Selected Stories of Robert Walser

Robert Walser. New York Review of Books, $14.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-940322-98-1

Described by Susan Sontag in the introduction to his Selected Stories as ""a good-humored, sweet Beckett,"" Swiss novelist Robert Walser (1878-1956) committed himself to a sanatorium in 1933 and spent the rest of his life there. Admired by Hesse and Kafka, his subjects in these mostly very short pieces (an exception being the melancholic ""The Walk"") are various and appealing from an essay on trousers to a mock job application and a short ""play"" involving a stork and a porcupine: ""What a kissing that would have been! We shudder at the thought of it."" An excellent introduction to a masterful writer.

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