Mindset Before Reading Rilke's "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" - Book Recommendation -

I want to share the books I love with everyone.
I started introducing books with the sole desire to connect with people through the appeal of these works.
Following the last post, this is Rilke's "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge."
I still have so much more to say.

Review of the previous post

In #1, I talked about how "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" is a book where the inner experiences of a first-class poet are fully expressed through poetic language.
And in the previous #2, I introduced the idea that the motif of the maternity hospital in the first half serves as a metaphor for the entire story. I suggested that one could read it as a story where the reader is reborn.

Happily, I received comments from people who became interested in "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" after reading this article. Thank you.
So, although I think it might be quite meddlesome, please let me talk about the mindset before reading, in the form of "If you read it this way, you can enjoy 'The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge' even more."
I believe that "you should read books however you like and enjoy them in your own way." However, when I gave this book to my father as a gift, he said it was too difficult to read. In fact, I feel that the second part is particularly difficult.
Also, as a working professional, I feel that the more my professional skills grow, the less I will be able to read poetry.
Trying to enjoy things you don't understand while leaving them as they are. Tasting the beautiful scenery that appears suddenly, the rhythm of the prose, and the existential terror in the protagonist's inner experience in a montage-like way. I feel that I might become unable to do such things.
Therefore, for those who are working hard as company employees, I will introduce a mindset for reading "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" to the end.

Tips for reading through

First, I will briefly introduce the content of "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge."
This book is composed of a series of the protagonist Malte's diary entries, memories, and fragments of poetry. In short, it is a diary.
When you read a book like this for the first time, your heart gets filled with "I don't really understand," and you become unable to read it. The reason is that the plot, like in an entertainment novel, is not clearly visible. Even in pure literature, there is usually a plot. For example, the protagonist has a flaw of not being able to fit into society, but still wants to be happy. Such problems and settings are presented in the beginning, and the story is carried to the end. In terms of entertainment, how the protagonist's relationship with society changed and whether the protagonist became happy are resolved at the end. In pure literature, there might not be such a definitive resolution, but the inner state the protagonist reached at the end will still be depicted.
It is difficult to grasp that in "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge." I think it is difficult for anyone but a seasoned reader to understand it in one go. Even I, who say this, only started to understand the scenes after reading it ten or twenty times. Maybe it's just that I'm slow to understand, hehe. But it really took about three years of reading for me to finally feel like I sort of understand it recently. From the one who is loved to the one who loves. I feel that the ascent of that spirit is described like climbing a spiral staircase.
Well, I've talked for a long time, but the mindset for reading "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" for the first time is simply

Do not try to understand

It might be painful to keep reading things you don't understand while they remain unclear. I used the word "might" because I am a person who can stare at incomprehensible things while they remain incomprehensible. I am the kind of person who can go to an art museum and stare at a single painting, for example, a snowy landscape by Monet, for two or three hours. However, since entering society, I have felt that this might be a bit unusual.
If you are not that kind of person, or rather, if you haven't read books that way, why not try a different way of reading than you have until now?
When you enter society, you have to explain things to someone. The purpose and value of your work, current progress, future plans, etc. How to think. Whether you understand or not. If you don't understand, you have to research or ask until you are convinced. You are forced to devote your consciousness to such things in your daily life. Combining the concrete and the abstract to explain clearly... and so on.
Please, at least when you are reading a book, try to be more relaxed.
If you are reading a business book or researching technology, I think you naturally have to try to understand. You have to do that to advance your own work smoothly. However, the book you are trying to read now is not that kind of book. You are trying to savor a book of inner confessions by a first-class metaphysical poet as a kind of entertainment. You don't have to try to understand. Please be more relaxed. To put it strongly, can't you enjoy a painting if you don't understand it? Monet's Water Lilies. If you can't understand the purpose for which this painting was drawn, can't you enjoy this painting? Surely, that's not the case. Just stand in front of this painting and open your heart. Feel it as it is. That should be enough. Because paintings are meant to be looked at and enjoyed. If you want to increase your reading from multiple angles, you can research it later. But enjoying it with your heart is something you can do without any knowledge at all. Therefore, I think you don't have to try to understand this book either. I am saying you don't have to force yourself to interpret that the protagonist's purpose is this, that this is the theme of the book, or that from an existentialist perspective... or from a religious perspective... Just like looking at a painting, just surrender yourself to the words of the novel. That should be enough.
Do not force yourself to understand.
Try reading a few lines quickly before going to sleep at night without being tense.
That alone can make your heart feel lighter.
Isn't that enough?
Even if I'm told that, I feel anxious if I don't understand, and I don't know how to read it. I can't read without a purpose. "The problem of not being able to read hasn't been solved, has it?" "What are you going to do about it?"
I have good news for you. Here is another tip for reading to the end. It is simply

Open your heart to the protagonist

Does that sound like nonsense? I will talk about it in detail.
It is a way of reading where you don't try to understand proactively, but you end up understanding as a result. It is a matter of mindset after all.
You just have to keep opening your heart to Malte.
Try to feel the loneliness that Malte felt yourself. It means reading while being conscious of trying to embody Malte's eyes. Through words, dissolve Malte's feelings and scenery into yourself until the boundary between you and Malte disappears. By continuing that, I think you will end up understanding even if you don't try to.
Through that, an intense reading experience will visit the reader (=you). It might generally be called a religious experience. An experience of language loss. An experience of self-transcendence. Pure experience. There are many ways to say it, but this time I will describe it as the poet's time.
I feel that Rilke was a poet who devoted himself to looking at things. The identity of things and words breaks down, and on top of that, he tries to look at things. He loses the protection of words and faces things that have turned into black, muddy substances with all his might.
Such a poet's time might come to you as well.
I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
But it might be a bad thing for you living in society, but I am convinced that it is definitely a good thing for the you who is doing you, the growth of that pure spirit.
Have a good reading experience.

I will conclude here for this time.
Thank you for staying with me for so long.
I plan to continue talking about "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" one by one in this way next time as well.
For those who read to the end, please be sure to "Like" and "Follow"!