Bibliographic Information

The assistant

Robert Walser ; translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky

(A New Directions paperbook, NDP1071)

New Directions, 2007

Other Title

Gehülfe

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Description and Table of Contents

Description

Robert Walser is an overwhelmingly original author with many ardent fans: J.M. Coetzee ("dazzling"), Guy Davenport ("a very special kind of whimsical-serious-deep writer"), and Hermann Hesse ("If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place"). Charged with compassion, and an utterly unique radiance of vision, Walser is as Susan Sontag exclaimed "a truly wonderful, heart-breaking writer." The Assistant is his breathtaking 1908 novel, translated by award-winning translator Susan Bernofsky. Joseph, hired to become an inventor's new assistant, arrives one rainy Monday morning at Technical Engineer Karl Tobler's splendid hilltop villa: he is at once pleased and terribly worried, a state soon followed by even stickier psychological complexities. He enjoys the beautiful view over Lake Zurich, in the company of the proud wife, Frau Tobler, and the delicious savory meals. But does he deserve any of these pleasures? The Assistant chronicles Joseph's inner life of cascading emotions as he attempts, both frantically and light-heartedly, to help the Tobler household, even as it slides toward financial ruin. Tobler demands of Joseph, "Do you have your wits about you?!" And Joseph's wits are in fact all around him, trembling like leaves in the breeze-he is full of exuberance and despair, all the raptures and panics of a person "drowning in obedience."

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Details

  • NCID
    BA83813087
  • ISBN
    • 9780811215909
  • LCCN
    2007006865
  • Country Code
    us
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Original Language Code
    ger
  • Place of Publication
    New York
  • Pages/Volumes
    302 p.
  • Size
    18 cm
  • Classification
  • Parent Bibliography ID
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