Literary Snippets #1 - The Assistant by Robert Walser

An excerpt from the New Directions translation of Robert Walser's "The Assistant" in which Joseph reflects on a bad hat. (p. 143).

I cannot recommend this book enough, both for its exquisite treatment of character and its eye-opening realism.

Wikipedia gives a decent summary of Walser's life here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Walser_(writer)

From the cover:
"'The Assistant' is Walser's most ambitious novel, and his bravest. Its ambition lies not in the scale of its action, which is modest as ever, but in its effort to reach beyond the diminished, the minor, toward a fuller human life. An unforgettable, heart-rending book." - J. M. Coetzee.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• the assistant
• robert walser
• new directions
• literary snippets
• literarysnippets
• book quotes
• reading aloud
• book recommendations
• Joseph Marti
• Herr Tobler

[maraisgood]

This is charming and I love that passage. I texted a friend that it was one of the funniest things I had ever read, like a bildungsroman turned inside out. And the nature description are so beautiful yet so over the top in seems it's like a parody of German Romanticism. An Odyssey of obedience and work comparable to Pessoa's Iliad of the office - The Book of Disquiet. But also tender and heartbreaking. Thanks.