John Maxwell Coetzee: The Genius of Robert Walser The New York Review of Books 2 !!

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On Christmas Day, 1956, the police of the town of Herisau in eastern Switzerland were called out: children had stum led upon the ody of a man, frozen to death, in a snowy field! "rri#in$ at the scene, the police too% photo$raphs and had the ody remo#ed! &he dead man was easily identified: 'o ert (alser, a$ed se#enty)ei$ht, missin$ from a local mental hospital! *n his earlier years (alser had won somethin$ of a reputation, in Switzerland and e#en in +ermany, as a writer! Some of his oo%s were still in print, there had e#en een a io$raphy of him pu lished! Durin$ a -uarter of a century in mental institutions, howe#er, his own writin$ had dried up! .on$ country wal%s/li%e the one on which he had died/had een his main recreation! &he police photo$raphs showed an old man in o#ercoat and oots lyin$ sprawled in the snow, his eyes open, his 0aw slac%! &hese photo$raphs ha#e een widely 1and shamelessly2 reproduced in the critical literature on (alser that has ur$eoned since the 1963s!1 (alser4s so)called madness, his lonely death, and the posthumously disco#ered cache of his secret writin$s were the pillars on which a le$end of (alser as a scandalously ne$lected $enius was erected! 5#en the sudden interest in (alser ecame part of the scandal! 6* as% myself,7 wrote the no#elist 5lias Canetti in 1989, 6whether, amon$ those who uild their leisurely, secure, dead re$ular academic life on that of a writer who had li#ed in misery and despair, there is one who is ashamed of himself!7 'o ert (alser was orn in 1:8: in the canton of ;ern, the se#enth of ei$ht children! His father, trained as a oo% inder, ran a store sellin$ stationery and notions! "t the a$e of fourteen 'o ert was ta%en out of school and apprenticed to a an%, where he performed his clerical functions in e<emplary fashion! ;ut, possessed y dreams of ecomin$ an actor, he ran off to Stutt$art! His one and only audition pro#ed a humiliatin$ failure: he was dismissed as wooden and e<pressionless! " andonin$ the sta$e, (alser decided to ecome/7+od willin$7/a poet! Driftin$ from 0o to 0o , he wrote poems, prose s%etches, and little #erse plays 16dramolets72, not without success! Soon he had een ta%en up y *nsel =erla$, pu lisher of 'il%e and Hofmannsthal, who put out his first oo%!
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*n 1935, intent on ad#ancin$ his career, he followed his elder rother, a successful oo% illustrator and sta$e desi$ner, to ;erlin! &here he enrolled in a trainin$ school for ser#ants and wor%ed riefly as a utler in a country house 1he wore li#ery and answered to the name 6>onsieur 'o ert72! ;efore lon$, howe#er, he found he could support himself on the proceeds of his writin$! He contri uted to presti$ious literary ma$azines, was accepted in serious artistic circles! ;ut he was ne#er at ease in the role of metropolitan intellectual, after a few drin%s he tended to ecome rude and a$$ressi#ely pro#incial! +radually he retreated from society to a solitary, fru$al life in edsitters! *n these surroundin$s he wrote four no#els, of which three ha#e sur#i#ed: The Tanner Children 119362, The Factotum 1193:2, and Jakob von Gunten 119392! "ll draw for their material on his own life e<perience, ut in the case of Jakob von Gunten/the est %nown of these early no#els, and deser#edly so/that e<perience is wondrously transmuted! 