Jakob Von Gunten (New York Review Books Classics)

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Summary: The disease is..
Review: "I shall never let myself be rescued nor shall I ever rescue anybody". I think this quote from the book explains it all.

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Summary: a literary standard textbook as RIDDLE
Review: a new look into the cruelty of life from back before KAFKA,CASTLE black. robert walser account of alienation ,attendence MANDATORY salute of innanities feltand caste About within four walls of societys tombs of CERTIFIEDEXACTNESS. WHAT THE NARrATOR ;self professed NAIF. feels , within the Halls of absurdity[Servility]; a travelog of the mind ,in the guise of a journal. Author takeS on what is more real servilTY verses power. WAHT WINS OUT, stumble about in collisions Clear in bafflLin BLasts in winds CURRENTS. .. sway WAYdown cyrpto tomb HOLLOWhalls of FOLLY hails ofNAILS volley ;insight into salutes of iGNORANCE MaSSed as the [INSTITUTE] .THE aNOMONOUS mOments add up to INDIFFRENCE ... THE JOURNAL takes place within these confines,[CONFESSIONS] with no gravitude NOr WEIGHT , NO RhYME NOR REASEN,... LESSONS,.certifiedwithin the asylum walls, BIT at odds a summary in collision THE SPECTACLE OF A VACANT REASONING TEXTBOOK HUMILIATING LESSONSABSOR ABHORED EXPLORED; EXAMINATIONS OF RIDDLES ,seMMing RANDOM PUZZLES ,CONDITIONED.... a school FOR, restrictions implied/APPLIED...,[ by ones own guilt] symboColided in opposites , a turned up outsidein, meanderin replY in a LIEjournalWIthin too SEEK relief within TREASEN. CANT OR WONT , conditioned or learned BAFFLEMENT..., so construct your own textbook in JACOBS JOURNAL TO INSTRUCT .

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Summary: An Eccentric, Kafkaesque Little Novel Written Before Kafka
Review: In 1910, Franz Kafka began writing his journals. This was one year after the publication in Germany of Robert Walser's eccentric little novel, "Jakob von Gunten". The fact is worth noting because Kafka had read Walser and liked his writing, writing which can be characterized as "Kafkaesque" even though it preceded the publication of Kafka's work by several years. The resemblances between Walser and Kafka-- in sensibility, in prose style, in eccentricity of thought and syntax--are remarkable.

"Jakob von Gunten" is the first person journal of a student at the Benjamenta Institute, a school for butlers in an unidentified city. In young Jakob's words, "one learns very little here, there is a shortage of teachers, and none of us boys of the Benjamenta Institute will come to anything, that is we shall all be something very small and subordinate later in life."

The Institute is run by Herr Benjamenta and all classes are taught by his sister, Fraulein Lisa Benajamenta. There are no other teachers, all of the others being either "asleep, or they are dead, or seemingly dead, or they are fossilized." It is a narrowly circumscribed world full of students who are enchanted with the most mundane and trivial matters. But it is also a mysterious world, a world alienated from reality, a dreamlike projection of Jakob's mind expressed in the concrete language of the real. "The Benjamentas are secluded in the inner chambers and in the classroom there's an emptiness, an emptiness that almost sickens one."

Humorous and absurd, disturbing and, at times, childlike in its simplicity, "Jakob von Gunten" is the work of an undeservedly obscure master of modern prose. Thus, Christopher Middleton, the translator, in his fascinating and useful introduction, describes Walser as "in significant ways untutored, something of a primitive." More precisely, Middleton notes that Walser's prose "can display the essential luminous naivete of an artist who creates as if self-reflection were not a barred door but a bridge of light to the real." It is, in other words, prose which seeks to rewrite the "real" in the distorted image of the narrator's mind, making simple descriptions of mundane experience absurd. It is Kafkaesque writing before the advent of Kafka, a diminutive precursor of the Master of Prague.

Rating:
Summary: indeed
Review: Jacob is a young man attending a bizarre school to train servants (butlers) for upper class families. We are never certain if it is the school that is so odd or Jacob. He decides the other teachers "either do not exist, of they are still asleep, or they seem to have forgotten their profession" for the teaching responsibilities are taken solely by Herr Benjamenta or his dying sister Fraulein Benamenta.

This slim novel is Jacob's soliloquy to us. He is charming, buoyant, perhaps mad, and never intimidated. He reflects upon himself, his fellow students, his family and the Benjamentas with interest, sympathy, and occasional sadness.

