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The subtitle of Edmund White's brief, yet compelling biography of Rimbaud, "The Double Life of a Rebel" represents an accurate summation of the book's contents. It is this fundamental tension between the various facets of Rimbaud's life that has been a perennial source of fascination to successive generations of poets, literary critics and writers. From the model schoolboy in the Ardennes studiously churning out Grade A Latin verses to the filthy, hooligan vagabond who seduced Verla... (show more)

The subtitle of Edmund White's brief, yet compelling biography of Rimbaud, "The Double Life of a Rebel" represents an accurate summation of the book's contents. It is this fundamental tension between the various facets of Rimbaud's life that has been a perennial source of fascination to successive generations of poets, literary critics and writers. From the model schoolboy in the Ardennes studiously churning out Grade A Latin verses to the filthy, hooligan vagabond who seduced Verlaine and shamelessly destroyed his marriage and finally to the moderately prosperous merchant in Africa who succumbed to a painful, early death, the whole gamut of Rimbaud's multiple transformations provides in itself an endless source of wonder, aside from the works of poetic genius that emanated from his pen.

Although White's is intended as no more than a brief overview of Rimbaud's life and work, he manages, nonetheless, to pack in an awful lot of genuine insight and analysis. As one would expect, White being a gay author himself, displays a certain affinity with Rimbaud's sexuality, particularly as it intersected with his ouevre. However, such is White's profound understanding of the myriad contradictions of Rimbaud's life, that he sensibly declines the opportunity to turn Rimbaud into some sort of martyr to gay liberation avant la lettre. Such a blinkered approach has become all too common in the field of literary theory, obsessed as it is with the tiresome intellectual cul-de-sac of identity politics.

Nor, thankfully, does White succumb to the temptation to wallow in the filthy minutiae of Rimbaud's absinthe-sodden existence on the streets of Paris and London. To be sure, all of the juicy and salacious components of the Rimbaud legend are set before the eyes of the reader as one would expect, but crucially without the prurient lip-smacking or Pooterish finger-wagging that disfigured Enid Starkie's own account of Rimbaud's bohemian excesses. In contrast, White commendably acquaints the reader with the facts and allows him to make up his own mind.

For subsequent worshippers of the cult of the wayward hooligan genius, it must come as something of a disappointment to discover that the object of their veneration had resolved, upon abandoning his art for ever, to settle down to a life of bourgeois respectability as a merchant in Africa. Yet it is this period in Rimbaud's life which is arguably of equal importance as his erstwhile dissipation, and is rightly given copious treatment by White. At the same time, however, the essential restlessness and profound sense of irritation and ennui that blighted Rimbaud's later years was a constant feature of his whole life. So although Rimbaud may have left behind the world of belles lettres at the age of nineteen, the aloof, disinterested perspective of the lone artist never truly left him. And it is that, more than anything else, that keeps the flame of Rimbaud's tortured genius alive: the fact that he had the audacity to construct his own life as a work of art in itself, far greater still than the delirious heights of prosodic greatness that he achieved.

This is a truly excellent, all-round introduction to this most fascinating of artists. It should, however, be read as a prelude to the more extensive, in-depth treatment provided by Graham Robb in his ground-breaking, full-scale biography of Rimbaud. (show less)

The author of this memoir used to be an English professor, but she chucked all that to become a nurse. The memoir is about her first year as a nurse on a medical oncology ward. The book is well-written, but ultimately there's just nothing special about it. It's essentially a series of stories about caring for patients with cancer - there's value in that, but it doesn't really stand out for any reason.

I would have liked the author to be more self-reflective. It's a big change from Prof... (show more)

The author of this memoir used to be an English professor, but she chucked all that to become a nurse. The memoir is about her first year as a nurse on a medical oncology ward. The book is well-written, but ultimately there's just nothing special about it. It's essentially a series of stories about caring for patients with cancer - there's value in that, but it doesn't really stand out for any reason.

I would have liked the author to be more self-reflective. It's a big change from Professor to first year nurse - tell me about that. Tell me how the books you've read and studied contribute to your understanding of our job as a nurse. She just never manages to really do that. Instead she tells stories of patients and spends a large chunk of the book talking about her challenges with some supervisors at her work - a section of the book that actually made me squirm because it felt so inappropriate. I would have been moderately alright with her slagging her co-workers (it's something we all do) had she been able to analyze her own part in the conflict, but instead it's heroic Theresa against the evil nursing supervisors who eat their young and it makes her very unsympathetic. Add to that the typical nurse's awe of doctors/attendings which is presented as a completely rational set of behaviors without any context to explain them and chunks of this just weren't worth reading.

In the end, it's obvious Ms. Brown cares about her patients, I just wish she wrote about them better. What could have been a really good book ended up being just okay.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me an advance reading copy of this book. (show less)