Wandering with Robert Walser

Jay Jurisich presents a side-by-side comparison of a Walser microscript page and a work by Swiss artist Adolf Wölfli. Do check it out.

Jay’s mention of Warhol reminds me that I’ve neglected so far to mention Michael André Bernstein’s terrific piece on Walser in the June 11, 2008, issue of The New Republic (not online unfortunately — thanks to Dave for passing along). I think his comments on Walser’s irony are very subtle:

Walser’s writing lets in every possible formulation from the most radically experimental to the most routinized with such casual equanimity that it can no longer be called ironic. But however one labels it, his effects are deeply mocking in a way that is not dependent on the sanction of high culture. It is not Kafka’s clerks but Flaubert’s copyists whom Walser brings to mind. There are times when his descriptions remind one of nothing so much as the rapt idiocy with which Bouvard and Pecuchét labor to make sense of the world by mechanically mastering its multifarious systems.

And here’s the Warhol connection:

The seemingly awestruck tone with which “Tobald (II)” talks about the aristocracy has an excess of legibility akin in effect to Warhol’s silkscreen prints of soup cans, dollar bills, and celebrities. But imagine, for a moment, an artist like Warhol, an eccentric, socially clumsy figure from the provinces who arrives in New York, but after some minor initial success is not taken up by the glamorous and beautiful, or made into a cause celebre by a new generation of critics eager for heroes of their own. Instead he finds himself unable to earn a living, and he retreats back to Pittsburgh, where he lives on, emotionally troubled and critically ignored. He continues to paint for a few more years, his work there undercutting the cherished assumptions of the art world, but what he produces remains largely unseen and has no lasting resonance in the cultural establishment. His programmatic naïveté, unlike Warhol’s, is never interpreted as slyly sophisticated mockery. Something like this happened to Robert Walser. His refusal to adhere to the expectations of German high culture was as thoroughgoing as that of the most radical artists, but unlike many of them Walser also rejected the compensatory sanction of revolutionary ideology. It was this double refusal that deprived him of audience and recognition, and for many decades kept him an idiosyncratic and increasingly unread outsider.

In preparing for the Words Without Borders event that I hosted last month — it’s still live, so go over there and check it out — I read or reread a preposterous amount of stuff written by or about Walser. One line in particular stuck with me, one I hadn’t really noticed before, from a Walser prose piece I wrote about in April.

The question, “What you are doing isn’t art anymore, is it?” sometimes seemed to lay a hand gently on my shoulder …”

So much is contained in this question. On a personal level it’s very affecting, when you consider the decades Walser spent creating art he alone believed in. But it’s also interesting as an expression of the universal tension between, to use Eliot’s phrase, tradition and the individual talent — at least for innovative artists whose vision takes them beyond what even they themselves recognize as “art.”

Sam :: Jul.03.2008 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »

Over at Words Without Borders, four translators who have “Englished” Walser kindly contribute answers to some questions I posed. It’s all of tremendous interest, particularly their answers to my invitation to share their favorite Walser prose piece. Mark Harman mentions a piece called “Green,” which he translated on 1992 for the Georgia Review. I hadn’t ever read that piece, so I traveled last weekend to my local university library to find it.

A few excerpts, starting with the opening:

It’s incomprehensible, mind boggling, terrifying. It’s uncanny, almost overpowering. “What the point,” one asks. It’s almost pointless. It’s deadening, makes one dizzy. It hurts ones eyes, one’s heart, leaves one’s soul distressed and dismayed. Color, color. No other color has as much color, perhaps. None is as dazzling. Green, green. Wherever one looks, green.

***

Blue is decorous and gentle. Fall and winter can be blue, too. But green? Why green? Why, why so terribly, so exquisitely, so splendidly green? It’s on fire. Green: on fire. The world in spring is a blaze of green.

***

Green pilfers our energy; Napoleon feared spring, did he not? He didn’t? Well, maybe that’s just my imagination.

***

Indeed, there’s something insane about green, too; and as for that blossoming, isn’t that also a kind of insanity?

***

Indeed, green is — to be alive, green is to love. It’s often displeasing. It’s charming and at the same time horrifying, and it becomes wilder and more luxuriant with each passing day. Gradually, as summer approaches, it loses its depth. One gets used to it and strolls about under the leafy roof of those rich, whispering trees.

Ok, I’ve probably quoted about 40% of it here, but you’ll have to go find it and read the whole thing. Cheers to Harman for pointing it out to us.

Sam :: Jun.23.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

Last Friday in the Independent (UK), British poet and novelist John Burnside identified Walser’s Selected Stories as one of his “books of a lifetime”:

Walser was one of those individuals who stand at a slight angle to the world: first impressions suggest words like quirky, or surreal. But, if anything, his art was a beautifully sane challenge to the systematic assault on the subjective and quotidian that was already grinding away when he entered the madhouse. In an age that found it possible to diagnose the inner life as a sticky mass of tics and neuroses, Walser became a polite but stubborn champion of an everyday life in which psyche may play a central role, but pathology is not necessarily a given.

