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This episode’s guest is Rachel Corbett, the author of a brilliant book called 'You Must Change Your Life', which tells the story of the brief and intense relationship between renowned sculptor Auguste Rodin and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. In her vibrant debut, Rachel Corbett reveals how Rodin’s influence lead Rilke to write his most celebrated poems and inspired his beloved text 'Letters to a Young Poet'.
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This episode’s guest is Rachel Corbett, the author of a brilliant book called 'You Must Change Your Life', which tells the story of the brief and intense relationship between renowned sculptor Auguste Rodin and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. In her vibrant debut, Rachel Corbett reveals how Rodin’s influence lead Rilke to write his most celebrated poems and inspired his beloved text 'Letters to a Young Poet'.
Listen to Master & Disciple: The Life of Rodin and Rilke - Rachel Corbett by Vashik Armenikus MP3 song. Master & Disciple: The Life of Rodin and Rilke - Rachel Corbett song from Vashik Armenikus is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 54:40. This high-quality MP3 track has 258.739 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 7 Jun 2023. Stream and download Master & Disciple: The Life of Rodin and Rilke - Rachel Corbett by Vashik Armenikus for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
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The interview discusses the book "You Must Change Your Life" by Rachel Corbett, which explores the relationship between sculptor Auguste Rodin and poet Rainer Maria Rilke. The book delves into their brief yet intense collaboration and the impact it had on their work. The conversation also touches on the influence of Rodin and Rilke on the author's own life and favorite poems and sculptures by the artists. The interview highlights the dedication and relentless work ethic of both artists, as well as the tragic story of Camille Claudel, Rodin's assistant and lover. I think that a lot of people think about these figures or artists, great artists, as somehow kind of almost non-human, sort of, you know, like they're touched with some sort of divine gift and that's, I think, what Rilke thought early in his life when he was writing Letters to a Young Poet, he was like, how do I get that thing, that, you know, that magic touch, whatever it is, and I think that he learned, and I think what you kind of take away from the book is that really all it is is a lot, a lot of dedication to the work. They were both really relentless artists and they, it drove them entirely, their whole lives were devoted to this, and I think that, you know, it isn't, you don't need to find out how to live, as Rilke started out asking, like there is no certain food to eat or place to live or that's going to give you what it takes, I think people sort of look for that when they, when they want to become creative, they want to read about what, how did this person do it exactly, where exactly did they go to school, I'll just follow that roadmap, but I think Rodin and Rilke are good examples of how truly human they were, and how they were so successful because of their talent, of course, but also because they just never stopped working. Hello everyone, welcome to Art Jote Podcast, where I, Vasa Karmenikas, ask questions to best-selling non-fiction authors about their books and ideas. Today, my guest is Rachel Corbett, author of a brilliant book called You Must Change Your Life, which tells the story of the brief and intense relationship between renowned sculptor Auguste Rodin and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. In 1902, Rainer Maria Rilke was a delicate visitor from Prague in Paris. He was broke and suffering from writer's block. He was commissioned to write a book on Rodin, who was already a renowned artist at the time. This is when everything changes. You Must Change Your Life reveals one of the great stories of modern art and literature. Rodin and Rilke's years together as master and disciple, their heartbreaking rift and moving reconciliation. In her vibrant debut, Rachel Corbett reveals how Rodin's influence led Rilke to write his most celebrated poems and inspired his beloved letters to a young poet. She captures the dawn of modernism with appearances by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Louis-Andrés Salomé, George Bernard Shaw, and Jean Cocteau. In this interview, I also wanted to ask Rachel about how Rodin and Rilke influenced her life, how she discovered them, and what are her favorite poems by Rilke and her favorite sculptures by Rodin. I know that this might sound cliché, but when I was reading this book, I was getting a strong feeling as if I'm reading the script for the second part of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. I hope you enjoy listening to my interview with Rachel Corbett. Dear Rachel, thank you so much for coming to my podcast, and as I said just a couple of minutes ago, if I sound to our listeners and to you as a fanboy, please excuse me. I really enjoyed reading your book, You Must Change Your Life, about Rodin and Rilke, and I really wanted to explore your connection to both of those really incredible artists that I personally admire, and I was so excited to discover your book. I wanted to ask you, how does one decide to write a book like that, a book on the relationship between two artists like that, how did you approach it, how did you discover this subject? Well, I came, you know, most readers of the book align with one or the other, Rilke or Rodin brings them into the story, and for me, actually, it was Rilke, who I read for the first time when I was about 18 or so in college in Iowa, and I kind