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Title: Selected Stories (New York Review Books Classics) by Robert Walser, Susan Sontag, Christopher Middleton ISBN: 0-940322-98-6 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: 12 March, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Unplug the Phone
Comment: Unplug the phone, cancel all your appointments, put the cat out -- okay, you can keep the cat. But Robert Walser's wonderful "Selected Stories" must be read in an atmosphere of silence, with complete attention. You owe it to yourself to have a chance to appreciate this utterly distinctive voice. Others have called him a "comic Kafka," and others have complained that he is not a "comic Kafka," so perhaps we can stipulate that he is "the writer who is not a comic Kafka." He is, indeed a good deal more hospitable and accessible than Kafka, but he is not always comic in "A Little Ramble," (which might be my favorite of these collected short items), he can stop you in your tracks. I haven't read Walser's novel, "Jakob von Gunten," yet (though I certainly plan to) but I wonder if Walser's peculiar talents aren't particularly suited to a form that is ephemeral, almost furtive.
Read "The She Owl," which has a gentle charm. Read "Parisian Newspapers," which has an edge. Oh, read them all, listening to catch Walser's extraordinary voice. And aboave all, read "A Little Ramble," which might be the best onc-page story in the language.
Rating: 5
Summary: Genius Worth Rediscovering
Comment: Although his novel "Jakob von Gunten" is a masterpiece, the maniacal genius of Walser is more easily discovered in his short fiction. If Kafka's vision is maddening and claustrophobic, Walser, who deals with a similar kind of surrealistic world, applies a lighter, more deftly playful touch. Sometimes, the puns and literary license Walser take can be willful and test a reader's patience, but the sheer force of his philosophy and world view contained in these miniaturist stories are awe-inspiring, and are on par with the delirious vision of Kafka. Walser is a kind of a writer who can turn from anger to unbearable tenderness within a sentence. Many of these stories will move you and frustrate you at the same time, but all the risks he takes are still, and I suspect always will be, thrillingly modern and relevant. I only wish his excellent reworkings of fairy tales (I'm thinking especially of 'Snow White') could have been included in this volume. Walser has been neglected for far too long, and the longer his work languishes in obscurity, the world is that much more at a loss.
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Title: Jakob Von Gunten by Robert Walser, Christopher Middleton ISBN: 0940322218 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Robber by Robert Walser, Susan Bernofsky ISBN: 0803298099 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Masquerade and Other Stories by Robert Walser ISBN: 0801839777 Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1990 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz ISBN: 0140186255 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Bestial Noise: The Tin House Fiction Reader by Rob Spillman ISBN: 1582343349 Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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