How to place the mysterious Swiss writer Robert Walser, a humble genius who possessed one of the most elusive and surprising sensibilities in modern literature? Walser is many things: a Paul Klee in words, maker of droll, whimsical, tender, and heartbreaking verbal artifacts; an inspiration to such very different writers as Kafka and W.G. Sebald; an amalgam, as Susan Sontag suggests in her preface to this volume, of Stevie Smith and Samuel Beckett.
This collection gathers forty-two of Walser's stories. Encompassing everything from journal entries, notes on literature, and biographical sketches to anecdotes, fables, and visions, it is an ideal introduction to this fascinating writer of whom Hermann Hesse famously declared, "If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place."
Response to a Request
Flower Days
Trousers
Two Strange Stories
Balloon Journey
Kleist in Thum
The Job Application
The Boat
A Little Ramble
Helbling's Story
The Little Berliner
Nervous
The Walk
So! "I've Got You"
Nothing at All
Kienast
Poests
Frau Wilke
The Street
Snowdrops
Winter
The She-Owl
Knocking
Titus
Vladimir
Parisian Newspapers
The Monkey
Dostoevsky's Idiot
Am I Dreaming?
The Little Tree
Stork and Porcupine
A Contribution to the Celebration of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
A Sort of Speech
A Letter to Therese Breitbach
A Village Tale
The Aviator
The Pimp
Masters and Workers
Essay on Freedom
A Biedermeier Story
The Honeymoon
Thoughts on Cezanne
"Robert Walser is a bewitched genius. ... Terse and solid, Walser's prose is touched always with pain and laughter, peppered with irony and question marks, filled with loving lists of mundane objects, punctuated by startling fits of chaos. ... Transfixed by his uncanny way of seeing, we behold, as he puts it, 'a spasm of the soul.'" - NEWSWEEK
"Walser is one of the most remarkable and fully realized stylists in modern literature. He has the rarest of gifts, the ability to get the spirit onto the page at the flick of the pen." - THE NATION
"Walser is most at home in the mode of short fiction: pieces like 'Kleist in Thun' and 'Helbling's Story' show him at his dazzling best." -J. M. COETZEE