of was at this point where I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, I was unsatisfied, and my mother gave me a copy of Letters to a Young Poet, and I think that's like the perfect age to read that book, because it's, I mean, it was written by Rilke when he was not much older than that himself, and so I read it, and I remember turning back to the beginning and reading it right again, it's a short book, you know, and it stayed with me, and then, you know, years later, I ended up becoming an arts writer, you know, a journalist, I covered the art world, and so, of course, I moved into knowing more about visual art, and then, it was just kind of like a piece of trivia, in a way, you know, I had heard somewhere that Rilke was a secretary to Rodin, or something like this, and I just, I remember being really struck by it, because I thought, like, I didn't even know they lived in the same time period, like, it just seemed so different, for some reason, I didn't associate them at all, and I just kind of looked up, I remember just kind of looking up what time, the timing was, and I realized that it was when Rodin was in his 60s, and Rilke was in his 20s, and right when he was writing the letters to young poets, and I thought, how interesting, like, I wonder, he was, he was working for, and living with Rodin for a lot of that period, and I wonder how much of that wisdom came from, in fact, Rodin, and it turned out that a lot of it came from Rodin, and, you know, his other mentors at the time, and I just thought that was, like, such an interesting backstory to this enormously famous, popular book that everybody reads now, the letters to young poets, so that's kind of how I, how it came together. It was surprising for me to discover that letters to young poets was written by Rilke when he was suffering through severe artistic crisis, that he was not as, you know, he wasn't like the acknowledged poet of the time that, you know, that he could give that advice, it was more, he was giving advice as if he was giving it to himself, and I was surprised to discover that while reading your book, what was, what were your feelings when you discovered that the book that kind of helped you and influenced you was written by someone to himself, essentially? I, yeah, I know, it's, I think it was Rodin-Gass, he said it could have been called Letters from a Young Poet, but I mean, I was totally, I mean, it seems certainly wise beyond its years, and I think, again, because a lot of it was coming from someone who was much older, but also when you look back on it now, I find, if I read it now, it doesn't have quite the same effect, you know, it has, it's made, I think, best as a book for a young person, because it's a bit dramatic, it's, you know, the advice isn't always the best advice, I don't think, in some ways, but it's really inspiring at a certain age, and it's kind of like how to, it's a book about how to become a creative person, and, you know, if you're just starting out, and now it's, it's, I read it, it feels like it is from a younger person to me now a little bit, because it's so full of hopeful yearnings and strivings and confusion and questioning, and I kind of, I love that about that book. I think I read it at exactly the time, and I don't think I knew how old he was when I first read it. What is the, what is your favourite advice from that book? Does anything come to your mind instantly? A few things, you know, there's, of course, the famous one that everyone remembers is, you know, in the stillest hour of the night, ask yourself, must I write? And it goes on and on about how, if you do not feel like you have to, don't do it, become a lawyer or something, because you, you will have a miserable life, most likely, and you won't make any money. And so, that, I think, is one that stays with people, you know, if you don't have to do it, you know, you'll kind of know at one point whether you have to do it or not. And then I liked the, I liked a lot of the writings about loneliness. You know, he talks about, he kind of turns sad thoughts into positive ones in this really clever way. You know, I remember him saying something about, you know, it always is embrace your solitude, you know, that's your, you're at home in yourself, and something about like how loneliness is actually the space around you expanding. And, you know, it kind of makes everything seem positive. And, you know, like, if you have no money, well, then you have no, no expectations, you know, no requirements, you know, you could just be free in a way you don't have any burdens of debt or responsibilities to pay for. So, I remember, you know, of course, at a point in my life when I was poor and lonely and trying to figure out what to do with myself and how to get out of Iowa. So, I think all those messages really resonated with me. Yeah, I guess that's, that's the thing that resonates in many people, you know, when you're in loneliness, when you lose direction, and discovering this short book with a very concise, poetically written sentences, it's, it has a really strong impact. And I like that your advice, the advice that you mentioned that you like is that if you don't feel like writing, if you don't feel like that something is in you that has to come out, you know, that this is what you're writing, don't do it. And it seems that you had that urge to write a book about those two artists. It's like, if you, if you follow Rilke's advice, you know, you had, you had, I assume you had the feeling that you had to write this book. Am I, am I interpreting it correctly? Yeah, I think that's, that's right. I do have that feeling, in general, that I don't know what else I would do if I wasn't a writer. So, and this book was, I really enjoyed writing this book. I don't enjoy writing a lot of things because it's hard. But