6One learns #ery little here,7 o ser#es youn$ ?a%o #on +unten after his first day at the ;en0amenta *nstitute, where he has enrolled himself as a student! &he teachers lie around li%e dead men! &here is only one te<t oo%, What is the Aim of Benjamentas Boys School , and only one lesson, 6How Should a ;oy ;eha#e@7 "ll the teachin$ is done y ArBulein .isa ;en0amenta, sister of the principal! Herr ;en0amenta himself sits in his office and counts his money, li%e an o$re in a fairy tale! *n fact, the school is a it of a swindle! Ce#ertheless, ha#in$ run away to the i$ city 1unnamed, ut clearly ;erlin2 from what he calls 6a #ery, #ery small metropolis,7 ?a%o has no intention of $i#in$ up! He does not mind wearin$ the ;en0amenta uniform, he $ets on with his fellow students, and esides, ridin$ the ele#ators downtown $i#es him a thrill, ma%es him feel thorou$hly a child of his times! Jakob von Gunten purports to e the diary ?a%o %eeps durin$ his stay at the *nstitute! *t consists mainly of his reflections on the education he recei#es there/an education in humility/and on the stran$e rother and sister who offer it! &he humility tau$ht y the ;en0amentas is not of the reli$ious #ariety! &heir $raduates aspire to e ser#in$ men or utlers, not saints! ;ut ?a%o is a special case, a pupil for whom the lessons in humility ha#e a deep personal resonance! 6How fortunate * am,7 he writes, 6not to e a le to see in myself anythin$ worth respectin$ and watchin$D &o e small and to stay small!7 &he ;en0amentas are a mysterious and, at first si$ht, for iddin$ pair! ?a%o sets himself the tas% of penetratin$ their mystery! He treats them not with respect ut with the chee%y self)assurance of a child who is used to ha#in$ any mischief on his part e<cused as cute, mi<in$ effrontery with patently insincere self)a asement, $i$$lin$ at his own insincerity, confident that candor will disarm all criticism, ut not really carin$ if it does not! &he word he would li%e to apply to himself, that he would li%e the world to apply to him, is im!ish! "n imp is a mischie#ous sprite, an imp is also a lesser de#il!

Soon ?a%o has e$un to $ain ascendancy o#er the ;en0amentas! ArBulein ;en0amenta hints that she is fond of him, he pretends not to understand! She re#eals that what she feels is perhaps more than fondness, is perhaps lo#e, ?a%o replies with a lon$, e#asi#e speech full of respectful sentiments! &hwarted, ArBulein ;en0amenta pines away and dies! Herr ;en0amenta, initially hostile to ?a%o , is maneu#ered to the point of pleadin$ with the oy to e his friend, to a andon his plans and come wanderin$ the world with him! Frimly, ?a%o refuses: 6;ut how shall * eat, Frincipal@G *t4s your duty to find me a decent 0o ! "ll * want is a 0o !7 Het on the last pa$e of his diary he announces he is chan$in$ his mind: he will throw away his pen and $o off into the wilderness with Herr ;en0amenta 1to which one can only respond: +od sa#e Herr ;en0amentaD2! "s a literary character, ?a%o #on +unten is without precedent! *n the pleasure he ta%es in pic%in$ away at himself he has somethin$ of Dostoe#s%y4s Inder$round >an and, ehind him, of the ?ean)?ac-ues 'ousseau of the Confessions! ;ut/as (alser4s first Arench translator, >arthe 'o ert, pointed out/there is in ?a%o , too, somethin$ of the hero of the traditional +erman fol% tale, of the lad who ra#es the castle of the $iant and triumphs a$ainst all odds! Aranz Jaf%a, early in his career, admired (alser4s wor% 1>a< ;rod records with what deli$ht Jaf%a would read (alser4s humorous s%etches aloud2! ;arna as and ?eremias, Sur#eyor J!4s demonically o structi#e 6assistants7 in The Castle, ha#e ?a%o as their prototype! *n Jaf%a one also catches echoes of (alser4s prose, with its lucid syntactic layout, its casual 0u<tapositions of the ele#ated with the anal, and its eerily con#incin$ lo$ic of parado<! Here is ?a%o in reflecti#e mood: (e wear uniforms! Cow, the wearin$ of uniforms simultaneously humiliates and e<alts us! (e loo% li%e unfree people, and that is possi ly a dis$race, ut we also loo% nice in our uniforms, and that sets us apart from the deep dis$race of those people who wal% around in their #ery own clothes