[Between the lines]
The swiss' name Robert Walser
is not well known by here yet
But he was admired by some
of the bigger writers
and intelectuals of the
twentieth century once.
and he just released
his most important book in Brazil.
As speaks our collaborator:
Carlos Eduardo Ortolan
The swiss writer and
german speaker Robert Waiser
belongs to the niche of authors
whose just got recognized post death
Alcoholic, after a life of
mediocre literary success
and unexpressive jobs.
the depressed neurotic Waiser would
end up his days in a Menthal instalation
in which he said: "I'm not here
to write, but to be crazy"
The crew of lovers of his
small work
gathers Franz Kafka, who
had him as master and role model
and most recently, Walter Benjamin,
Elias Canetti, Susan Sontag and Coetzee.
Waiser's masterpiece, the novel
"Jakob von Gunten: A Journal"
just received brazilian edition.
The fictional memories of Jakob von Gunten
talks, in summary,
about his season at Institute Benjamenta
a boy's school,
in which the weird character enrolls
as an intern student.
But everything sounds different at school.
The boys, who are there to learn
to be servants of noble families,
actually, learns nothing but
lessons about humility and behaving.
There's only 1 book,
the Institute's manual
and just 1 teacher,
Ms Benjamenta
the sister of the
institution's owner
who stays closed in his office
all days,
counting money and
reading the newspaper.
From an aristocratic family,
von Gunten says all the time
that he's there exactly to learn
obedience and humility.
But through his paradoxal
point of view
constantly ridicularizes all
values of humanity and civilization,
everything considered high level,
in a kind of stubborn activism,
remembering our BrĂ¡s Cubas
with his impudence and cynicism.
"Thou wouldst give me the fisrt
place among mortals,
"beyond science and richness,
"cause wast the genuine
inspiration of the skies.
"Thou wouldst be the relief
of our melancolic humanity
The words of Coetzee,
"Essay devoted to Waiser",
Gunten would be the kind of boy
who, because of his deep contempt
for everything human and moral,
could be a part of, in a near future,
Hitler's Sturmabteilung
Strange analogy.
the book of the apolitical Rober Waiser
shows the ruines of civilization
and the aproximation of
darker and darker times.
Everything very kafkian
... meaning, the most faithful
expression of a tragic reality.