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A review by spenkevich
The Walk by Robert Walser
4.0
The earth became a dream; I myself had become an inward being, and I walked as in an inward world.
The joys, clear-headed thinking, and sheer beauty of a walk through the world come alive in Robert Walser’s The Walk. This is a sentiment that I too share, as I find I do my best thinking and arrive at my best inspirations while out on a run—I never review a book without getting at least one run in between the completion of the novel and sitting down to write so I can contemplate what it is I want to say and formulate at least one satisfactory statement to include in the review. There is a certain clarity that seems to accrue with my heart thumping out in the greater world as I attempt to conduct phrases to the rhythm of my footfalls down the paths cut between the trees, a clarity and rejuvenation of heart and soul that the narrator of The Walk seems to enlist as a canvas for his literary creations. Leaving behind his ‘room of phantoms’ where he was ‘brooding gloomily over a blank sheet of paper’, the narrator embarks on foot through the open air where ‘everything I saw made upon me a delightful impression’. Chronicling his walk through the town and countryside, Walser’s narrator builds an introspective portrait of an artists creation process and philosophical musings through the allegorical, and often surreal, events that transpire along the way.
It is his encounters with other people that send the narrator into a downward spiral of anger and grief. While the sight of a pretty woman inspires great confidence and loquacious praise to her talents, his encounters with the wealthy or those with airs of power get his blood boiling. Each event chronicled into text becomes an exceptional allegory for the society around him, and Walser emphasizes the comical grotesqueries in each scene to give an absurdly surreal look at the people and places that pass before the narrator. The upper class and those with power are typically the ones that most come under his satirical aim. He describes the any actions that ‘gratify the thirst for money’ as ‘the vilest thing on earth’ and is constantly furious at any signs of one displaying themselves as above anyone else. Even the sight of golden lettering on a bakery inspires a vitriolic rant. The narrator reflects an uneasy sense of alienation from those with wealth, those who ‘think themselves important because they are inconsiderate and discourteous, who think themselves powerful because they enjoy protection.’ He rejects these people, and their pleasures, for they are the ones he sees as holding down him and fellow artists of letters. He enters a bookshop to ‘cold-bloodedly’ dismiss the most popular and widely read novel that he request the bookseller to find, He insists that critics are nothing but injurious to the lives and livelihoods of artists. His sources of income are few and far between, and even then, they are suffocating.
The narrator makes a plea for the author and artists. He compares an author to a military general because of their ‘laborious preparations before they dare march to the attack and give battle: in other words, fling their book or artistic or shoddy product into the book market, an action which sometimes vigorously provokes very forceful counterattacks.’ He argues that a true lover or art appreciates even the most dull and inferior forms because they acknowledge that heart, soul and passion went into its creation.
The narrator writes in an engaging, highly descriptive style that often switches tenses to occasionally accommodate a present tense. As he often addresses the reader, pontificating and apologizing to the reader at times in an attempt to appear as a cordial, good natured narrator, these shifts in tense help build a sense that the reader is out on the walk with them, with the narrator occasionally overtaking them or walking along-side them. It also helps highlight the difference between the narrator-on-the-walk and the narrator-writing-the-book, with the reader always conscious that the narrator must return to his gloomy room and battle with the blank page before him to wrangle his experiences into words. While the reader is aware of the joys experienced by the walking narrator, they are always besieged by the omnipresent melancholy of the authorial narrator locked away in his shadowy studio—despite the comedic nature of most events, on the fringes lurks a vicious sadness that keeps the reader in a state of unease even in the most jovial of passages knowing that the narrator must leave the warm inward world or the outdoors to enter the vicious introspection behind closed doors. The final pages of the book are sure to break the readers heart, hinting at a looming sadness and allowing them to feel the burden of his painful self-criticisms. While the novel is a blend of both images of the narrator, the interplay between both mindsets it what brings out the sheer brilliance of this short book.
