[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 Brás 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.