ut in torn and dirty ones! &o me, for instance, wearin$ a uniform is #ery pleasant ecause * ne#er did %now, efore, what clothes to put on! ;ut in this, too, * am a mystery to myself for the time ein$! (hat is the mystery of ?a%o @ (alter ;en0amin wrote a piece on (alser that is all the more stri%in$ for ein$ ased on a #ery incomplete ac-uaintance with his writin$s! (alser4s people, su$$ested ;en0amin, are li%e fairy)tale characters once the tale has come to an end, characters who now ha#e to li#e in the real world! &here is somethin$ 6laceratin$ly, inhumanly, and unfailin$ly superficial7 a out them, as if, ha#in$ een rescued from madness 1or from a spell2, they must tread carefully for fear of fallin$ ac% into it! ?a%o is such an odd ein$, and the air he reathes in the ;en0amenta *nstitute is so rare, so near to the alle$orical, that it is hard to thin% of him as representati#e of any element of society! Het in ?a%o 4s cynicism a out ci#ilization and a out #alues in $eneral, his contempt for the life of the mind, his simplistic eliefs a out how the
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world really wor%s 1it is run y i$ usiness to e<ploit the little man2, his ele#ation of o edience to the hi$hest of #irtues, his readiness to ide his time, awaitin$ the call of destiny, his claim to e descended from no le, warli%e ancestors 1when the etymolo$y he himself hints at for #on +unten/von unten, 6from elow7/su$$ests otherwise2, as well as his pleasure in the all)male am ience of the oardin$ school and his deli$ht in malicious pran%s/all of these features, ta%en to$ether, point prophetically toward the petit) our$eois type that, in times of $reater social confusion, would find Hitler4s ;rownshirts so attracti#e! (alser was not an o#ertly political writer! Ce#ertheless, his emotional in#ol#ement with the class from which he came, the class of shop%eepers and cler%s and schoolteachers, ran deep! ;erlin offered him a clear chance to escape his social ori$ins, to defect, as his rother had done, to the d"class" cosmopolitan intelli$entsia! He refused that offer, choosin$ instead to return to the em race of pro#incial Switzerland! Het he ne#er lost si$ht of/indeed, was not allowed to lose si$ht of/the illi eral, conformist tendencies of his class, its intolerance of people li%e himself, dreamers and #a$a onds! *n 1919 (alser left ;erlin and returned to Switzerland 6a ridiculed and unsuccessful author7 1his own self)dispara$in$ words2! He too% a room in a temperance hotel in the industrial town of ;iel, near his sister, and for the ne<t se#en years earned a precarious li#in$ contri utin$ feuilletons/literary s%etches/to newspapers! Aor the rest he went on lon$ country hi%es and ser#ed out his o li$ations in the Cational +uard! *n the collections of his poetry and short prose that continued to appear, he turned more and more to the Swiss social and natural landscape! He wrote two more no#els! &he manuscript of the first, Theodor, was lost y his pu lishers, the second, Tobold, was destroyed y (alser himself! "fter the (orld (ar, the taste amon$ the pu lic for the %ind of writin$ (alser had relied on for an income, writin$ easily dismissed as whimsical and elletristic, e$an to wane! He had lost touch with currents in wider +erman society, as for Switzerland, the readin$ pu lic there was too small to support a corps of writers! &hou$h he prided himself on his fru$ality, he had to close down what he called his 6little prose)piece wor%shop!7 He e$an to feel more and more oppressed y the censorious $aze of his nei$h ors, y the demand for respecta ility! He mo#ed to ;ern, to a position in the national archi#es, ut within months had een dismissed for insu ordination! He mo#ed from lod$in$s to lod$in$s, dran% hea#ily! He suffered from insomnia, heard ima$inary #oices, had ni$htmares and an<iety attac%s! He attempted suicide, failin$ ecause, as he disarmin$ly admitted, 6* couldn4t e#en ma%e a proper noose!7 *t was clear that he could no lon$er li#e alone! His family was, in the terminolo$y of the times, tainted: his mother had een a chronic depressi#e, one rother had committed suicide, another had died in a mental hospital! *t was su$$ested that his sister should ta%e him in, ut she was unwillin$! So he allowed himself to e committed to the sanatorium in (aldau! 6>ar%edly depressed and se#erely
