Girlfriends, ghosts, and other stories

Name: Girlfriends, ghosts, and other stories
Author: Unknown Author
ISBN: 9781681370163

by Unknown Author

181 pages2016New York Review of BooksISBN 9781681370163

Fiction

Open in BookOwl Download on App Store

About this book

"Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories brings together eighty-one brief texts spanning Robert Walser's career, from pieces conceived amid his early triumphs to later works written at a psychiatric clinic in Bern. Many were published in the feuilleton sections of newspapers during Walser's life; others were jotted down on slips of paper and all but forgotten. Together they string together small nutshells of consciousness, idiosyncratic and vulnerable, genuine in their irony, wistful in their humor. The portraits and landscapes here are observed with tenderness and from a place of great anxiety. Some dwell on childish or transient topics--carousels, the latest hairstyles, an ekphrasis of the illustrations in a picture book--others on the grand themes of nature, art, and love. But they remain conversational, almost lighter than air. Every emotion ventured takes on the weight of a sincerity that is imperiled as soon as it comes into contact with the outside world, which retains all of the novelty it had in childhood--and all of the danger. Walser's speakers are attuned to the silent music of being; students of the ineffable and neighbors to madness, they are now exhilarated, now paralyzed by frequencies inaudible to less sensitive ears"--

Publication Details

Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 2016
Pages: 181
ISBN: 9781681370163

About Unknown Author

Robert Walser (* 15. April 1878 in Biel, Kanton Bern; † 25. Dezember 1956 nahe Herisau, Kanton Appenzell Ausserrhoden) war ein deutschsprachiger Schweizer Schriftsteller. Walser verfasste vier Romane – *Jakob von Gunten, Geschwister Tanner, Der Gehülfe* und *Der Räuber* –, die längere Erzählung *Der Spaziergang* sowie Kurzgeschichten und Essays. Er gilt als bedeutender Vertreter der literarischen Moderne und der sogenannten Angestelltenliteratur. Seine unkonventionellen, teils rätselhaft wirkenden Werke wurden von Zeitgenossen wie Walter Benjamin, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Robert Musil und Kurt Tucholsky geschätzt. Trotz Anfangserfolgen blieb Robert Walser der kommerzielle Durchbruch verwehrt. Den grössten Teil seines Lebens verbrachte er in Armut. Nach psychischen Problemen lebte er von 1929 bis zu seinem Tod in Heil- und Pflegeanstalten. Heute gilt er als einer der wichtigsten Schweizer Schriftsteller des 20. Jahrhunderts, und sein Werk wird international rezipiert. ---------- Robert Walser (born April 15, 1878, in Biel, Canton of Bern; died December 25, 1956, near Herisau, Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden) was a German-language Swiss writer. Walser wrote four novels—*Jakob von Gunten, The Tanner Siblings, The Assistant,* and *The Robber*—as well as the novella The Walk, short stories, and essays. He is considered a significant figure in literary modernism and the so-called "white-collar" literature. His unconventional, sometimes enigmatic works were appreciated by contemporaries such as Walter Benjamin, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Kurt Tucholsky. Despite initial success, Robert Walser never achieved commercial success. He spent most of his life in poverty. After suffering from mental health problems, he lived in psychiatric hospitals and nursing homes from 1929 until his death. Today, he is considered one of the most important Swiss writers of the 20th century, and his work is internationally acclaimed.