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Title: Rimbaud: A Biography by Graham Robb ISBN: 0-393-32267-X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: December, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.76 (17 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "I am in Hell, therefore I am."
Comment: The road to Hell has been well-travelled by many poets, including Rimbaud (1854-91), who wrote about his season there in Une Saison en Enfer (1873). Abandoned by his father when he was six (pp. 12, 156), and "marooned in a seedy neighorhood" in Charleville (p. 12), Rimbaud's biography tells the story of a tortured soul imprisoned in the ever-changing persona of a "grim-faced urchin" (p. 128), "rebel," "pagan" (p. 81), poet, "seer," "genius" (p. 126), "marriage-wrecker" (p. 156), "shabby young man" (p. 237), factory worker (p. 244), tutor (p. 262), beggar, docker (p. 269), mercenary (pp. 277-78), sailor (p. 285), explorer (p. 289), "angel in exile" (p. 289), trader (p. 315), gun runner (p. 341, Chapters 33-34), and money changer (p. 409). Rimbaud wonders, "O seasons, O castles, What soul is without fault?" (p. 158).
"I came to find my mind's disorder sacred," Rimbaud tells us (p. 154). In this 445-page "reconstruction of Rimbaud's life" (p. xviii), Graham Robb insightfully reveals how his subject's life--and stormy relationship with Paul Verlaine--provided Rimbaud "with some splendid material for his poetry" (p. 211) before he took an "agile leap into silence" (p. 240), and abandoned poetry when he was 21. For Rimbaud, the "idea was 'to see everything up close, to describe modern life with fearless precision, the way in which it warps the human being'" (p. 55).
In Robb's superb biography, it is never easy to connect with Rimbaud, the person, but as a rebel poet he is mesmerizing, even as a silent poet "disappearing over the horizon of the page" (p. 281). Although the journey may be difficult for many of Rimbaud's admirers, Robb follows Rimbaud "into the badlands of his post-poetic career" (p. 289), and to the poet's funeral no one attended in Charleville (p. 441). You will probably not find the Rimbaud you expect in Parts Three and Four of this book. It was only posthumously that Rimbaud became a Symbolist, Surrealist, Beat, revolutionary, avant-gardes poet (p. xiv).
"For now, I am damned," Rimbaud writes near the end of his raison d'etre as a poet. "I detest the fatherland. The best thing would be a good drunken sleep on the beach" (p. 231). "Rimbaud gave up writing poetry," Robb notes, "but few people, having acquired the taste, ever give up reading it" (p. xviii). And with fascinating biographies such as this, it is unlikely readers will ever lose interest in Rimbaud.
G. Merritt
Rating: 5
Summary: The Tale of a Mad Angel
Comment: The best book to read on Rimbaud. Robb dispells myths, only to replace them with the even more awe-inspiring reality. His writing is perfect for this biography; it has a narrative tone, with occasional quips and asides, but most importantly it never gets in the way of understanding the fascinating life of the man behind the poetry.
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent, but not as good as Starkie bio.
Comment: This was the fourth biography on Rimbaud I'd read, and I found it the most accessible. However, the very best biography for my money, warts and all (she perpetuates a couple false myths about R.), is the Enid Starkie biography from 1961. Unlike Robb, she gives an analysis of many of his poems in the context of his life and times, while capably commenting on other personalities and poets of the era in which he lived. Still, even Robb in this biography, despite insisting on dismantling the so-called Rimbaud myths, perpetuates the "bad-boy genius" image here and there. If one reads his letters (see "I Promise to Be Good", Wyatt Mason, 2003) they will see that "...it is not generally appreciated how methodical a student of poetry Rimbaud was . . . Rimbaud made himself a poet by a long, involved, and sober study of the history of poetry."
But this is a review of Robb's book, and I do recommend it because it's the most up-to-date version of Rimbaud (as of 2003) and probably includes the most accurate chronology of all bios to date, as well as more details of his time with Verlaine, and in Africa (for which, Charles Nicholl's book, "Somebody Else: Rimbaud in Africa", 1997 is the best).
Overall, I think Robb's biography is the best modern introduction to Rimbaud (besides his poems, of course) for someone unfamiliar with him at all. His writing syle is less pedantic, and more journalistically captivating than Starkie, and others (I suppose it's a matter of taste, background, and direction, but it's probably impossible to find any dull biographies about Rimbaud anyway). Rimbaud continues to seduce and attract modern poets, wanderers, and seekers alike, and this biography is one more key to the fullest portrait possible of Rimbaud we'll ever get.
"Or, tout dernierement m'etant sur le point de faire le dernier couac! j'ai songe a rechercher la clef du festin ancien, ou je reprendrais peut-etre appetit."
But just lately, finding myself on the point of uttering the last croak, I thought of looking for the key to the old feast, where perhaps I might find my appetite again.
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Title: Rimbaud Complete (Modern Library) by Arthur Rimbaud, Wyatt Mason ISBN: 0679642307 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 19 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Arthur Rimbaud: Complete Works by Paul Schmidt ISBN: 0060955503 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 04 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Rimbaud Complete Works: Selected Letters by Fowlie Wallace, Jean Nicholas Arthur Rimbaud ISBN: 0226719731 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: July, 1966 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb ISBN: 039302038X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa 1880-91 by Charles Nicholl ISBN: 0226580296 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 16 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.20 |
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