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Rimbaud: The Double Life Of A Rebel (2008)

by Edmund White(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1934633151 (ISBN13: 9781934633151)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Atlas

review 1: Usually books I read get 3-4 stars. This is the result of picking books with subject matter that interests me, or books written by authors I enjoy reading. Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel is no exception. In this case, however, I didn't choose the book because I am a fan of Rimbaud - who, by all accounts wasn't a person you'd want to spend a lot of time with - or his poetry - in fact, I will confess to never having read any of his work. I picked up the book because the biographer, Edmund White, is an author I do know and admire. And I was not disappointed in my choice. White traces Rimbaud's life from his childhood in rural France to his death in Marseille after leaving Africa for treatment of an ulcerated sore in his leg. The most compelling portion of the book occurs... more in the chapters covering the 4 years of Rimbaud's life in his late teens when he actually wrote poetry. These short few years coincide with Rimbaud's notorious relationship with Paul Verlaine. White obviously likes and admires Rimbaud. But he doesn't falsely elevate the young poet. Instead, the biographer dutifully (and with well-written prose) reveals both the genius and the serious flaws of his subject. White admits to being taken with the works of Rimbaud when he (White) was in school. At the book's outset, White also confesses to an oddly disturbing occurrence in his own life that has parallels to actions Rimbaud took in his own life. As a fan of Edmund White, I am not sure that I wanted to know what he reveals about himself. Following the end of his writing career (at age 19), Rimbaud went to find his fortune in Africa. He renounced his previous life as a poet. He worked at various times for others and then for himself, doing bookkeeping, import export, and ultimately, gun-running. He had some interaction with well-known figures in Abyssinian (Ethiopian) history. And during all the years Rimbaud was living and working abroad, Paul Verlaine (who had spent time in prison partly for his own fault, and partly because of Rimbaud) continued to promote the genius of Rimbaud in books and magazines in France. Ultimately, thanks to my dumb luck in finding this work at my local library as I was simply walking by a shelf of non-fiction (I love serendipity), I got to read a work by one of my favorite authors about a very interesting poet and historical figure about whom I knew very little. You do not have to be a fan of poetry to enjoy a well-told biographical story like this one. White's book, however, has piqued my interest. I will be adding Rimbaud's, A Season in Hell, and Illuminations, to my reading lists shortly. I heartily recommend this to anyone looking for a good read and who might want to learn a bit about a celebrated writer in the process.
review 2: Rimbaud, like Mozart, was one of the great artistic freaks of nature. Surely he was a stubborn, insolent, depressed soul, but his massive egotism and restlessness also were the catalysts that drove him to see and think like few others have. For anyone sensitive to life and its brevity, to its mysteries and paradoxes, this genius boy is a revelation.I read Starkie’s famous bio of Rimbaud years ago and learned a lot about the later years, after Rimbaud abandoned poetry and turned towards business and a futile life of adventure and arms trading in Africa. For someone, such as myself, who is interested in the motivations of artists—at least those rare ones like Rimbaud—his abandonment of poetry is tremendously difficult to understand. In White’s bio, with its blend of narrative and criticism, one gets a clearer picture of Rimbaud’s sordid life—his strange family circumstances, his rustic upbringing, his periodic political eruptions and hunger for liberation, his destructive relationship with Verlaine, and his subsequent flight from Paris and the world of Poetry. But you also see how the poet came into his own, how he pushed towards the brink of newness through experimentation both in life and in art, and ultimately was brought down by exhaustion and uncertainty. As White notes, contra Yeats famous dictum: Rimbaud did not feel the need to choose between art and life; he endeavored to make both parts of an intertwining project of rebellion.Rimbaud was also an ethical visionary, sensing the same gripping cultural nihilism that Nietzsche spent so much time theorizing about. His response entailed a strong poetic commitment, an attempt to derange the senses in order to see and experience new possibilities. His experiment gave rise to a whole new type of poetry; and the centrepiece of his oeuvre is his magnificent prose poem A Season in Hell. Many of the subtle textures of this work—in particular, how much of it deals with Rimbaud’s affair with Verlaine—is discussed and analysed by White, and one sees how strong and revolutionary a work of art it is, something quite extraordinary when you consider he was still a teenager when he wrote it!By the end, one does not solve the riddle completely of Rimbaud's change of heart regarding poetry. But one at least starts to understand his psychology, and the torment that drove him. And that at least gives one some interesting clues. Anyway, very enjoyable book. My sole complaint is that it is too short! less

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