this book I really enjoyed because you could immerse yourself very much in this, in the, the word, the poetry and the sculpture, and also just the atmosphere of Paris at the turn of the century. And it was like a beautiful place to be for a couple of years. So I didn't, I remember when the idea, I was just talking to my agent about it one day, and like how, you know, this little tidbit about how Rilke was writing Under Secretary, we both kind of lit up. Like, I just, I loved it from the first, you know, I really loved writing this book. What was your process of writing? How do you write? Do you collect? Are you an organizer that plans everything through point one, point two, point three, like the beginning, the middle and the end? Or you're just discovering as you research it? Yeah, I don't really plan. I should probably plan more when I write. I kind of, you know, I think about the whole story. And then I, but I often find that I don't really know what I want to say until I start writing it. So like, that's how I think sort of as I, through writing. So, you know, I just started, I think I tried to start in a way from the beginning. I tried to tell, I thought, okay, I'll go into Rilke's history and try to find out what his little mini biography is. And I'll do the same for Dan, you know, before they met. And then I kind of knew that their meeting and their period together would be the central story, of course, the middle. And then the end would be kind of when they split off again and both become who they would become and kind of separate in a way. So I knew that much. That's about it. But I like to just, I like to just sort of write down things that are interesting to me. And then I slowly start to piece them together as I go. What I found really inspiring when I read your book is the fact that Rodin himself, his life, especially the beginning of his career was full of failure, let's say, you know, like he had a lot of misfortunes when he was starting. I don't know why I find it inspiring, but I assume when someone great failed so many times before he became acknowledged, it kind of gives you hope that, you know, maybe we are in a similar situation in some case. And what was it like for you to discover that, you know, Rodin, who we acknowledge to be great today was actually, how to say, he was struggling himself? Yeah, I feel the same way. I always love to hear that thing that people have been, had been rejected before. And he wasn't really famous until he was in his 40s, Rodin. He was rejected from art school three times. But it really informed his whole method of working, I think, because he became really a laborer or like a toiler. Like he, his philosophy on art making was just that it was work like anything else. And you just went in every day and you put one brick on top of the other or, you know, chiseled one piece of marble and then the next. And then, so I think it's because he had this discipline and this kind of sensibility that he was able to keep working throughout his life, even before he was getting an acknowledgement. You know, he was somehow able to just go in and do the job and then leave. He was so singularly focused that I think it didn't, somehow it didn't get to him. I mean, that the others were rejecting, I'm sure he cared, but it didn't stop him. It didn't crush him. He didn't, he didn't put that much weight into the values of other people. He was really knew what he wanted to do. I guess that's, that's really like inspiring, especially when you see that, um, when I was reading your book, I discovered that he wasn't accepted to, if I'm not mistaken, Grande Ecole, where he wanted to go and he had to go, I think it was called Petite Ecole. Uh, yeah. Uh, and I'm like, okay, the artist is not accepted, but it was a lucky thing for him not to be accepted to this institution. Um, and I really found inspiring that his teacher used to take them to Louvre and ask them not to draw and just pay attention to everything and then draw from memory. I really found that he's so inspiring. I love that. I love that he, because Rodin wanted to be a teacher and he was for a little bit, he wrote a lot about his methods and how he was trained. So it's a great, it's, I love that we're able to have access to some of that because it's, it's really fascinating and that he, and also because he didn't get into the Grande Ecole, he took classes at the zoo as well. And at first he hated it because it's like, you know, the figure was the highest form of achievement in art at the time. And here he was like, you know, drawing animal skulls and bones and, you know, and that didn't seem, but that's actually how he, he really found the sort of driving force. Like through animals, he found, uh, movement and that, that sort of shaped, you know, he always has since then or throughout the rest of his life strove to create a sense of inner movement. And he says that comes from that teacher at the zoo who sculpted, you know, animals himself. So, I mean, it's incredible. And then, and then, you know, he would draw that way. Like you mentioned the Louvre, like he would, then he would learn to draw without looking at his drawings. So he would have a model in front of him and he would never take the eyes off the model and he would just, you know, draw with one hand and never look at it. And then you get these, those beautiful dancer drawings from that. Uh, and it has, I think it's supposed to have more of a, a feeling or a set allows you to pay attention to the subject and, and really immerse yourself in it and not just focus on your drawing at the time. You know, I think it's, it's not, I think it could be an interesting lesson even now as well. Yeah, no, that's, I think like, um, I was talking to a, to a friend and I was telling about this is just the fact that it teaches us a lot to pay