Robert Walser - Entrelinhas 19/06/2011

[Interlining]

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

But he has already been
admired by some of the

greatest writers and
intellectuals of the 20th century,

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

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

Swiss German-speaking writer
Robert Walser belongs to the

category of authors who have
only been recognized posthumously.

Alcoholic, after
a life of mediocre

literary success,
and meaningless jobs,

the depressive neurotic Walser
would end his days in a psychiatric

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

The gallery of admirers of
Walser's sparse work brings

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

and, more modernly, Walter Benjamin,

Elias Canetti, Susan Sontag and Coetzee.

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

Um Diário", has just
won a Brazilian edition.

Jakob von Gunten's fictional memories

in short, they talk
about their time at the

Benjamenta Institute,
a school for boys,

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

Everything, however, sounds unusual at school.

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

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

There is a single book,
the Institute manual,

and a single teacher,
Miss Benjamenta,

sister of the owner
of the Institution,

who spends her days
closed in her office,

counting money and reading newspapers.

Coming from an aristocratic
family, von Gunten says all the

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

But through his paradoxical
logic, he constantly

ridicules all values ​​of
civilization and humanity,

everything that is considered

high, in a kind of
impish arrivism,

reminiscent of our Brás Cubas
and their brazenness and cynicism.

"You would give me the
first place among mortals,

"above science and wealth,

"because you were the genuine
inspiration of the heavens.

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

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

Gunten would be the
kind of boy who, because of

his deep contempt for
everything human and moral,

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

Strange allegory, the
book of the apolitical

Robert Walser shows
the ruins of civilization

and the approach of
increasingly dark times.

All very Kafkaesque

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