You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin by Rachel Corbett: book review

You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin (2016) is about German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who went to Paris in 1902, at the age of 26, to write a book about the sculptor Auguste Rodin (who sculpted The Thinker and The Kiss).

When they met, young Rilke (1875-1926) was a loner and a poor, unknown poet, whereas Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), in his 60s, was revered, outgoing, and famous. The two polar opposites in status and personalities developed a deep friendship.

Rodin was a master at rendering the human form. At art school, he passed drawing, but failed sculpting, due to his ‘disproportionate, heavy-limbed figures’ (for which he would later become famous). The author details Rodin’s rise to fame – his models, his power of observation, how he highlights flaws in the human body, and his acceptance as an artist.

Rainer Maria Rilke arrived in Paris after the 1900 Paris World Fair during the influx of artists – local and international – Paul Cezanne,Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh, and Amedeo Modigliani. Poor, and eating oatmeal every night, he wrote to Rodin in the hope of documenting the artist’s compulsive devotion to his craft. Corbett also writes of the young aspiring poet, Franz Xaver Kappus, who sought advice and inspiration from Rilke, just as he did from Rodin.

Rilke and Rodin – their friendship, their rupture, the reversal and renewal, their marriages, and then Rilke ‘no longer a sapling cowering beneath the shade of Rodin.’ World War I followed, and both left Paris, but by then Rodin’s ideas about art and creativity had already influenced Rilke’s work.

This is interesting account of two artistic men in Paris over a period of 15 years, and their interconnectedness, personally and professionally. It’s an enjoyable read.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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