attention to rely on memory. You know, like right now we have all those devices in our fingertips and we can, we don't have to remember anything. And this lesson from Rodin teaches us like the art of memory and how important it is. One of the artists that I discovered through your book that I didn't know about, but, um, I found her work very inspiring is Camille Claudel, uh, who was his assistant and became a lover as well. I found her sculptures personally also really wonderful. Always an awe inspiring, you know, um, what was it like for you to discover like this side of Rodin, the Rodin, the, I don't know, should I call him womanizer? Uh, yeah. In fact, that was a bit the case for both of them. Both Rilke and Rodin were a little bit like that, but, um, yeah, I mean, Camille Claudel is really one of the tragic stories in art history, I think, because she was so talented and was really, she wasn't just Rodin's assistant, she was also a student. So, you know, there's a clear power and balance there. And I think, you know, massive, many, several decades age gap between them. Um, and he, Rodin recognized her talent. He was the, he hired her to scope the hands and feet. He felt she was the only other sculptor than himself who had the ability to sculpt hands. And, um, you know, she, she had a career for a while and then she started finding out that Rodin was kind of helping her on in the, in the background, get, get shows and this kind of thing. And it absolutely humiliated her and raged her. And when they split up, he kind of continued to do it. And then she started making work about their, their relationship about him. And it wasn't, wasn't positive, um, because of course he was married and he refused to leave his wife. So she drew, made sculptures of, you know, hag, you know, winged hag, beast woman, dragging like an old man kind of meant to be Rodin and his wife. Um, and then, you know, we, she stopped working fairly young cause she was committed to an asylum. So, you know, we don't even know what, uh, what else she could have done. But of course she has a lot of, uh, respect and, and, um, she's very known now. There's a museum for her and she has her work all over, but yeah, it's kind of, and then, you know, and then, um, I think, I guess I wasn't totally surprised just to see this part of Rodin's life because the time period and, you know, how, how it was, but, um, the best thing I could do is just try to give these female characters like a bit of the story themselves and kind of make them as whole and human as characters as I could, um, because they are often side shows and the lives of their more famous partners. I was really like grateful for you to, of mentioning that story because I went and followed up and looked at what, uh, at her works and I found them really beautiful and skillful and I really wanted to mention it in this podcast. So if our listeners will be interested, you know, because very often geniuses like her as well, I believe are like just hidden under the shadow of someone like Rodin, which is, um, much bigger in, uh, in, in historical circumstance. And I found it a very shocking story that the wife of Rodin pointed gun at her, uh, at some point. I was like, you know, sometimes we imagine those artists as, um, some kind of saints, you know, in terms of like, maybe I'm naive person, you know, like since it's a grand person, you cannot expect that he will have a lover and then like the wife will point the gun at the lover and say, get off my husband and stuff like that. It's like a reality TV show we could have today. Rocco was no better either. He of course kind of abandoned his wife and daughter to, to go pursue his work. So it's always a bit disappointing to read that, but times are different than, and I guess that's how they got all the time to make their great work or something. Thank you. Hello friends. I hope you enjoyed listening to my conversation with Rachel. And before we'll continue with the rest of this episode, I wanted to let you know that I collected all of her favorite poems by Rilke and all of her favorite sculptures by Rodin on my website, which you can find in the description of this episode. I also included all of her articles that she has written for the New Yorker, some of her favorite books and future projects and the way you can follow her on social media. As I said, you can find all of this on my website, which will be linked in the description of this episode. If you would like to receive updates about the future episodes of this podcast, some of my curated lists of books and summaries, you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter, which also will be linked in the description of this episode. Thank you very much for listening, and let's continue with the rest of this episode. I did my bachelor's degree in Prague, and back then I was not familiar with Rilke. And since I discovered him, I had so many regrets of not paying attention where he could have possibly lived in Prague, you know, the places he could have walked. It is a different attachment when you know that someone's poetry that you love lived just here, could have walked here. But then reading your book, I realized that he didn't particularly like living in Prague. I know, that was sad, because my family's background is Czech, so the Czechs always claim him as a Czech poet, and the Germans claim him as a German poet, because he writes in German, and the Austrians claim him. But he, yeah, I think, you know, Prague might have been different then, but he saw it as very provincial. It just wasn't a place he could flourish as an artist. It was, at least in his view, it was, you had to get to Munich, that was the hot spot in the day. So, yeah, he felt, he also did, you know, it was very divided then between the German minority and the Czech-speaking