Name: Stories of God
ISBN: 9781590300381

Rainer Maria Rilke

One of the author's best-loved prose works.

Stories of God

Inês Alegria Ferreira

Another Rainer Maria Rilke to had to my collection! I'm still in awe of the fact that this book literally cost me one euro. Previously I had only read the book "Letters to a Young Poet" which still to this day is one of my favorites. What I really wanted to read next was one of his poetry books. Well, as you can see, I didn't accomplish that. Nevertheless, I was just as excited to read something from Rilke that wasn't letters.

I'm not sure I was able to comprehend everything that this book carried, mostly it is made of a few short stories that somehow are all interconnected. Plus each story has a story inside itself, since the main character that appears in all the chapters is the one providing and telling the stories to different individuals that he encounters. All of the storytelling has a main them in common, which is the good God as Rilke describes him. I would say my favorite was definitely the last one!

*emmie*

"'What has made you so kind?'
'Everything,' she said softly and warmly."
(A Story Told to the Dark)

"The gravedigger still smiled. 'It is a way of earning one's bread–and besides, I ask you, aren't most people doing the same? They bury God up there as I bury men here.' He pointed to the sky... 'Yes, that too is a great grave, in summer it is covered with wild forget-me-nots..." (A Tale of Death) 

"Healthy people are so changeable...[the sick's] immobility makes him resemble things, with which indeed he fosters many intimacies; makes him, so to speak, a thing far superior to other things, a thing that listens not only with its silence but also with its rare, quiet words and with its gentle, reverent feelings." (How Old Timofei Died Singing)