Reading Robert Walser鈥檚 books are like looking into a room through a piece of glass that鈥檚 tinted and warped. Everything鈥檚 in there, but nothing looks quite right. Of Walser鈥檚 many skills, his ability to write in a tone that is warm, tender, and utterly disorienting as he plays earnestness against irony in a way that is so seamless it can be impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. In recent years 鈥� thank heaven 鈥� there has been a resurgence of Walser reissues and translations, and every publication should be heralded is a literary event, because it is.
