The Man Who Loved Rilke

Eric Torgersen, whose Dear Friend is an insightful and moving study of Rilke s relationship with the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker, now parses, in this captivating novella, the life/work dilemma which Rilke, Yeats, and others have insisted the artist must confront through the opposing yet complementary windows of the idealist and the cynic. This is a resonant, strange, and strangely familiar dialogue of soul and self which I first read, in manuscript, seventeen years ago. Back then I wrote that I thought it was brilliant. Today I read it again, and I believe I was right. --Dan Gerber