Even when Jacob is frightened (rarely), he is intrigued and fascinated at what is happening to and around him, as when he incurs the ire of Herr Benjamenta:

"I'm writing this in a hurry. I'm trembling all over. There are lights dancing and flickering before my eyes. Something terrible has happened, seems to have happened, I hardly know what it was. Herr Benjamenta has had a fit and tried to-strangle me. Is this true? I can't think straight; I can't say what happened is true. But I'm so upset it must be true-"

I ended this novel very fond of Jacob. I know I will find him unforgettable. I believe the translation must be very good as the prose is fluid with Jacob's idiosyncrasies of speech intact. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Shy of recondite, but completely enjoyable
Review: Jakob von Guten is akin to reading verses stolen from the center of a Dylan Thomas stanza, lacking the illumination that arrives with the entirety of the poem. Yet beautiful and provoking haphazard thought, nothing is ever cement. The story twists and floats from one meaning to the next, like a dream where rules no longer apply. If they exist, they are in constant change.

Although many attempt it, the book is most certainly an experience without compare. Walser's idiosyncratic and strangely humble Jakob makes an alluring and touching account of his life, one I appreciated intimately sharing with him.

Rating:
Summary: A strange wonderful book
Review: Jakov von Gunten is not like any novel I have read before and not, despite all the comparisons, like any novel of Kafka's. It is more like a series of first person reflections, with only the repeating cast of characters and the narrator to hold the novel together. Kafka's novels all have a certain narrative drive, and here there is very little, although the story of the slow dissolution of the school is strangely moving.

Bernard van Dieren once wrote that every original mind is a cosmos in itself: Walser gains nothing from being continually advertised as Kafka-lite. He is his own writer. By any standard, he is not as great a writer as Kafka, but his outlook is much more genial - less insular and more human - despite the fact that Walser and not Kafka was the one who ended up in the insane asylum. This book is his long masterpiece. The episodic rambling quality of the novel betrays Walser's roots in the short story, but the material never feels scattershot or forced together.

Something Jakob says gets at what Walser might be trying to do - he's writing about the hair of the students in the school: "And because we all look so charmingly barbered and parted, we all look alike, which would be a huge joke for any writer, for example, if he came on a visit to study us in our glory and littleness. This writer had better stay at home. Writers are just windbags who only want to study, make pictures and observations. To live is what matters, then the observation happens of its own accord."

A strange thought for someone writing in a diary! But maybe the diary form is the closest that any writer can come to approximating the feeling of life, and letting the reader make his or her own observations. Walser does seem to have a certain distrust of the intellect, but he is not a naive, untutored talent; what he sees, though, is the limitations of intellect, which is perhaps his closest relationship with Kafka - "One is always wrong when one takes up with big words," he writes, and produces a masterpiece using all small ones.

Rating:
Summary: A strange wonderful book
Review: Jakov von Gunten is not like any novel I have read before and not, despite all the comparisons, like any novel of Kafka's. It is more like a series of first person reflections, with only the repeating cast of characters and the narrator to hold the novel together. Kafka's novels all have a certain narrative drive, and here there is very little, although the story of the slow dissolution of the school is strangely moving.

Bernard van Dieren once wrote that every original mind is a cosmos in itself: Walser gains nothing from being continually advertised as Kafka-lite. He is his own writer. By any standard, he is not as great a writer as Kafka, but his outlook is much more genial - less insular and more human - despite the fact that Walser and not Kafka was the one who ended up in the insane asylum. This book is his long masterpiece. The episodic rambling quality of the novel betrays Walser's roots in the short story, but the material never feels scattershot or forced together.

Something Jakob says gets at what Walser might be trying to do - he's writing about the hair of the students in the school: "And because we all look so charmingly barbered and parted, we all look alike, which would be a huge joke for any writer, for example, if he came on a visit to study us in our glory and littleness. This writer had better stay at home. Writers are just windbags who only want to study, make pictures and observations. To live is what matters, then the observation happens of its own accord."

A strange thought for someone writing in a diary! But maybe the diary form is the closest that any writer can come to approximating the feeling of life, and letting the reader make his or her own observations. Walser does seem to have a certain distrust of the intellect, but he is not a naive, untutored talent; what he sees, though, is the limitations of intellect, which is perhaps his closest relationship with Kafka - "One is always wrong when one takes up with big words," he writes, and produces a masterpiece using all small ones.

Rating:
Summary: Walser's prose is tragically beautiful
Review: This is my second book (after Masquerade...) and am eagerly waiting for his third 'The robber' to be delivered. He is not telling us a story, he just simply lets the story unfold by itself. He uncovers truths, those small simple truths which make him so endearing Things like 'Cleanliness alone is a joy', 'only women know how to scold', 'sleep is more religious than all your religion', ' successes go inseparably with fickleness and a few cheap ideas about life' are some of the beauties he reflects on. He can say poignantly profound things in a few words which many writers take a chapter to write. Simply beautiful.