tkb1917's review against another edition
4.0
I’d love to be able to read it in the original French fluently but yeah it’s brilliant
joshhansonhorror's review against another edition
5.0
A pretty decent literal translation with original french on facing pages. Invaluable.
flynxnguyen's review
4.0
All periods of time have ends to them, and these fatal endings we anticipate. A period of time—a day, an hour, a year-and this will end, we say; all this will end, the season will turn, and all will be over. We look in vain for some eternal moment, for happiness, felicity, that state of bliss that will go on for ever and ever. Is not happiness defined only when no term to its extent is imagined? So Rimbaud thought, it seems to me. His seasons are those stretches of time that open unawares and close painfully in our lives. That summer, those two years in the city, this love affair, that month in the country—these are the true, the organic epochs of our lives; the dates that mark their endings are our true anniversaries. Are not these the seasons Rimbaud wrote of: the implacable turning of seasons, and the denial of happiness implicit in their movement? Here then are the records of Rimbaud's Seasons—all his poems, his prose, most of his letters.
dani_the_adventurer's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
tense
slow-paced
3.75
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
Il est impossible de surestimer l'influence des écrits de Rimbaud sur moi, en tant qu'individu, en tant qu'écrivain, en tant que poète et en tant que personne.
epicpinkfluffyunicorn's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
rimbaud so good but this isnt the best translation i feel. also idk some of his gross poems r … gross
nereidodelette's review against another edition
5.0
I read his poetry because of the séminaire at the university, I'm glad that I chose this course because I got to get to known this magnificent poet. His poems feel like several short pieces of the dark epic fantasy novels, which creates some sort of violent, yet resplendent dreams and imagination for me.
jasonrcf's review against another edition
5.0
It took me forever to finally finish this because I found the last section to be too depressing to read through, yet it somehow makes it all the more beautifully mythic, despite the editor at one point candidly letting out— “Could he not simply have disappeared? Or died young?”
Essential reading and one I know I’ll be coming back to in the future, hopefully in French, if I can ever muster the competency for Rimbaud's gloriously dense and weathered verse.
Essential reading and one I know I’ll be coming back to in the future, hopefully in French, if I can ever muster the competency for Rimbaud's gloriously dense and weathered verse.
baumrinr's review against another edition
So many remarkable passages. Here's a couple:
"For I is someone else. If brass wakes up a trumpet, it is not its fault. This is obvious to me: I am present at this birth of my thought: I watch it and listen to it: I draw a stroke of the bow: the symphony makes its stir in the depths, or comes onto the stage in a leap. If old imbeciles had not discovered only the false meaning of the Ego, we would not have to sweep away those millions of skeletons which, for time immemorial! have accumulated the results of their one-eyed intellects by claiming to be the authors!"
"The wolf cried under the leaves
As he spat out the fine feathers
Of his meal of fowl:
Like him I consume myself.
Lettuce and fruit
Wait only to be picked;
But the spider of the hedge
Eats only violets.
Let me sleep! Let me boil
At the altars of Solomon.
Boiling water courses over the rust,
And mixes with the Kidron."
"For I is someone else. If brass wakes up a trumpet, it is not its fault. This is obvious to me: I am present at this birth of my thought: I watch it and listen to it: I draw a stroke of the bow: the symphony makes its stir in the depths, or comes onto the stage in a leap. If old imbeciles had not discovered only the false meaning of the Ego, we would not have to sweep away those millions of skeletons which, for time immemorial! have accumulated the results of their one-eyed intellects by claiming to be the authors!"
"The wolf cried under the leaves
As he spat out the fine feathers
Of his meal of fowl:
Like him I consume myself.
Lettuce and fruit
Wait only to be picked;
But the spider of the hedge
Eats only violets.
Let me sleep! Let me boil
At the altars of Solomon.
Boiling water courses over the rust,
And mixes with the Kidron."