Rimbaud Complete (Modern Library Classics) by Arthur Rimbaud Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Rimbaud Complete (Modern Library Classics)
Book Review: Beautiful, Faithful, Poetic Translations
Summary: 5 Stars
As a native Italian speaker who speaks English as a foreign languge, I know how difficult it is to translate anything (--even a shopping list!--) into another language. I have always loved Rimbaud, and read him first in Italian, and later in French. I fell in love with Rimbaud in Italian, and wanted to read him in English after I heard about this new translation on the radio, on a show called The Connection which I think is only heard in Boston where I live. Anyway, the translator and editor Mason spoke with passion about Rimbaud and poetry and translation. As I write this 'review', I must say how surprised I am by a few of the reviews here, and how angry and condescending some people sound! Comparing a translator as talented as Mason certainly is to a 'first-year French student' I think makes clear how irrational and crazy people get about Rimbaud--a point Mason made on the radio! Anyway, Mason's translations certainly are the work of a gifted translator, are very wonderful, and capture the sound of Rimbaud, and are very careful, accurate versions. Nothing could be more personal than how you feel about a poem, except I guess how you feel about a translation of a poem (and about Rimbaud)! But I have to say that after comparing Mason's versions to some of the others in the bookstore, his seem very much the best to me. I would be suspicious of anyone who would be so dismissive as some of the 'reviewers' here of what seems to be a very successful work. If you read Mason's version of 'Drunken Boat' and think it's not a good translation, then you don't really have a very good idea of poetry, in French or English. This is a wonderful book.Book Review: Not exactly complete, but extensive... poor translations
Summary: 3 Stars
The inspiration of Kerouac and Morrison, as well as myself, has never been translated so poorly. Of the works of Rimbaud that I own, this would be my least favorite. Wyatt Mason does no justice to the boy poet who's youth bore the greatest poetry in the last several hundred years.An example (third stanza of the Drunken Boat):
"Deafer than a dreaming child, I ran
Into winter's furious rippling tides.
Penisulas wrenched from shore
Have never know scuh hurly-burly."
Hurly-burly!!!
While the tranlator could have been bettered by a first year french student, the amount of work collected in the book is greater than any other volume I own. I especially was excited to see a first draft of "A Season in Hell." So if you are looking for a good amount of the french collected in one volume, this books for you, but I wouldn't suggest it if you are looking for a well translated text.
Book Review: Well organized, but to say 'complete' is a ostentatious
Summary: 3 Stars
A refreshing new look at the work - I give it a high mark for effort - but the author took great pains to avoid Rimbaud's love relationship with Verlaine, and he completely disregarded the translation work of Louise Varese, which is one of the most eloquent translations that exists. The book at times gets too scientific - which appears to again be the authors attempt to avoid the fact that Arthur was an extremely eccentric, gay or bisexual creature - which to me is half the story.
Where are his letters to Paul Verlaine? "Complete", I think not. But this work does fit well in a greater Rimbaud collection. It never ceases to amaze me how posthumous critics and scholars work feverishly to harness that which cannot be harnessed: the free mind.
Book Review: A quite suitable rendition
Summary: 4 Stars
First, of all I must say that this book is a godsend. I've been trying to piece my way through the Oeuvres Completes for some time now, and having Jugurtha, the Prologue and some of the other earlier texts from 1866-1870 in English is a great pleasure. Possibly the only thing necessary now is a translation of Akakia Viala and Nicolas Bataillet's 1949 "La chasse spirituelle", which is in some French editions. However, despite the wealth of new material which Mason's translation gives us, I find it is still lacking when compared to Fowlie's. The decision not to print the original French texts on the facing page was a great error, and despite some very excellent renditions of the poems (particularly Memoire), Mason still does not have Fowlie's sense to leave the poems as they are and let the words speak for themselves. However, alongside Louise Varese's translations of the prose & of course Fowlie, most probably, this will come to be seen very shortly as one of the three indespensible Rimbaud translations that we have available in English.Book Review: asi asi
Summary: 3 Stars
It's true that this translation includes some writings by Rimbaud never before (so far as I know) available or accessible to a reader strictly limited to english. But, should you spend your hard earned money on it? That's a difficult question. I wish I hadn't.Wyatt Mason's english:
"...The Gospel! The Gospel!
I await God, hungrily.
There I am..."
the french (included in the rear of the book):
"...l'Evangile! l'Evangile!
J'attends Dieu avec gourmandise. Je suis de race inferieure de toute eternite.
Me voici sur..."
What happened to "Je suis de race inferierue de toute eternite"!
I gave this book three stars because it contains writings never before available to the strictly english reader.