Girlfriends, ghosts, and other stories
By: Robert Walser ; translated from the German by Tom Whalen with Nicole Köngeter and Annette Wiesner ; afterword by Tom Whalen
Contributors: Whalen, Tom, translator; Köngeter, Nicole, translator; Wiesner, Annette, translator
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 181
ISBN-13: 9781681370163
Subjects: American Short stories; Translations into English; Life change events; Fiction
Work titles: Short stories
Description: "Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories brings together eighty-one brief texts spanning Robert Walser's career, from pieces conceived amid his early triumphs to later works written at a psychiatric clinic in Bern. Many were published in the feuilleton sections of newspapers during Walser's life; others were jotted down on slips of paper and all but forgotten. Together they string together small nutshells of consciousness, idiosyncratic and vulnerable, genuine in their irony, wistful in their humor. The portraits and landscapes here are observed with tenderness and from a place of great anxiety. Some dwell on childish or transient topics--carousels, the latest hairstyles, an ekphrasis of the illustrations in a picture book--others on the grand themes of nature, art, and love. But they remain conversational, almost lighter than air. Every emotion ventured takes on the weight of a sincerity that is imperiled as soon as it comes into contact with the outside world, which retains all of the novelty it had in childhood--and all of the danger. Walser's speakers are attuned to the silent music of being; students of the ineffable and neighbors to madness, they are now exhilarated, now paralyzed by frequencies inaudible to less sensitive ears"--
Notes: " ... afterword was adapted from Sovereign Insignificance: Review of Speaking to the Rose: Writings 1912 / 1932 by Robert Walser, published by Marginalia (Fall 2006), a shorter version of which appeared in Bookforum (Feb/Mar 2006) under the title Written on a Whim."--ECIP galley.
Table of contents: title: A morning --; title: She writes --; title: An ABC in pictures by Max Liebermann --; title: Sketch (I) --; title: Poetry (I) --; title: The forest --; title: Lunch break --; title: The kitten (I) --; title: A little ramble --; title: The hand harp --; title: The goddess --; title: The look --; title: The morning --; title: Autumn afternoon --; title: The man --; title: The grave of the mother --; title: Remember this --; title: On the terrace --; title: The little sheep --; title: Spring --; title: A little expedition --; title: Ash, needle, pencil, and match --; title: The young traveling salesman --; title: Toothache --; title: The nimble and the lazy --; title: No one --; title: The murderess --; title: Lake Piece --; title: Schwendimann --; title: The forsaken one --; title: Dear little swallow --; title: The children's game --; title: The philosopher --; title: Page from a diary (I) --; title: Tram ride --; title: The kitten (II) --; title: Latest news --; title: News number two --; title: News three --; title: Fourth news --; title: Congratulations on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the journal Die Schweiz --; title: How are you? --; title: Afternoon tea --; title: The girls --; title: Overcoats --; title: Shadow --; title: The lover and the unknown girl --; title: The tip --; title: The Keller novella --; title: Walser on Walser --; title: Sacher-Masoch --; title: Shop windows (I) --; title: Gretchen --; title: Porcelain --; title: Ludwig --; title: It's all right, Miss --; title: Essay on Bismarck --; title: Anecdote --; title: The Nobel Prize --; title: The Carousel --; title: "Underappreciated poets among us?"--Answer to a survey --; title: Discussion --; title: Girlfriends --; title: The young woman in the country house --; title: The Bob --; title: The red leather pouch --; title: Detective novel --; title: Poet story --; title: The belletristic book --; title: Garden arbor essay --; title: Ghosts --; title: Female portrait --; title: A man of the world --; title: Something about writing --; title: Tolstoy and Hutten --; title: The woman novelist --; title: The equestrienne --; title: She bettered herself --; title: A woman's book --; title: The coffeehouse --; title: Literary Switzerland --; title: Embonpoint --; title: The Bourgeois --; title: The pipsqueak --; title: Portrait of a lady --; title: The precious one --; title: Something about eating --; title: Mother nature.