里尔克传：鸣响的杯子（A Ringing Glass）书评

　　里尔克的诗作在中国的翻译不少，但到目前为止，其传记材料除里尔克带有自传性质的《马尔特手记》（Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge ）外，只有魏育青翻译的那本霍尔特胡森的薄薄的《里尔克》，上个世纪八十年代出版，如今买本旧书都很难了。因此，笔者正策划出一本里尔克的传记，便于更好的了解诗人的生平，以及帮助读者理解他晦涩深奥的诗作。下面谈书的情况。

　　德语不好，因此说说里尔克的英文传记的情况，目前比较好的“正传”大概有三本：

　　1，Donald Prater的A Ringing Glass Life of Rainer Maria Rilke，亚马逊链接http://www.amazon.com/Ringing-Glass-Rainer-Clarendon-Paperbacks/dp/0198158912/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358832933&sr=8-1&keywords=A+Ringing+Glass；

　　2，Ralph Freedman的Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke，链接http://www.amazon.com/Life-Poet-Rainer-Maria-Rilke/dp/0810115433/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1；

　　3，Wolfgang Leppmann的Rilke: A Life，链接http://www.amazon.com/Rilke-A-Life-Wolfgang-Leppmann/dp/0880640146/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_5。

　　笔者综合各处看到的评论、简介和所能看到的片段，认为前两本各有千秋，难分高下，第三本稍微差一点。

　　当然，关于里尔克的传记材料很多，但多数都是德文。英文的评传性质的里尔克传记也有很不错的，比如Daniel Joseph Polikoff的Rilke, A Soul History: In the Image of Orpheus。

　　最后选中这本A Ringning Glass: Life of Rainer Maria Rilke并非掷骰子决定的，除了版权等问题之外，重点是综合考虑了这本书的内容。这本传记很好地向我们展现了里尔克的一生，以及其生平和作品之间的关系。通过广泛引用关于里尔克的原始资料，Prater描述了一个在日常生活的痛苦与挣扎中创作出伟大作品的里尔克。作者以里尔克《致俄耳甫斯的十四行诗》中的诗句“做一只鸣响的杯子，在鸣响时破碎”（以防对原文的断章取义，引用的英译和原文引用了完整的一句，英译：Be here among the vanishing in the realm of entropy, be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings, 德语原文：Hier, unter Schwindenden, sei, im Reiche der Neige, sei ein klingendes Glas, das sich im Klang schon zerschlug.）作为书名，是对里尔克价值观的简要概括。仅看这句诗，再想里尔克说《杜伊诺哀歌》与《致俄耳甫斯的十四行诗》有内在的一致，确实如此。

　　附上一篇朋友转发的伦敦书评：

　　To read Donald Prater’s biography of Rilke in the hope of getting to know the poet in depth would be a tantalising exercise. Lack of information is not the problem. There is no shortage of documentary evidence available to the investigator and Prater has made full use of it. Rilke himself supplied his large share in letters of a princely egocentricity, upon which he appears to have lavished a formidable outlay of time and creative energy. Many of those who were personally acquainted with him, too, were scrupulous in setting down their impressions of a figure whose near-divine poetic status was taken for granted from an early date, while scholars and researchers have shown comparable zeal in the subsequent mopping-up campaign, until now it would seem we have all the facts we could reasonably ask for. Prater’s eight-page bibliography alone testifies to the abundance of secondary literary material generated by what was, after all, an oeuvre of modest size (if one leaves aside those letters) and a life whose most notable characteristics were a cultivated detachment from the surrounding world and a dismaying evasiveness in personal matters.

　　最后请关注里尔克的朋友多支持这本书的出版。