What is Stephen Harper Reading?

Dedication

To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
These lessons from a wise and generous writer,
From a Canadian writer,
With best wishes,
Yann Martel

Letter:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A2

Dear Mr. Harper,

Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, the sixteenth book I am sending you, is a rich lode. These ten letters, written between 1903 and 1908 by the great German poet to a young man by the name of Franz Xaver Kappus, might be considered a precursor of creative writing instruction. They are useful to all of us who aspire to write. They have helped me, and I have no doubt that they will help you in the writing of your book on hockey.

For example, in the very first letter, Rilke asks the young poet to ask himself the vital question: “Must I write?” If there is not that unstoppable inner necessity, then one should not even attempt to write, suggests Rilke. He also makes much of the need for solitude, for that quiet sifting of impressions from which comes good, true writing and which can occur only when one is on one’s own.

However, if Rilke’s letters were no more than technical advice on artful writing, I don’t think I would have sent them to you. Of what interest is a trade manual to someone who practices another trade? But these letters are much more than that, because what holds for art also holds for life. What illuminates the first illuminates the second. So, self-knowledge—must I write?—is useful not only in writing but in living. And solitude bears fruit not only for the one who aspires to write poetry but for anyone who aspires to anything. Whereas, to take a counter-example, I think it’s rare that advice to do with commerce has much use beyond commerce. Our deepest way of examining life, of getting to our existential core, is through the artistic. At its best, such an examination has nearly a religious feel.

Take this passage towards the end of Letter Four, in which Rilke advises the Young Poet to wrap himself in solitude:

“Therefore, dear sir, love your solitude and bear with sweet-sounding lamentation the suffering it causes you. For those who are near you are far, you say, and that shows it is beginning to grow wide about you. And when what is near you is far, then your distance is already among the stars and very large; rejoice in your growth, in which you naturally can take no one with you, and be kind to those who remain behind, and be sure and calm before them and do not torment them with your doubts and do not frighten them with your confidence or joy, which they could not understand. Seek yourself some sort of simple and loyal community with them, which need not necessarily change as you yourself become different and again different; love in them life in an unfamiliar form and be considerate of aging people, who fear that being-alone in which you trust. Avoid contributing material to the drama that is always stretched taut between parents and children; it uses up much of the children’s energy and consumes the love of their elders, which is effective and warming even if it does not comprehend. Ask no advice from them and count upon no understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance and trust that in this love there is a strength and a blessing….”

Doesn’t this sound like a passage that Paul the Apostle might have written in one of his letters to the Corinthians?

Rilke’s letters overflow with understanding, generosity and wise advice. They shine with loving kindness. Not surprising then that Franz Xaver Kappus wished so ardently to pass them on to posterity.

Yours truly,

Yann Martel

encl: one inscribed paperback book

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