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inhi ited,7 ran the initial medical report! 6'esponded e#asi#ely to -uestions a out ein$ sic% of life!7 *n later e#aluations (alser4s doctors would disa$ree a out what, if anythin$, was wron$ with him, and would e#en ur$e him to try li#in$ outside a$ain! Howe#er, the edroc% of institutional routine would appear to ha#e ecome indispensa le to him, and he chose to stay! *n 1999 his family had him transferred to the asylum in Herisau, where he was entitled to welfare support! &here he occupied his time with chores li%e $luin$ paper a$s and sortin$ eans! He remained in full possession of his faculties, he continued to read newspapers and popular ma$azines, ut, after 199E, he did not write! 6*4m not here to write, *4m here to e mad,7 he told a #isitor! ;esides, he said, the time for litterateurs was o#er! 1'ecently one of the Herisau staff claimed to ha#e seen (alser at wor% writin$! 5#en if this is true, no trace of such post)199E writin$ has sur#i#ed!2 ;ein$ a writer was difficult for (alser at the most elementary of le#els! He did not use a typewriter, ut wrote a clear, well)formed hand, on which he prided himself! &he manuscripts that ha#e sur#i#ed/fair copies/are models of calli$raphy! Handwritin$ was, howe#er, one of the sites where psychic distur ance first manifested itself! "t some time in his thirties 1(alser is #a$ue a out the date2 he e$an to suffer psychosomatic cramps of the ri$ht hand that he attri uted to unconscious animosity toward the pen as a tool! He was a le to o#ercome them only y a andonin$ the pen and switchin$ to a pencil! Ise of a pencil was important enou$h for (alser to call it his 6pencil system7 or 6pencil method!7 (hat he does not mention is that when he mo#ed to pencil)writin$ he radically chan$ed his script! "t his death he left ehind some fi#e hundred sheets of paper co#ered in a microscopic pencil script so difficult to read that his e<ecutor at first too% them to e a diary in secret code! *n fact (alser had %ept no diary! Cor is the script a code: it is simply handwritin$ with so many idiosyncratic a re#iations that, e#en for editors familiar with it, unam i$uous decipherment is not always possi le! *t is in these pencil drafts alone that (alser4s numerous late wor%s, includin$ his last no#el, The #obber 1twenty)four sheets of microscript, 1K1 pa$es in print2, ha#e come down to us! >ore interestin$ than the script itself is the -uestion of what the 6pencil method7 made possi le to (alser as a writer that the pen could no lon$er pro#ide 1he still used a pen for fair copies, as well as for correspondence2! &he answer seems to e that, li%e an artist with a stic% of charcoal etween his fin$ers, (alser needed to $et a steady, rhythmic hand mo#ement $oin$ efore he could slip into a frame of mind in which re#erie, composition, and the flow of the writin$ tool ecame much the same thin$! *n a piece entitled 6Fencil S%etch7 datin$ from 19E6)19E8, he mentions the 6uni-ue liss7 that the pencil method allowed him! 6*t calms me down and cheers me up,7 he said elsewhere! (alser4s te<ts are dri#en neither y lo$ic nor y narrati#e ut y moods, fancies, and associations: in temperament he is less a thin%er or storyteller than an essayist! &he pencil and the self)in#ented steno$raphic script allowed the