majority, and it was very, you know, class-divided. And he recognizes, and although he was in the more, you know, upper class, he really rejected this division and didn't identify with the German ruling class, and he also, you know, didn't totally identify with the Czechs, because he didn't speak Czech. He lived there and never learned it, even though he spoke many languages throughout the course of his life. For some reason, he never learned Czech. And so he, I think he, yeah, it really bothered him, and also he just didn't have a good early life. His childhood was also pretty hard. He was sent to military school, and his parents, you know, were not great. So he, I think he associated as well his early life with Prague, and so he kind of just rejected all of it. How did he know that he wants to become a poet? Because his father was insistent to different careers that, relatively, that would kill his soul. But how did he discover that I want to become a poet, and that's it? Well, he was, he was writing poetry from an early age. In high school, he was sending little poems he wrote to the newspapers, and they were actually publishing them. But I think it was, I think it was more after he went to, I can't remember. He was really always writing poetry. I don't know if there was a definitive moment that he identified like his aha realization, but I think it was after he left Prague and went to college and was in a community of other artists and writers that he started to take it very seriously, and he was writing, you know, very kind of romantic poetry at this time. It wasn't particularly good, although he was young, so to be expected, but there was a lot of like dragons and fair maidens in the poems, and so I think he just was good at it, and he was getting a lot of feedback. He was getting it published, and so he just continued. But he had a conflicted relationship because he wanted actually to be an artist in some ways. Like he felt that poetry always lacked something that sculpture or something that physically lives in the world has, and he always said he felt unreal that his, how could he make his poems more like a sculpture and make them real in the world, he would say real. And he kind of never could reconcile this conflict in some ways. No, just that, yeah, I just think that that conflict is what he kind of went to Rodin to seek out as well, some kind of reconciliation between how to make poetry more like sculpture. And it was in Munich where he discovered the ideas of Theodor Lipps, and forgot the name of the other scientist who I think accidentally coined the empathy idea of how to relate to art. I thought like that this idea that you mentioned in your book is really kind of relevant to our day of how to look at art and how to cultivate in ourselves the way we can appreciate art. If it is, if you could give to our listeners, what was the idea that was being born at that time? Oh, you mean empathy? Yeah, yes. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's a really interesting story. I think the basically empathy before it became a term to describe how people feel the feelings of other people, it was actually a term to describe why works of art stir emotions within us. That comes from aesthetic philosophy. And in German, they would say Einsam, it was inseeing. So it was about how you could see into an object. No, I'm sorry, inseeing is Rilke's word, but there was Einfühlung, sorry, Einfühlung, inseeing was the word. That was how they said empathy in the early days. And so it was like, it was why do we feel emotions? Why when the dancer dances on stage, do we feel a little bit of a leap in our own heart? You know, kind of something stirs physically within us. And so that's what was, this became a kind of a most popular idea. You know, it came out of, you know, philosophy, but it became something that a lot of artists took and ran with. And I think it really informed Rilke's work because he started, you know, when Rodin told him to go look at the zoo and animals or objects, Rilke would try to do this. He would stare at the thing for a long time and try to, until he could feel what, you know, the essence of the thing. And that connection between, you know, the viewer and the object was what would create a great work of art. It's kind of what he believed and what was kind of the dominant trend among certain artists at that time in that period. The idea was that only it is through the interaction between the viewer and the artwork itself where kind of the truth is being born. And I found it like incredible because when I go to the National Gallery of London, I look at the picture, you know, I can feel that, you know, this painting might stir different emotions in another person, but it is in that middle ground where that happens. And I thought that this idea that influenced Rilke and his poetry was very interesting, gave an interesting insight into it. Yeah, it's the interaction that creates, like, it's almost like a work of art isn't a work of art until there's someone looking at it. It needs that back and forth interaction in order to animate. And Rilke, of course, takes this one step further. He tries to, in the, like in the Archaic Tours of Apollo, when he is at the museum and then the sculpture looks back at him, it's kind of like he plays with this idea of a work of art can change us as well. Like, we don't, we're not really the ones in control. We don't just go and look at a passive object. That object interacts with us as well. I wanted to show you like here, I have, I found it in the second hand bookshop here for our listeners. I'll include some screenshots. This is the manuscript that your work is focusing in on. I think it is, it was in 1950s published here in the UK with a wonderful kind of pictures. Oh, that's so cool. I wish I could find an old copy