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jimmylorunning's review against another edition
4.0
In Nature there is no warmth, it is only man–fearful, ever-zealous man–who thinks he ought to feel some. And what charming lies the poets present to us! Poets are not usually acquainted with Nature, they rarely get to know her and don't even wish to. They are generally quite thick-headed. The painter's trade involves his making far more tender observations. It is Nature's indifference and intransigence that often inspire him to apply his most glowing, ardent colors. The task in a certain case is to pull oneself together; in another, to remain cold in the face of coldness. One can be cold with the greatest ardor, cordiality and warmth when art requires. All the great painters mastered this, every one of them had to learn this skill. Their paintings make this obvious. Painting is the coldest art, it is an art of the intellect, of observation, of contemplation, of the most severely dissected feelings. What is taste other than dissected feelings, dismembered musings? And what does one paint with if not with one's taste? Should not one's sense of color and one's sense of taste stand in the closest proximity to each other? Should not a certain odor be able to call forth the impression of a certain color?I shared the above passage with my girlfriend and she felt that he was being prescriptive and condescending.
I immediately felt defensive. But then there is something about defending this claim that made me think, maybe I am not giving Walser enough thought precisely because I think I understand him too much. I always jump to the first conclusion having given him the benefit of the doubt, that he is a heavenly and tender soul and can do no wrong. Therefore all is excused. I started to say how he doesn't mean what he says, many times, because he is writing in a voice, and he is actually much more of a poet than a painter, so he is kind of making fun of himself.
But now that I think about it, I still defend him. But for different reasons. Because although Walser always plays with voice, he is always sincere. He never doesn't mean something that he says. But he means it so deeply, so tenderly and without irony (or at least with a very ambivalent soft irony) at every point. And at every other point he is always contradicting himself with equal sincerity, saying the very opposite with full feeling, that it creates an effect where it's not like you believe him less, you believe him more. But that the art of saying, the art of writing the thing so fully felt is the point, rather than what is said. And yes, maybe he is being condescending and prescriptive, but I don't believe it is from the point of ego. It is almost like he is trying on the clothes of saying, as a poet does with words, and trying on the suit of feeling. He is both ironic and completely sincere. He understands irony, surely, he is not as naive as he at first seems. But simple flat irony would be an easy way out for him, and it would not make Walser as interesting as he is to me if he were only that. It is that he is always completely sincere and yet you can never take what he says as standing in for him, for Walser's definite being, for his unmoving ego. 'Feeling' for him is ever fluctuating in the rhythms of saying the thing. That you feel the watery nature of man, moving from statement to statement, so sure of himself yet so silly, so full of folly and fault. And yet Walser knows this. He knows many of the faults of this watery-ness and he peers into it. He allows you to see his faults, his inconsistencies, his own ugly warts. His ridiculousness and his hypocrisy at every turn. He lets you in on his ugly self. That this in turn creates great feeling within himself, conflicted feelings about himself and the world. It is an ever fluctuating cycle that returns and reverberates outwards and inwards creating waves and waves. There is no standing self. There is no Robert Walser but a million images of him being truly him. Being full of conviction, pushing every fault to its fault-lines until he doesn't exist anymore. He's held everything fully and wondered at it. He's been the jerk, he's been the tender naive one, he's been the self righteous one and the one who condemns self righteousness, he's singeing with humanity in all its messy imperfections, he's practically the most human writer out there. He contains a hundred million little shards of truth, each one not being any less true because another one contradicts it.
The rest of this review will just consist of quotes:
"The sickly paleness of the poet's face gave me occasion to use my favorite colors, the ones that have been the most faithful to me. I applied them simply, handling them coldly and with pride. What a contradiction: being in love with–completely enamored of–something and yet having to behave in a cold, dismissive way! Mastering this art comprises the entire wizardry of painting. Great talent, a definite gift, and well-cultivated tastes being, of course, prerequisites. Loving a color with all one's ardent soul and yet still having the desire to approach it with as little friendliness and familiarity as possible. Because colors can besiege you! and it is crucial to have learned to coldly, mercilessly reject this onslaught of sweetness, which can be ruinous for a picture. Yet at the same time, you must tremble before the sweetness of these sweet things, feeling endless joy at being able to make use of them, apply them: walking this tightrope of feelings is essential when it comes to great art. Great art resides in great goings-astray, just as the most poignant grace likes best to dwell in contortions." p 32
"For hours and days on end he sought out ways to make unintelligible the obvious, and to find for things easily understood an inexplicable basis. As time went by, a secret watchfulness settled in his eyes from so much precise circling of contours that became for him edges of a mystery." p 138 (on Cezanne)
"From far away, peering gently and discreetly over at what is near at hand, we perceive something we would dearly love to have nearby: the unknown and yet all too intimate, familiar distance." p 125
wtfisapoet's review against another edition
Quite honestly one of my favourite short fiction authors beyond any doubt. Wonderful translations in this particular collection of fiction and nonfiction that bring across to English what Walser is known for simplicity, understanding, and surprise.
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