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purposeful, uninterrupted, yet dreamy hand mo#ement that had ecome indispensa le to his creati#e mood! &he lon$est of (alser4s late wor%s is The #obber, written in 19E5)19E6 ut deciphered and pu lished only in 198E! &he story is li$ht to the point of ein$ insu stantial! *t concerns the sentimental entan$lements of a middle)a$ed man %nown simply as the 'o er, a man who has no 0o ut mana$es to e<ist on the frin$es of polite society in ;erne on the asis of a modest le$acy! "mon$ the women the 'o er diffidently pursues is a waitress named 5dith, amon$ the women who somewhat less diffidently pursue him are assorted landladies who want him either for their dau$hters or for themsel#es! &he action culminates in a scene in which the 'o er ascends the pulpit and, efore a lar$e assem la$e, repro#es 5dith for preferrin$ a mediocre ri#al to him! *ncensed, 5dith fires a re#ol#er, woundin$ him sli$htly! &here is a flurry of $leeful $ossip! (hen the dust clears, the 'o er is colla oratin$ with a professional writer to tell his side of the story! (hy 6the 'o er7 1der #$uber2 as a name for this timid $allant@ &he word hints, of course, at (alser4s first name! &he co#er of the Ini#ersity of Ce ras%a Fress translation $i#es a further clue! *t reproduces a watercolor y Jarl (alser of his rother 'o ert, a$ed fifteen, dressed up as his fa#orite hero, Jarl >oor in Schiller4s drama The #obbers! &he ro er of (alser4s tale of modern times is, alas, no hero! " pilferer and pla$iarist rather than a ri$and, he steals at most the affections of $irls and the formulas of popular fiction! ;ehind 'o erL'o ert 1whom * will henceforth call '2 lur%s a shadowy fi$ure, the nominal author of the oo%, y whom ' is treated now as a protM$M, now as a ri#al, now as a mere puppet to e shifted around from situation to situation! He is critical of ' 1for handlin$ his finances adly, for han$in$ around wor%in$)class $irls, and $enerally for ein$ a Ta%edieb, a day)thief or idler, rather than a $ood Swiss ur$her2, e#en thou$h, he confesses, he has to %eep his wits a out him lest he confuse himself with '! *n character he is much li%e ', moc%in$ himself e#en as he plays out his social routines! 5#ery now and a$ain he has a flutter of an<iety a out the oo% he is writin$ efore our eyes/a out its slow pro$ress, the tri#iality of its content, the #acuity of his hero! Aundamentally The #obber is 6a out7 nothin$ more than the ad#enture of its own writin$! *ts charm lies in its surprisin$ twists and turns of direction, its delicately ironic handlin$ of the formulas of amatory play, and its supple and in#enti#e e<ploitation of the resources of +erman! *ts author fi$ure, flustered y the multiplicity of narrati#e strands he suddenly has to mana$e now that the pencil in his hand is mo#in$, is reminiscent a o#e all of .aurence Sterne, the $entler, later Sterne, without the leerin$ and the dou le entendres! &he distancin$ effect allowed y an authorial self split off from an ' self, and y a style in which sentiment is co#ered in a li$ht #eil of parody, allows (alser to write
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mo#in$ly, now and a$ain, a out his own 1that is, '4s2 defenselessness on the mar$ins of Swiss society: He was alwaysGlone as a little lost lam ! Feople persecuted him to help him learn how to li#e! He $a#e such a #ulnera le impression! He resem led the leaf that a little oy stri%es down from its ranch with a stic%, ecause its sin$ularity ma%es it conspicuous! *n other words, he in#ited persecution! "s (alser remar%ed, with e-ual irony ut in !ro!ria !ersona, in a letter from the same period: 6"t times * feel eaten up, that is to say half or wholly consumed, y the lo#e, concern, and interest of my so e<cellent countrymen!7 The #obber was not prepared for pu lication! *n fact, in none of his many con#ersations with his friend and enefactor durin$ his asylum years, Carl Seeli$, did (alser so much as mention its e<istence! *t draws on episodes from his life, arely dis$uised, yet one should e cautious a out ta%in$ it as auto io$raphical! ' em odies only one side of (alser! &hou$h there are references to persecutin$ #oices, and thou$h ' suffers from delusions of reference 1he suspects hidden meanin$, for e<ample, in the way that men low their noses in his presence2, (alser4s own more melancholic, self)destructi#e side is %ept firmly out of the picture! *n a ma0or episode ' #isits a doctor and with $reat candor descri es his se<ual pro lems! He has ne#er felt the ur$e to spend ni$hts with women, he says, yet has 6-uite horrifyin$ stoc%piles of amorous potential,7 so much so that 6e#ery time * $o out on the street, * immediately start fallin$ in lo#e!7 &he only strata$em that rin$s him happiness is to thin% up stories a out himself and his erotic o 0ect in which he is 6the su ordinate, o edient, sacrificin$, scrutinized, and chaperoned NoneO!7 Sometimes, in fact, he feels he is really a $irl! Het at the same time there is also a oy inside him, a nau$hty oy! &he doctor4s response is eminently sa$e! Hou seem to %now yourself #ery well, he says/don4t try to chan$e! *n another remar%a le passa$e (alser simply lets the pencil flow 1lets the censor doze2 as it leads him from the pleasures of 6damsellin$7/li#in$ a feminine life ima$inati#ely from the inside/to a richly erotic sharin$ of the e<perience of operatic lo#ers, to whom the liss of pourin$ out one4s lo#e in son$ and the liss of lo#e itself are one and the same! Jakob von Gunten is translated in e<emplary fashion y Christopher >iddleton, a pioneerin$ student of (alser and one of the $reat mediators of +erman literature to the 5n$lish)spea%in$ world of our time! *n the case of The #obber, Susan ;ernofs%y rises splendidly to the challen$e of late (alser, particularly his play with the compound formations to which +erman is so hospita le! *n an essay pu lished in 199K, ;ernofs%y descri es some of the pro lems that (alser presents to the translator!E One of her illustrati#e passa$es is the followin$: He sat in the aforementioned $arden, entwined y lianas, em utterflied y melodies, and rapt in the rapscallity of his lo#e for the fairest youn$ aristocrat e#er to sprin$
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down from the hea#ens of parental shelter into the pu lic eye so as, with her charms, to $i#e the heart of a 'o er a fatal sta ! ;ernofs%y4s in$enuity in coinin$ 6em utterflied,7 and her resourcefulness in postponin$ the punch to the final word, are admira le! ;ut the sentence also illustrates one of the #e<in$ pro lems of (alser4s microscript te<ts! &he word translated here as 6aristocrat,7 &errentochter, is deciphered y another of (alser4s editors as Saaltochter, Swiss +erman for 6waitress!7 1&he woman in -uestion, 5dith, is certainly a waitress and no aristocrat!2 (hose #ersion are we to accept@ Cow and a$ain ;ernofs%y fails to rise to the challen$e (alser sets! * am not sure that 6scalawa$$in$ his way throu$h NtheO arcades7 calls up the intended picture of a oy s%ippin$ school! One of the widows with whom ' flirts is characterized asein 'ummchen, and for two pa$es (alser rin$s the chan$es on 'ummheit in all its aspects! ;ernofs%y consistently uses 6ninny7 for 'ummchen and 6ninnihood7 for'ummheit! 