The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke: The St. Germain Excerpt
AI Overview Description
A 13-minute narration of an excerpt from Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910), Rilke’s only novel. The passage recounts the enigmatic Count St. Germain, with Abelone’s memories, the Count’s seclusion, and the mystery of the stigmata.
My Book Review
Ahh, to delve into the musings of a poet in Paris. To strike through his ingenious heart and ignite within a soulful flame. Brigge is a facet of Rilke, one whom, if you've ever been smitten with his poetry, is not to be ignored. Look through these pages and see how mirrors of the self extend reality in addition to reflecting it.
“I do not know how much I took in, but it was as if a solemn promise had been made to me that one day I should understand it all. And as her voice filled out, until at last it was almost the voice with which I had heard her sing, I felt ashamed that I had had so petty an idea of our reconciliation. For I well understood that that was what this was. But now it was taking place somewhere in the vast open spaces high above me, out of my reach.”
Penguin Classics edition. Translation by Michael Hulse.
Timestamps
- 00:00: Introduction: Excerpt from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
- 00:19: Abelone’s Memories: The Art of Telling a Story
- 01:03: Facing the Night: Abelone's Girlhood and Freedom
- 01:35: The Ritual of the Candles
- 02:19: Count Brahe: The Seclusion of an Old Man
- 02:40: The Summoning: Abelone in the Inaccessible Study
- 03:13: The Count’s Memoirs: A Northern Summer Night of the Mind
- 04:09: Sten the Valet: Communion with the Dead
- 05:22: The Difficulty of Dictation: Eckhart and Ford
- 06:04: Memories of the Marquis von Belmar
- 07:27: The Blood as the True Book of Memory
- 08:00: The Oriental Chivalry of Belmar
- 09:09: A Shallow Existence: The Zoo of Lies
- 10:16: Positioned in Space: The Visceral Memory of a Rich Man
- 10:39: Purposeful Collaboration: Working with the Count
- 11:15: Julie Reventlow and the Mystery of the Stigmata
- 12:15: The Linger of the Two Marks
- 12:28: Conclusion and Credits
The Series
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Joseph Voelbel designs learning curriculum and writes about money, systems, and meaning. Author of Pay Attention to Bitcoin (2024), a crash-course primer on sound money, Nineteen Stories (2017), an exploration of the unknown, and This Plant Will Grow (2026), a children's book about a plant that becomes a rainforest.