/lit/ - Literature

I was wondering if anyone who has read Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laudris Brigge could tell me things/themes to look out for when reading. I have to read this for an assignment in which none of the details have been explained yet, but I'd at least like to have some decent notes. Is there a specific significance of this work to literature? Not asking anything big, just a point in the right direction so that I know where to do further research myself.

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
>A young man named Malte Laurids Brigge lives in a cheap room in Paris while his belongings rot in storage. Every person he sees seems to carry their death within them and with little but a library card to distinguish him from the city's untouchables, he thinks of the deaths, and ghosts, of his aristocratic family, of which he is the sole living descendant.
http://www.mediafire.com/?5rrrc5tmbge9w2b