Originally written in 1917 but then heavily edited in 1920, this new translation by Susan Bernofsky is mostly a reworking of the Christopher Middleton translation in accordance with Walser’s own revisions. Apparently, Walser altered nearly every sentence, cutting out the superfluous to achieve his incredible minimalism, ensuring that every sentence maintained an eloquent flow, and ‘minimizing the divide between the walking protagonist and the writing protagonist’ (from Bernofsky’s introduction). Although I have never read the original translation—The Walk being Walser’s only work to be translated into English during his lifetime—what appears in print here is a darkly comedic masterpiece of subtlety. While this short novel initially didn’t strike me as anything special, about halfway though (and while out on a run, which seems fitting) I realized the incredible depths that hid within each carefully crafted sentence. Walser has a very special story to tell about being an author and offers a very positive plea for those who appreciate art to be good to one another and to not drown authors in negative criticism or suffocate them with elitism. This is a wonderful little book (the New Directions Pearl edition is 96pgs and about the size of a checkbook) with a wide wealth of ideas to ponder on your next walk. I will certainly be back for more Walser. I’ll take you out [with dedication to the lovely (ifer) of course] on this seemingly appropriate song. Now I need to go for my own walk with my dogs.
4.5/5
’I would like to confess that I consider nature and human life to be a solemn and charming flow of fleeting approximations, which strikes me as a phenomenon which I believer to be beautiful and replete with blessings.’
The joys, clear-headed thinking, and sheer beauty of a walk through the world come alive in Robert Walser’s The Walk. This is a sentiment that I too share, as I find I do my best thinking and arrive at my best inspirations while out on a run—I never review a book without getting at least one run in between the completion of the novel and sitting down to write so I can contemplate what it is I want to say and formulate at least one satisfactory statement to include in the review. There is a certain clarity that seems to accrue with my heart thumping out in the greater world as I attempt to conduct phrases to the rhythm of my footfalls down the paths cut between the trees, a clarity and rejuvenation of heart and soul that the narrator of The Walk seems to enlist as a canvas for his literary creations. Leaving behind his ‘room of phantoms’ where he was ‘brooding gloomily over a blank sheet of paper’, the narrator embarks on foot through the open air where ‘everything I saw made upon me a delightful impression’. Chronicling his walk through the town and countryside, Walser’s narrator builds an introspective portrait of an artists creation process and philosophical musings through the allegorical, and often surreal, events that transpire along the way.
’Walking is for me not only healthy, it is also of service—not only lovely, but also useful.’The walks around town have become an essential component of the narrators writing process, a segment he holds in higher regard than the actual act of writing. ‘Without walking I would be dead, and would have long since been forced to abandon my profession,’ he writes. ‘A pleasant walk most often veritably teems with imageries, living poems, attractive objects, natural beauties, be they ever so small.’ It is a time for inspiration, of intense soul searching, where one can appreciate their small place in a world so great and beautiful. Although others question his walks as being the sign of a lazy man, he is proud of them and considers them a high point of industriousness. The reader sees how his emotional and intellectual state is so tied to his walks and the world around him as the bright, welcoming sky raises his spirits, while oppressive encounters with offensive others instantly plunge him into fear and sadness. It is in the solitude of nature where he finds himself most at peace, and the ineffable beauty of the natural world quickly assuages any dark thoughts and pulls him to ecstatically aware of his place in the present.
The soul of the world had opened and I fantasized that everything wicked, distressing and painful was on the point of vanishing….all notion of the future paled and the past dissolved. In the glowing present, I myself glowed.These walks instill a near-religious experience in him and allow him to comfortably—and without the fear of shadows, pain and phantoms but guided by warmth and love instead—move inward into his soul and true self where he can extract the essentials needed to produce his literature. ‘In the sweet light of love I believed I was able to recognize—or required to feel—that the inward self is the only self which really exists.’
It is his encounters with other people that send the narrator into a downward spiral of anger and grief. While the sight of a pretty woman inspires great confidence and loquacious praise to her talents, his encounters with the wealthy or those with airs of power get his blood boiling. Each event chronicled into text becomes an exceptional allegory for the society around him, and Walser emphasizes the comical grotesqueries in each scene to give an absurdly surreal look at the people and places that pass before the narrator. The upper class and those with power are typically the ones that most come under his satirical aim. He describes the any actions that ‘gratify the thirst for money’ as ‘the vilest thing on earth’ and is constantly furious at any signs of one displaying themselves as above anyone else. Even the sight of golden lettering on a bakery inspires a vitriolic rant. The narrator reflects an uneasy sense of alienation from those with wealth, those who ‘think themselves important because they are inconsiderate and discourteous, who think themselves powerful because they enjoy protection.’ He rejects these people, and their pleasures, for they are the ones he sees as holding down him and fellow artists of letters. He enters a bookshop to ‘cold-bloodedly’ dismiss the most popular and widely read novel that he request the bookseller to find, He insists that critics are nothing but injurious to the lives and livelihoods of artists. His sources of income are few and far between, and even then, they are suffocating.