like that. That's beautiful. It sounds like I can try to look up somewhere here to find a copy for you and I'll send you a link. I was also fascinated by Rilke's persistence in becoming the artist, you know, like being rejected once again and still continuing to be persisting to become an artist. I found it interesting that he met a very interesting thinker, Lou Salome, who constantly appears when I read about Nietzsche. She's like the dominant figure there. Could you please tell about their relationship, about her, because she's such a fascinating character. She influences Nietzsche, some other thinkers, Rilke. They went and saw Tolstoy together. Such an incredible story. I know. You could write a whole book about her easily. I'm sure someone has. She was older than Rilke and she was Russian. It's funny because he met her when he was quite young, I think in his early twenties. He just totally idolized her. She was a writer and he thought she was brilliant. I think she was more of a mentor to him, but at that age he decided he was in love with her. They were together for a while, but she was also with many other people. She was with Nietzsche for a very long time. Although she didn't have sex with it, there's a whole interesting complicated story there. She kind of took Rilke under her wing and tried to advise him about his poetry, tried to help him grow in a more mature style. She also helped him with his sort of identity as an artist. She was almost like an early PR person or something. She said, you can't be... Reiner Rilke was of course born Rene Rilke. So she said, the name Maria Rilke. She said, you can't have this girl's name anymore if you want to be taken seriously. She said, you need a good German strong name. She changed it to Reiner. She told him how to change his handwriting because it was very feminine and big curling letters. She taught him how to change it and make it more masculine as well. She advised him on every level. Throughout their whole, the rest of their lives, they remained in touch. He would send her pieces that he was working on, writings. She would comment and send him feedback. They wrote letters, tons of letters over the years. It's just a treasure trove to look back on. I think it was perhaps the most important mentor in Rilke's life. He often sought the advice of older people and kind of clung to them for a while. It was Tolstoy, but Tolstoy rejected him. There was Blue and then there was Rodin, of course. He was always looking for someone to guide him. There are so many fascinating characters in it to explore. That's why I'm jumping around because there is Tolstoy included, Lou Salomé. All those characters, they deserve a separate book on just one of them. What was it like for... So, Rodin is coming from a perspective and the philosophy of travailler, toujours travailler, work, always work. Rilke is coming from the perspective of this new philosophy of in-seeing, as you mentioned. When they met, when Rilke took the job out of desperation to write a monograph on Rodin, what was their first encounter between those two artists? Yes, so he, like you said, he went to Paris to meet Rodin originally because it was a commission from a publishing house. They were doing a series of monographs on artists and this was just one of them. He wasn't very familiar with Rodin's work, but he spent a summer preparing for the job and he really started to study the sculpture and really fell in love with it. So when he got there, he knew this was going to be interesting on another level for him. And he, in fact, before he even arrived, he wrote a letter to Rodin saying, you know, it is actually not just to work, but I've come to see you. I want to ask you, how should I live? So he had already decided before he even met him that this was going to be a monumental journey of life. And when he, the first day he saw him, he went to go to his studio in Paris to meet and he records everything. He remembers knocking on the door and he opens the door and Rodin is in there. He's got a model on the other side of the room. He's ignoring her and he's just sort of hacking away at this sculpture. And Rilke observes how he's kind of almost violently hitting it and aggressively like throwing aside lumps of clay and spits on the sculpture and then reworks it. And Rodin is polite and pleasant. He doesn't say a whole lot. And he invites Rilke in and he says, you know, look around. And Rilke spends the whole day just sort of mesmerized by the sculptures in the studio. He just tries to, you know, hurriedly write everything down. And he's just totally in ecstasy the way he writes about it. And this is the first encounter. And it was, you know, that was the setup for their dynamic, which is very much like the fawning young pupil and the reserved master who doesn't say as much, but, you know, is happy to have his fawning young pupil. It was so interesting to read about that dynamic about, you know, this between two of them, two separate art forms and kind of influencing each other. What was it for you to write this part of biography of this part of the story? What was like, what surprised you perhaps in their relationship, in your opinion? Like, were there any some accidental discoveries that you were like, I didn't expect that? That's a good question. I think, I don't know what I expected because I kind of, I learned about this whole relationship as I went in a way. But I mean, one thing I remember that stood out to me is, you know, I was always wanting to find out what Rodin thought of Rilke in turn, because we know about Rilke's feelings, he writes them all down, but we really don't know much about Rodin's thoughts because he wasn't a writer and he wasn't writing letters and journals every day about his feelings. So that he was this sort of enigma to me that I wanted to crack. And