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Title: From Absinthe to Abyssinia: Selected Miscellaneous, Obscure and Previously Untranslated Works of Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud by Arthur Rimbaud, Jean-Nicolas Rimbaud, Mark Spitzer ISBN: 0-88739-293-8 Publisher: Creative Arts Book Company Pub. Date: December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)

Rating: 3
Summary: A Must-Have for the Rimbaud Enthusiast
Comment: (This review was originally written for www.violetcrown.net)

For this fairly random collection, translator Mark Spitzer picked rare items that either particularly interested him or had never been published in English before. It includes poems from Rimbaud's childhood, early drafts of more famous works, parodies of other poets, letters from his sojourn in Africa and even police reports of the incident in which his lover, Paul Verlaine, shot and wounded him.

A major fan of Rimbaud, I enjoyed this book thoroughly. It provided yet another blurry glimpse into the bizarre life and mind of a genius. The childhood poems display Rimbaud's mastery of language at an incredibly early age - he may have written one of these poems as early as ten. Other poems reflect his typically clever wordplay and fondness for parody and obscene humor.

In contrast, the letters from Africa suggest a sudden shift of interest from self-exploration, religion and abstract expression to science, history and trade. The reader sees Rimbaud's surprising transformation from poet to businessman in all its perplexing, paradoxical glory. To a lover of Rimbaud's poetry, or anyone who seeks to write creatively, it's an unsettling thing to behold. While Rimbaud's time in Africa certainly involved a great deal of adventure, it's hard to see it in these dry, unpoetic letters.

Spitzer's insightful endnotes proved indispensable throughout. Without them, the many obscure references and allusions in Rimbaud's poetry and letters would have lost me. In fact, without a previous knowledge of Rimbaud's works and biography, I would have found much of this collection excruciating. It's not meant as a sampling of Rimbaud's finest. He might well cringe if he were alive to see some of these childhood works and rough drafts in print. But for the Rimbaud enthusiast who has exhausted existing translations of the more famous works and yearns to read more, I wholeheartedly recommend ABSINTHE TO ABYSSINIA.