Lovely stuff. I am quite overdue for a long exploration of John Burnside’s own work. Not important but personally relevant to me: like Coetzee, he worked for a time as a software engineer. Bio here. Thanks to JT for the tip.

Sam :: Jun.05.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »

A last word on the Walser event from Chad Post:

The Robert Walser event that afternoon though was honestly the best PEN World Voices event I’ve ever been to. It was simple, intelligent, work-based, and populated with the perfect participants and audience. Started with Michel Kruger talking a bit about Walser’s life and work, his influence on Kafka, his micrographs. Then the wonderful Susan Bernofsky talked a little about the Walser translations she’s done, and read from both The Assistant and the forthcoming The Tanners. Deborah Eisenberg then read a few sections from the remarkable Jakob Von Gunten (which would make an awesome Lost book), and was followed by Jeffrey Eugenides brilliant reading of “Trousers.” (Which I wish I could link to via Google Books. . . It’s part of the Selected Stories that NYRB did a few years back, and it worth every penny.) Wayne Kostenbaum also read a few of the really funny short pieces. (I’ve mainly read the novels, but based on this event, it seems to me that Walser really excels in this short form. Sharp, constructively-destructive, incredibly hilarious.)

Great account. As I (thought I) mentioned in the comment thread to Chad’s post, using the “Search Inside the Book” feature on Amazon you can read the full text of Walser’s prose piece, “Trousers,” which is every bit as delightful as Post suggests, right down to its single-word conclusion:

“This is the quintessence and consequence of trousers. Frightful!”

Sam :: May.06.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

Garth Risk Hallberg of The Millions provides more details from the Walser event last night:

Edwin Frank, the editorial director of NYRB Classics, introduced the readers - plus the German novelist Michel Krüger - and then Krüger took over. The author, most recently, of The Executor, Krüger is to German publishing roughly what George Plimpton was to American letters (or would have been, if Plimpton had run Random House in addition to his other activities)…and it was easy to see why. Working entirely without notes, in limpid English, he delivered a rigorous yet accessible introduction to Walser’s life and work.

Then Bernofsky, who has translated Walser’s novels for New Directions, read excerpts from The Assistant and the forthcoming The Tanners. Her delivery was crisp, and I was impressed by the way her translations captured the delicacy (to borrow one of Walser’s favorite terms) of his prose. The second excerpt was a bit long for my taste, but toward the end, it opened out into a radiant vision of the urban everyday, in which I caught a glimpse of a familiar-feeling, yet completely original, sensibility.

Read more here.

Sam :: May.04.2008 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »

I Am Dali kindly reports from the scene of tonight’s Tribute to Robert Walser in New York:

At 4:15 the event started off with the explanation by a Master of Ceremonies that the noticeably empty chair on the stage represented the writers of the world who have no voice, specifically a few dozen writers and journalists who have been railroaded into political prisons in China. Michael KRUGER gave a quick background about Walser and his obscurity relative to Mann, Brecht, and Gottfried Benn who all died around the same time as Walser but whom were memorialized differently, which is to say actually memorialized at all. Specifically he pointed out how each was rememberified as a particular monolithic figure: “Mann, ‘THE’ German writer, even though he never went back to live in Germany; Brecht, the artist as Activist; and Benn […] the pure artist, or something along those lines.” (I’m paraphrasing.) Kruger presided as the unofficial president of the panel because of his careful speaking style combined with his obvious wealth of insider’s information from the German literary sphere. He was given deferential glances when other panelists weren’t confident in their speculations. Susan BERNOFSKY read a few pages from near the start of The Assistant, then read a bunch of pages from her unedited “The Tanners” manuscript. Deborah EISENBERG gave a superb voice to a few passages from Jakob Von Gunten, including the death of the Fraulein. That one really had the crowd of course, not least of all me, I wish I had a handkerchief. As it was I had nothing and couldn’t even blow my personal nose. Jeffrey EUGENIDES read Trousers to the audience, a choice that certainly would have had my stamp of approval if anybody had given me any authority. He gave it a very slow but perfectly cheeky voice, with good comedic timing. Wayne Koestenbaum explained his 6 reasons for loving Robert Walser (all pretty accurate), and then he read “The Job Application” in a sly slippery voice, which may have been his own voice, but which came off perfectly. He also read the The (non?)Robber passage, from Speaking to the Rose, and [Walser’s] Dostoevsky’s Idiot.

I noticed that I say “all pretty accurate” as if I am the supreme allied commander of understanding Walser.

I suddenly can’t remember if Kruger might have read a selection of Walser, too.

The Q&A session:

The influence on Kafka was discussed with the usual citations, and a crowd member pointed out a perceived difference between Kafka’s “nightmarish” visions of society/bureaucracy and Walser’s “more..enchantment” with it. Walser’s striking shifts of tone were commented upon. An audience member asked if the hard-to-pin-down Walserian tone was “for show” or “…nutty”, and decided it was for show. Bernofsky mentioned that there’s several volumes worth of short pieces that aren’t in English yet. I think an American authoress was mentioned by name as someone who arguably does something akin to Walser but I didn’t catch the name. Thomas Bernhardt got mentioned in context of who the [excuses for] successors to Walser are. Emily Dickinson’s fluctuations between minutiae and grand epic themes got mentioned– especially the “Master’s letters.”