The narrator makes a plea for the author and artists. He compares an author to a military general because of their ‘laborious preparations before they dare march to the attack and give battle: in other words, fling their book or artistic or shoddy product into the book market, an action which sometimes vigorously provokes very forceful counterattacks.’ He argues that a true lover or art appreciates even the most dull and inferior forms because they acknowledge that heart, soul and passion went into its creation.
Is not all music, ever the most niggardly, beautiful to the person who loves the very being and existence of music? Is not almost any human being you please - even the worst and most unpleasant - loveable to the person who is a friend of man?What he argues for is a polite society where we accept we all have weaknesses.
I here implement a policy of softheartedness, which has a beauty that is not to be found anywhere else; but I consider a policy of this sort to be indispensible. Propriety enjoins us to be careful to deal as severaly with ourselves as with others, to judge others as mildly as we judge ourselves…The narrator attempts to practice what he preaches and always checks himself when he lets his indignation get out of hand and apologizes to the reader. ‘Abuses of writing should not be practiced,’ he often says, and keeps his promise to return to criticize himself just as he does those around him. When this moment arrives, it is utterly heart wrenching and leaves the reader drenched in sorrow and pity, yet full of blossoming adoration.
The narrator writes in an engaging, highly descriptive style that often switches tenses to occasionally accommodate a present tense. As he often addresses the reader, pontificating and apologizing to the reader at times in an attempt to appear as a cordial, good natured narrator, these shifts in tense help build a sense that the reader is out on the walk with them, with the narrator occasionally overtaking them or walking along-side them. It also helps highlight the difference between the narrator-on-the-walk and the narrator-writing-the-book, with the reader always conscious that the narrator must return to his gloomy room and battle with the blank page before him to wrangle his experiences into words. While the reader is aware of the joys experienced by the walking narrator, they are always besieged by the omnipresent melancholy of the authorial narrator locked away in his shadowy studio—despite the comedic nature of most events, on the fringes lurks a vicious sadness that keeps the reader in a state of unease even in the most jovial of passages knowing that the narrator must leave the warm inward world or the outdoors to enter the vicious introspection behind closed doors. The final pages of the book are sure to break the readers heart, hinting at a looming sadness and allowing them to feel the burden of his painful self-criticisms. While the novel is a blend of both images of the narrator, the interplay between both mindsets it what brings out the sheer brilliance of this short book.
Originally written in 1917 but then heavily edited in 1920, this new translation by Susan Bernofsky is mostly a reworking of the Christopher Middleton translation in accordance with Walser’s own revisions. Apparently, Walser altered nearly every sentence, cutting out the superfluous to achieve his incredible minimalism, ensuring that every sentence maintained an eloquent flow, and ‘minimizing the divide between the walking protagonist and the writing protagonist’ (from Bernofsky’s introduction). Although I have never read the original translation—The Walk being Walser’s only work to be translated into English during his lifetime—what appears in print here is a darkly comedic masterpiece of subtlety. While this short novel initially didn’t strike me as anything special, about halfway though (and while out on a run, which seems fitting) I realized the incredible depths that hid within each carefully crafted sentence. Walser has a very special story to tell about being an author and offers a very positive plea for those who appreciate art to be good to one another and to not drown authors in negative criticism or suffocate them with elitism. This is a wonderful little book (the New Directions Pearl edition is 96pgs and about the size of a checkbook) with a wide wealth of ideas to ponder on your next walk. I will certainly be back for more Walser. I’ll take you out [with dedication to the lovely (ifer) of course] on this seemingly appropriate song. Now I need to go for my own walk with my dogs.
4.5/5
’I would like to confess that I consider nature and human life to be a solemn and charming flow of fleeting approximations, which strikes me as a phenomenon which I believer to be beautiful and replete with blessings.’