I guess it was surprising to find, sort of stoic and, you know, serious as he was, it was surprising to find that later in life, he actually was really hurt by Rilke sometimes and really cared about him and was actually much sort of softer and more humble than I would have thought. His character kind of comes out to me after Rilke sort of moves on in life and leaves him. And then Rodin is the one who starts calling Rilke and sending him fruit baskets and trying to get him to come visit and Rilke doesn't really respond. So you learn the depth of that, through that you learn that the depth of their bond was mutual and was very meaningful for Rodin too. And I was kind of happy to see that in a way. What was the hardest part of writing this book? Were there any challenges that really kind of put obstacle on your way? Well, this was one, not having his side of, Rodin's side of the relationship. It was really hard. It was hard to keep it balanced and you had so much material on the poet and then it was hard to, I had to really dig to find little crumbs of insight and details on the relationship from his perspective. So that was difficult. What else? I think, you know, it's hard to try to recreate a period you don't live in. You know, this is my first time trying to do that. And so I remember like checking out books from the library about this period and like, you know, I find like that as they were building all these hospitals, there was a smell of iodine in the air and everyone was complaining about iodine in the air and it was like, okay, so that's like, then like one line I can put into my book like, things smell like that. Or, you know, you go to the zoo and here's what zoos meant at the time. Zoos were kind of, you know, also houses for exotic colonial objects that the colonizers brought back from their various islands and that they were really a spectacle kind of, you know. Zoos were a different thing then, you know. And so I remember having to do all this extra sort of side research about every little detail. You couldn't describe anything in the way you might think it would be today. And to try and create it and make it a very narrative and try to really make a scene, it takes a lot of work. I'm trying to imagine your state of mind writing this book about this age. I wanted to ask you, there are so many questions, but I'm curious if there were like lessons that stayed with you after finishing this book, something that you've learned about artistic journey from the perspective of Rilke and his life, you know, beginning and not knowing what direction to go, encountering this mentor. And while like Rodin had a bit of different thing, he became irrelevant towards the end of his life with the birth of New Art Forms. Were there any lessons that stayed with you after finishing this book? I think that a lot of people think about these figures or artists, great artists, as somehow kind of almost non-human, sort of, you know, like they're touched with some sort of divine gift. And that's, I think, what Rilke thought early in his life when he was writing Letters to a Young Poet. He was like, how do I get that thing, that, you know, that magic touch, whatever it is. And I think that he learned, and I think what you kind of take away from the book is that really all it is, is a lot, a lot of dedication and work. They were both really relentless artists and they, it drove them entirely. Their whole lives were devoted to this. And I think that, you know, it isn't, you don't need to find out how to live as Rilke started out asking. Like there is no certain food to eat or place to live or that's going to give you what it takes. I think people sort of look for that when they, when they want to become creative, they want to read about what, how did this person do it exactly? Where exactly did they go to school? I'll just follow that road map. But I think Rodin and Rilke are good examples of how truly human they were and how they were so successful because of their talent, of course, but also because they just never stopped working. It's not romantic, but that's, I think, how it goes. Do you have, obviously you have, but like, what is your favorite work by both of the artists? Any, if you don't mind me asking, I'm really curious because you've dedicated so much time observing them, reading about them, writing about them. Are there favorites? That's an impossible, I mean, definitely. I love, I love the Panther, of course, with Rilke. And I love, I love the Archaic Tours of Apollo. I mean, I'm biased because that's where my title comes from of the book. And I spent a lot of time with that poem when I was writing it because I felt it was really kind of encapsulating his transition in life at that time. I love some of his unpublished work. He has a collection of, I mean, it's been published now as an uncollected work, but he has some beautiful writings, some sort of his, before his later years when he was writing in French, but sort of mid-career works. Rodin, I love a lot of it. You know, I love that he, I really loved the hands that he would sculpt and then break off and he would, you know, just put the hands everywhere and they kind of became lives of their own. You know, he felt that you could show the entire, an entire narrative or feeling through a single body part. You didn't need a face to convey the emotion for you or the expression for it. You could have it in an inanimate thing, you know, or a piece. You could have it in a torso. You could have it in a knee. I don't know how he sculpted knees, but he could have. So I love the hands. I think actually there's a show that just opened up of Rodin's hands that I need to see. But, and then, oh God, I mean, I love, there's so many, I can't pick one. You know, I'm just, I'm tied to like the evolution of it. So like Man with a