I was about to ask if any of the panelists knew of any explicit connection between Walser and Ulrich Braker, who is by a long-shot the only author I know of (except Kafka obviously) who has much of anything in common with Walser stylistically, but the session was over and the museum was closing. That was when I ran away.

Sam :: May.03.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »

Perhaps you missed this little item at the end of the May newsletter from Words Without Borders:

The 2008 Words Without Borders / Reading the World book club series launches this June with Susan Bernofsky’s much-heralded new translation of Robert Walser’s The Assistant. Sam “The Golden Rule” Jones is at the helm for our first installment and participants will include Tom Whalen, Mark Harman and Susan Bernofsky, as well as several other prominent authors, artists, translators and Walser scholars. Save the date—this June is Walser month at the WWB Book Club, and we hope you’ll all join in the discussion! Visit the WWB Book Club…

Gotta say the people at WWB have been fantastic to work with. I’m really looking forward to this event.

Sam :: May.02.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 3 Comments »

Somebody embroidered the doily. Somebody waters the plant, or oils it, maybe. Somebody arranges the rows of cans so that they softly say: ESSO–SO–SO–SO.

And Sara over at NYRB Classics loves us all.

Which is my roundabout way of saying that Sara informed us yesterday about secret discounted tickets to the Walser event in New York tomorrow. Get in for $10 rather than $15. Pick up the secret code here. Enter that code when you purchase tickets here.

Sam :: May.02.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 3 Comments »

From the Winter 2008 Issue of the Sewanee Review, Mark Harman, editor of the wonderful 1985 volume Robert Walser Rediscovered, reviews Speaking to the Rose: Writings 1912-1932:

Walser was a one-man avant garde, and in the late twenties the increasing rejection of his work forced him to articulate the aesthetics underpinning his high jinks. In a revealing piece entitled “My Endeavors” (1928-29), he describes his short pieces as experiments, which, though perhaps “a bit comical to deadly earnest people,” he conducts in the hopes of producing in the language an “unknown livingness, the arousal of which is a joy.” In creating this verbal music he relies on intuitive connections comparable to those that William James, who of course coined the term stream of consciousness, describes in “The World of Pure Experience”: “experience itself, taken at large, can grow by its edges.” Though Walser’s aesthetic is inimitably homespun, it does bring to mind that of English-language practitioners of stream of consciousness, writers such as Virginia Woolf or even Joyce.

I enjoyed seeing this 2005 volume of Walser prose, selected and translated by Christopher Middleton, get some of the attention it deserves. It certainly is mandatory reading for Walser admirers, not least for the wonderful introduction, microscript images, bibliography, footnotes, and other elements that mark this book a labor of great love and respect.

I’ve had this book for three years and intentionally never read it front to back, mostly for the delight of extending my “discovery” of individual items in this trove of previously untranslated works. In the paragraph above, Harman alerted me to “My Endeavors,” which had previously escaped my notice, and particularly to a line that I first saw in Robert Calasso’s essay collection The Forty Nine Steps, from the which the “unknown livingness” phrase is drawn. Here’s the complete sentence from Middleton’s translation:

If I sometimes wrote at a venture, on impulse, it looked a bit comical to deadly earnest people; but I was experimenting with language, hoping that it contains an unknown livingness, the arousal of which is a joy.

I’ve misplaced those pages from Calasso, but I recall that the translation there was something like this:

… I was experimenting with language in the hopes it contained a hidden liveliness which it would be a joy to awaken.

Anyhow, this struck me as the best brief account of Walser’s aesthetic, and the best way too to describe what it’s like to read him.

(Thanks to JT for the tip on this article and to Dave for text, which isn’t available online.)

Sam :: Apr.24.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 4 Comments »

From the February 2008 issue of Choice, a publication of the American Library Association, a review of The Assistant by Michael Kaspar of Amherst College:

It has taken a while, but the reputation of the quirky and reclusive Swiss author Robert Walser (1878-1956) as one of modern literature’s preeminent stylists is finally secure on this side of the Atlantic, as it has been on the other for decades. Of Walser’s four surviving novels, Jakob von Gunten (1909) was translated by Christopher Middleton in 1969; The Robber (unpublished in the author’s lifetime) came out in a translation (also by Bernofsky) in 2000. Now The Assistant (1908, and the second in order of writing) is available in English. The novel tells the story of a clerk (who bears Walser’s mother’s maiden name) and his several months’ employment in the office and household of a sleazy inventor. Walser’s usual stew of irony and extreme modesty is here seasoned with some explicit class-consciousness, which positions him in his time and place more directly than his other novels do. Though the writing may be less radical than in the other novels–and rarely as breathtaking as it regularly is in his short prose, his signature genre–it is still distinctively charming and alarming in equal measure. Bernofsky (Sarah Lawrence College) translates Walser beautifully and provides an informative afterword. Summing Up: Essential. All readers, all levels.

This is perceptive - “charming and alarming” is good - but “sleazy inventor” misses the essence of our flawed friend Tobler. Thanks for Smyth for passing this along.

Sam :: Apr.24.2008 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »