with alcohol,absinthe and hashish. On the other hand he was a passionate supporter of material progress, science,and the pseudo-sciences.He was a voracious consumer of scientific,religious,classical,popular and exotic sources. His experiments with different metres,rhythyms and schools of poetry contributed to the genesis of modern poetry.However, by the age of nineteen, he felt that his search for the utopia of the new man with a new voice had failed and he turned his back on literature forever, abhorred even by his own literary coterie. His life from 19 - 37yrs. is covered concisely and adequately in a last section, the years of compromise and grubbing. For anyone interested in the enigma of Rimbaud, this little volume is still necessary reading.
Format:Paperback
I haven't read much Rimbaud, but hearing fascinating snippets of his life and reading about Patti Smith's enthusiastic discovery of him in Just Kids made me want to find out more. White's short biography covers Rimbaud's life from childhood to death, focusing mainly on the short four-year period in which he was writing. Biographical details are interspersed with literary analysis and a few pages are devoted to his posthumous reputation.
I loved Edmund White's biography of Proust, but for some reason this work didn't grip me as much. White quotes extensively from Rimbaud's poems, giving his own English translations, but I would have preferred the French as well to get some idea of what made made his language so electrifying. As it was, the main impression I was left with on finishing the book was of an unpleasant man who led an unhappy life. This book would also have been improved by some photographs as several interesting ones are described.
I loved Edmund White's biography of Proust, but for some reason this work didn't grip me as much. White quotes extensively from Rimbaud's poems, giving his own English translations, but I would have preferred the French as well to get some idea of what made made his language so electrifying. As it was, the main impression I was left with on finishing the book was of an unpleasant man who led an unhappy life. This book would also have been improved by some photographs as several interesting ones are described.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
OK...-ish
This book tells the basics of Rimbaud's life.
Rather than following a chronological timelime, it jumps around a bit, which distracts. Read more
Rather than following a chronological timelime, it jumps around a bit, which distracts. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Mr. J. H. Owen
An entertaining read about the most difficult genius
This is a carefully researched and entertaining biography of the vagabond poet Rimbaud's life. Beginning with a moving personal note about what Rimbaud means to the biographer,... Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2009 by Eric Anderson
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