structural:reformatting
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

Rilke wrote his only novel, Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (translated as The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge), while living in Paris, completing the work in 1910. The narrative takes the form of a rambling novelette filled with poetic language and contains, among other things, a retelling of the prodigal son tale, a striking description of death by illness, an ode to the joys of roaming free during childhood, a chilling description of how people wear false faces with others, and a snarky comment about the weirdness of neighbors.

This semi-autobiographical novel adopts the style and technique that became associated with Expressionism which entered European fiction and art in the early 20th century. He was inspired by Sigbjørn Obstfelder 's work A Priest's Diary and Jens Peter Jacobsen 's novel Niels Lyhne (1880) which traces the fate of an atheist in a merciless world. Rilke addresses existential themes, profoundly probing the quest for individuality and the significance of death and reflecting on the experience of time as death approaches. He draws considerably on the writings of Nietzsche, whose work he came to know through Lou Andreas-Salomé. His work also incorporates impressionistic techniques that were influenced by Cézanne and Rodin (to whom Rilke was secretary in 1905–1906). He combines these techniques and motifs to conjure images of mankind's anxiety and alienation in the face of an increasingly scientific, industrial and reified world.