Entrelíneas
El nombre del suizo Robert Walser todavía es poco conocido aquí.
Pero ya ha sido admirado por algunos de los
más grandes escritores e intelectuales del siglo XX,
y acaba de publicar su libro más importante en Brasil.
Vean el comentario de nuestro colaborador, 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.