Broken Nose is such a big turning point in his, how he started thinking about art. So I love that one in a way, because it's, it's, I see, it captures a moment of his artistic journey and it really changed history in a way, that sculpture. And so I love that one. I don't know, I could go on and on. Is there a question you would ask them if I suddenly could transform and like Rilke became alive, let's say, and you could ask one question to Rilke and in a similar manner to Rodin, what would those, maybe two questions, you know, two separate questions to those artists be? What would you ask Rilke and Rodin? I don't know. I have to think about that. That's a very hard question. There's so much. Was there a thing that when you were writing, you were like, you had on the back of your mind, you were like saying, what do you think here at this stage of your life, Rilke? What, what's your philosophy here, Rodin? You know, I don't know, anything that like was hovering around above you while writing this book? Well, I mean, of course, I would love to ask Rilke about the poems, you know, some of them are so mysterious and strange, you know, I would love like, I would love to know what he was thinking with that last line, you must change your life, for example, it comes out of nowhere in that poem and startling almost when you read it. And, you know, part of the greatness of that poem is you don't know exactly what he was thinking. But of course, I kind of want to know. But I would love to ask him about that. I'm interested in what his, his, his personal life, he took a turn, you know, when he started, when he moved to the, to Switzerland, and he started, he met the mother of the artist Balthus, who was then a child, and he really mentored him and, and kind of finally in life became a mentor instead of a constant student. And I felt like it was kind of, it was a beautiful relationship, but it also was kind of sad because he didn't give it to his own daughter. And I'm kind of curious about whether he was sort of, what Balthus meant to him? Was it, was he like, did he feel like it was a father relationship? Was it trying to make amends for sort of abandoning his daughter? Was it, you know, what did he see in that? And what did he, what was he trying to give back or rectify something in his own life? It was kind of, it was very interesting, their relationship, I thought. Rodin, I mean, I would just like him to say anything because he didn't speak very much. I would love to know what he really thought about Roca. I would love to know what he, I mean, he said the same things a lot of times. He was hard in interviews. He would just say, I work. He gave a lot of two-word answers. So I think getting to open up about anything that was important to him would be illuminating, but I don't know that it would work. He's a very closed off guy. I don't know, I'm not getting a good answer, but it's a hard one. Sorry for such a question, because it is, there are so many questions to ask artists like that. And my last question to you is, are there any recent books that you really enjoyed that you would like our readers to know about, anything that you've enjoyed recently? I always give this follow-up thing because it reveals so much about you, you know, about what kind of things you're reading. Well, it's a bit odd because I'm writing my next book is actually about crime. So it's totally, totally different. So I'm reading a lot of, you know, I read, I just read like a crime thriller, actually, by a can of French. And I'm reading, you know, looking back here, like these things, like the nature of evil and books about it. Totally different audiences. But also, you know, I think for, in terms of this topic, like I always go back to William Gaff. He's maybe, you know, he wrote about Rilke, but of course his essays on everything are brilliant and beautiful. The Temple of Texts, that's the one that comes to my mind that I loved in particular. Thank you. Thank you so much. I would, I had so many questions for you, but we're running out of time. And I'm so grateful. It's such, it is an amazing book. And I said, like, I sound like a fanboy, but I really recommend everyone to read it. Is there any date for your future book on crime, which, yes, it is on a different subject, but, you know, I'm quite sure many people would be interested to find out about it as well. Yeah, I don't have a publication date yet, but I'm trying to finish it by this spring. And then, you know, we'll go through the editing process. So probably at least, you know, a year, two years, something. But I'll let you know, of course. Thank you so much for having me, too. It's really nice to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I would like to thank all of you who support this podcast by listening, by sending donations, by sending emails and messages, telling me about your thoughts, about your book recommendations and potential future guests. It warms my heart so much because a year and a half ago, before I launched this podcast, before this podcast even existed, I couldn't have imagined feedback that I'm getting right now. So thank you all for your support, and I hope you enjoyed this episode with Rachel Corbett. As I said, all of her favorite poems, all of her articles, favorite sculptures by Rodin, you can find it linked in the description of this episode. You can follow and get updates about the future episodes by subscribing to my newsletter, and you can join my community there, because I send emails only from my personal email address, which means you can just click reply button and send me your thoughts and your opinion about what you think about the book or podcast episode. So I hope to meet you there. Once again, thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.
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