WEBVTT

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[Interlining]

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The name of the Swiss Robert
Walser is still little known here.

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But he has already been
admired by some of the

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greatest writers and
intellectuals of the 20th century,

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and he has just had his most
important book published in Brazil.

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See in the comment of our
collaborator, Carlos Eduardo Ortolan.

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Swiss German-speaking writer
Robert Walser belongs to the

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category of authors who have
only been recognized posthumously.

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Alcoholic, after
a life of mediocre

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literary success,
and meaningless jobs,

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the depressive neurotic Walser
would end his days in a psychiatric

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institution, in which he would say:
"I'm not here to write, but to be crazy."

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The gallery of admirers of
Walser's sparse work brings

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together Franz Kafka, who
had him as a master and model,

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and, more modernly, Walter Benjamin,

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Elias Canetti, Susan Sontag and Coetzee.

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Walser's masterpiece, the
novel "Jakob von Gunten:

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Um Diário", has just
won a Brazilian edition.

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Jakob von Gunten's fictional memories

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in short, they talk
about their time at the

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Benjamenta Institute,
a school for boys,

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in which the strange character
is admitted as a boarding student.

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Everything, however, sounds unusual at school.

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The boys, who are there to learn
to be raised from noble families,

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strictly speaking, learn nothing
but lessons in humility and behavior.

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There is a single book,
the Institute manual,

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and a single teacher,
Miss Benjamenta,

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sister of the owner
of the Institution,

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who spends her days
closed in her office,

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counting money and reading newspapers.

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Coming from an aristocratic
family, von Gunten says all the

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time that he is there precisely
to learn obedience and humility.

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But through his paradoxical
logic, he constantly

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ridicules all values ​​of
civilization and humanity,

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everything that is considered

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high, in a kind of
impish arrivism,

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reminiscent of our Brás Cubas
and their brazenness and cynicism.

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"You would give me the
first place among mortals,

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"above science and wealth,

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"because you were the genuine
inspiration of the heavens.

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"You would be the relief of
our melancholy humanity."

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In Coetzee's words,
"Essay dedicated to Walser",

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Gunten would be the
kind of boy who, because of

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his deep contempt for
everything human and moral,

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he could integrate Hitler's
brown shirts in the near future.

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Strange allegory, the
book of the apolitical

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Robert Walser shows
the ruins of civilization

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and the approach of
increasingly dark times.

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All very Kafkaesque

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- that is, the most faithful
expression of a tragic reality.