{"id":6293,"date":"2024-02-01T22:06:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T22:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/?p=6293"},"modified":"2024-02-02T00:17:01","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T00:17:01","slug":"book-review-the-dark-interval-letters-on-loss-grief-and-transformation-by-rainer-maria-rilke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/book-review-the-dark-interval-letters-on-loss-grief-and-transformation-by-rainer-maria-rilke\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation by Rainer Maria Rilke"},"content":{"rendered":"

[1]\u00a0Holiday seasons are among the most difficult for those in mourning.\u00a0 Well-meaning platitudes fall short, leaving friends at a loss for words, not knowing how to accompany loved ones engulfed in sorrow or facing death.<\/p>\n

[2] Letters written by Rainer Maria Rilke from 1907 to 1925 offer an intimate glimpse into the great poet\u2019s understanding of death and the process of mourning.\u00a0 His letters to bereaved friends address the particularity of individual loss and the great themes of transformation in death and life.\u00a0 This small collection of letters is edited and translated by Ulrich Baer whose own difficult journey through his father\u2019s death was transformed by Rilke\u2019s words. \u00a0Baer writes that Rilke was able to \u201cbring the bereaved back into communication, and coax them back into the conversation that we call life, right at the moment when they felt most cut off from the world.\u00a0 He gave them words when those were lacking, and told them there is a way to articulate their pain even if that pain constricts their hearts and throats.\u201d (Preface,\u00a0xii-xiii<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

[3] Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague in 1875 to a German-speaking family. Best known for his poetry such as\u00a0Book of Hours: Love Poems to God<\/em>, he also wrote over 14,000 letters before his death in 1926 at the age of 51.\u00a0 He considered his correspondence to be as important as his poetry. \u00a0Letters to a Young Poet\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Letters on Life<\/em>\u00a0have been previously published.\u00a0 This new volume collects and translates into English for the first time 23 letters dealing specifically with death, grief and transformation.<\/p>\n

[4]\u00a0This is the second volume of Rilke\u2019s letters translated and edited by Ulrich Baer.\u00a0 Baer is Vice Provost and Professor of German and Comparative Literature at New York University. In his preface to\u00a0The Dark Interval,\u00a0<\/em>Baer introduces themes running through the letters and shares the moving story of his own encounter with this correspondence during a time of personal grief.\u00a0 While the preface provides minimal contextual information about Rilke, this is remedied in the helpful chronology of Rilke\u2019s life and works located in the appendix that concludes the book.<\/p>\n

[5] The body of this volume is 23 short chapters, each containing one \u201cletter of condolence.\u201d The Table of Contents identifies each chapter by an evocative quotation from the letter it introduces, e.g.\u00a0 “We must Learn To Die\u201d, \u201cWhere Things Become Truly Difficult and Unbearable We Find Ourselves In A Place Already Very Close to Its Transformation,\u201d\u00a0 and \u201cThe Solitude Into Which You were Cast\u2026Makes You Capable of Balancing Out the Loneliness of Others\u201d.\u00a0 Unfortunately these highlighted quotations don\u2019t also appear in the chapter headings in the body of the book\u2014a lost opportunity to capture the casual reader who might be thumbing through the collection.<\/p>\n

[6]\u00a0Rilke traveled widely and his correspondence reflects that.\u00a0 While each letter addresses a particular person facing a particular loss, the collection offers a window into everyday life in the world of Rilke and his far-flung acquaintances.\u00a0 We meet countesses, artists, poets and astronomers, as they encounter mosquito bites, illness, and even food poisoning by moldy casseroles.\u00a0 But more importantly they experience intensely the life, death, and grief that is universal to human existence.<\/p>\n

[7]\u00a0In reaching out to these friends, Rilke rejects any easy consolation that tries to divert or minimize their grief. \u00a0Indeed, his messages could hardly be called \u201cletters of condolence\u201d in a traditional sense.\u00a0 He speaks directly to their sorrow, urging unflinching acknowledgement of death and loss. \u00a0The recipients treasured these letters and saved them for decades.<\/p>\n

[8] Rilke cautions against religious tendencies that focus on another realm (a \u201cbeyond\u201d) in which we will be free of suffering. \u00a0Instead, he insists that we make sense of our own condition here and now. \u00a0We can let the loss of others and the loss of control press us more fully into this life. Instead of retreating from the pain, denying it, or struggling to overcome it, we can use it to forge another path back into life. \u00a0By moving with and through the grief rather than around it, we can reconnect more deeply with life in the present.<\/p>\n

