The summer of 1926 was a time of trouble and uncertainty for each of the three poets whose correspondence is collected in this moving volume. Marina Tsvetayeva was living in exile in France and struggling to get by. Boris Pasternak was in Moscow, trying to come to terms with the new Bolshevik regime. Rainer Maria Rilke, in Switzerland, was dying. Though hardly known to each other, they began to correspond, exchanging a series of searching letters in which every aspect of life and work is discussed with extraordinary intensity and passion. "An extraordinary correspondence.... Makes us weep for what seems a vanished golden age of European culture." -- John Bayley
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
these letters should have been kept private:
here we have three great poets. sounds inviting, interesting, wonderful. instead boris writes like an infatuated 14 year old. marina is often hysterical. their ego's are so soft, constant reassurance seems to be the name of the game. a polite letter from a bored rilke has marina and boris delirious with happiness, too excited to sleep, pouring over every 'the' and 'and', looking, searching for 'deeper meaning.' if this book is read as letters by three unknowns, i doubt it would be published. boris is a cad.... more info
A revelation, a model, for the possibility of human communication:
This book, the March/Sept. 2001 edition, is for me like a hot springs swimming pool for the tired body, what spring is to the birds, what rain is for parched meadows: a sensory experience that brings well-being to the sore human soul. The jacket cover comments by John Bayley and Mark Rudman give an accurate idea of what the correspondence was between these three writers 80 summers ago: yes, the letters among them are literature, and yes, reading them might make us weep for a vanished golden age of culture.... more info
In the Company of Angels:
Words have tremendous power, and reading the letters written from one person to another often helps us to know that person far more intimately than anythng else ever could.
During the summer of 1926, three extraordinary poets (two Russian and one German) began a correxpondence of the highest order. These three extraordinary people were Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetayeva and Ranier Maria Rilke. Rilke, who is revered as a god by both Pasternak and Tsvetayeva, is seen by them as the very essence of poetry,... more info
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