6Cinny7 has connotations of fee lemindedness, e#en of idiocy, a sent from 'umm)words, and is anyhow rarely used in contemporary 5n$lish! Ceither 6ninny7 nor any other sin$le 5n$lish word will translate 'ummchen, which has senses of 6dummy7 1someone who is dum or stupid/the sense is stron$er in "merican than in ;ritish 5n$lish2, 6nitwit,7 and e#en 6airhead!7 (alser wrote in Hi$h +erman 1&ochdeutsch2, the lan$ua$e that Swiss children learn in school! Hi$h +erman differs not only in a multitude of lin$uistic details ut in its #ery temperament from the Swiss +erman that is the home lan$ua$e of three -uarters of Swiss citizens! (ritin$ in Hi$h +erman/which was, practically spea%in$, the only choice open to (alser/entailed, una#oida ly, adoptin$ a stance of a person of learnin$ and of social refinement, a stance with which he was not comforta le! &hou$h he had little time for a Swiss re$ional literature 1&eimatliteratur2 dedicated to reproducin$ Hel#etic fol%lore and cele ratin$ dyin$ fol%ways, (alser did, after his return to Switzerland, deli erately e$in to introduce Swiss +erman into his writin$, and $enerally to sound Swiss! &he coe<istence of two #ersions of the same lan$ua$e in the same social space is a phenomenon without analo$y in the metropolitan 5n$lish)spea%in$ world, and one that creates hu$e pro lems for the 5n$lish translator! ;ernofs%y4s response to so) called dialect in (alser/comprisin$ not 0ust the odd word or phrase ut a harder to define Swiss colorin$ to his lan$ua$e/is, candidly, to ma%e no attempt to reproduce it: translatin$ his Swiss)+erman moments y e#o%in$ some or other re$ional or social dialect of 5n$lish will yield nothin$, she says, ut cultural falsification! ;oth >iddleton and ;ernofs%y write informati#e introductions to their translations, thou$h >iddleton4s is out of date on (alser scholarship! Ceither chooses to pro#ide e<planatory notes! &he a sence of notes will e felt particularly in The #obber, which is peppered with references to literature, includin$ the o scurer reaches of Swiss literature!

The #obber is more or less contemporary in composition with ?oyce4s (lyssesand with the later #olumes of Froust4s #echerche! Had it een pu lished in 19E6 it mi$ht ha#e affected the course of modern +erman literature, openin$ up and e#en le$itimatin$ as a su 0ect the ad#entures of the writin$ 1or dreamin$2 self and of the meanderin$ line of in% 1or pencil2 that emer$es under the writin$ hand! ;ut that was not to e! "lthou$h a pro0ect to rin$ to$ether (alser4s writin$s was initiated efore his death, it was only after the first #olumes of a more scholarlyCollected Works e$an to appear in 1966, and after he had een noticed y readers in 5n$land and Arance, that he $ained widespread attention in +ermany! &oday (alser is 0ud$ed lar$ely on the asis of his no#els, e#en thou$h these form only a fifth of his output, and e#en thou$h the no#el proper was not his forte 1the four no#els he left ehind really elon$ to the tradition of the no#ella2! He is most at home in the mode of short fiction: pieces li%e 6Jleist in &hun7 119192 and 6Hel lin$4s Story7 1191K2 show him at his dazzlin$ est! His own une#entful yet, in its way, harrowin$ life was his only true su 0ect! "ll his prose pieces, he su$$ested in retrospect, mi$ht e read as chapters in 6a lon$, plotless, realistic story,7 a 6cut up or dis0oined oo% of the self N)ch*BuchO!7 (as (alser a $reat writer@ *f one is reluctant to call him $reat, said Canetti, that is only ecause nothin$ could e more alien to him than $reatness! *n a late poem (alser wrote: ) +ould +ish it on no one to be me, -nly ) am ca!able of bearin% myself, To kno+ so much. to have seen so much. and To say nothin%. just about nothin%,

1! See, for instance, #obert Walser/ 0eben und Werk, edited y 5lio ArPhlich and Feter Hamm 1Aran%furt am >ain: *nsel, 19:32! The #obber y 'o ert (alser, &ranslated from the +erman and with an introduction y Susan ;ernofs%y Ini#ersity of Ce ras%a Fress, 1K1 pp!, Q15!33 1paper2 Jakob von Gunten y 'o ert (alser, &ranslated from the +erman and with an introduction y Christopher >iddleton Cew Hor% 'e#iew ;oo%s, 186 pp!, Q1E!95 1paper2