[9]\u00a0Rilke knows this is difficult.\u00a0 The loss of a loved one is the greatest challenge humans face. In his deep concern for a friend, Sidie, who seemed withdrawn and paralyzed by her brother\u2019s suicide, he urged that she not retreat from her pain, but enter it. This may seem easier said than done, but Rilke is practical.\u00a0 He suggests that she begin by touching the clothes of the beloved:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will freeze in place if you remain this way.\u00a0 You must not, dear. You have to move.\u00a0 You have to return to his things. You have to touch with your hands his things, which through their manifold relations are also yours. \u00a0You must, Sidie (this is the task that this incomprehensible fate imposes upon you), you must continue his life inside of yours insofar as it was unfinished; his life has now passed into yours. You, who quite truly knew him, can quite truly continue in his spirit and on his path. Make it the task of your mourning to explore what he had expected of you, had hoped for you\u2026.[H]is influence has not vanished from your existence.\u201d (14)<\/p>\n

Thus, not only does the beloved live on in our memories, but also in our daily conduct as we carry forward their lives and aspirations. \u00a0For Rilke this is a weight, and even a burden, that pushes us into the here and now.<\/p>\n

[10] Rilke also recommends that Sidie start by playing Beethoven tonight as she mourns her brother.\u00a0 The deceased is present with us now; he is free and we are free to feel him, to experience his influence and compassion.\u00a0 Our relationships pass through life and death and thus we must be intimately at home in both.\u00a0 We are part of the great whole. \u201cStart this very evening by playing Beethoven; he also was committed to the whole.\u201d (14)<\/p>\n

[11] Rilke\u2019s commitment to wholeness and unity in the interplay of death and life is a stream that flows throughout the book.\u00a0 To fully live, we must affirm both life and death. \u00a0\u201cTo admit one without the other would be \u2026to shut out all that is infinite.\u201d (89)\u00a0 For Rilke, death is simply the side of life that is turned away from us and upon which we do not cast our light.\u00a0 We must cultivate an awareness that thrives in both realms and is nourished by each. (89)\u00a0 The human spirit \u201ccannot make itself so small that it concerns nothing but our existence in the here and now.\u201d (23)\u00a0 Indeed, \u201cwe, who live here and now, are not for a moment satisfied in the time-world nor confined in it; we incessantly flow over and over to those who preceded us, to our origin, and to those who seemingly come after us.\u201d (90)<\/p>\n

[12] To nurture our awareness of death is not to disparage or degrade the here and now. To the contrary, death throws present life into sharper relief and compels us to participate in its transformation \u201cby imprinting this provisional, perishable earth deeply into ourselves.\u201d (91)\u00a0 Here is inspiration for ethics \u2013 a call to experience the \u00a0interrelatedness of all things in the processes of living and dying. \u00a0That we have \u201csome stock in it\u201d contributes to a personal foundation for loving and caring for the people and things of the earth. (92)<\/p>\n

[13] But Rilke\u2019s primary attention is elsewhere. While he knows that we \u201ccling to the visible\u201d and must care for it, his focus is on carrying the previously visible forward when we can no longer see or touch it. (92-93)\u00a0 For Rilke, the \u201cconfigurations of the here and now are to be integrated into the larger meanings of which we are a part.\u201d (90) He is interested in continual transformation of the tangible into an ongoing presence beyond death and physical absence.\u00a0 By imprinting the perishable into ourselves, its reality will live on in us invisibly. (91) Our entire existence, in which we carry forward the invisible, has implications for the whole of life \u2013 how we experience it and how we act in it \u2014 and in this way we contribute to the transformation of the earth. (94)<\/p>\n

[14] Rilke\u2019s letters are personal, spiritual and philosophical. \u00a0This is a book that crosses boundaries.\u00a0 It offers a path forward to those in the midst of a \u201cdark interval,\u201d while at the same time providing scholars a glimpse into a part of Rilke\u2019s world and work not previously available in English. \u00a0Readers who avoid poetry will find these letters a welcome introduction to Rilke and may be inspired to approach his verse. Newcomers to Rilke will appreciate the warmth, humanity and wisdom in his correspondence.\u00a0 They may find, however, that the philosophical nature of the book\u2019s final letter, in particular, is impenetrable without previous exposure to his work or at least to the process-relational strands of theology. Although Rilke moved away from Christian sensibilities, his work is beloved by theologians and other thinkers who appreciate the work of Alfred North Whitehead.<\/p>\n

[15] While this book cannot compete with Rilke\u2019s poetry, it may lead readers to it.\u00a0 And on its own it is a gorgeous window into the ways a great thinker brought his philosophical and spiritual insights into compassionate daily relationships to lift up real people struggling with grief and loss.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This review was republished from the January\/February 2019 issue.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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