Microscripts Paperback – November 21, 2012

This is a publishing event to be celebrated for the ages, not only is Walser one of the most unique figures in contemporary thought and literature, but a writer of such worldly knowing his work is simply in a class of its own. The package is elegant, a perfect complement and homage to an underground artist whose understood the complexities of life and was driven to stand outside them in all facets. His reflections are sublime, and the context of the microscripts will bring joy to existing fans of his work while potentially gaining more who I only hope will read the translations of his full-length novels. His work makes more sense now than it ever could have while he wrote.

I don't necessarily think that Walser's late-period writing is for everyone. It is very eccentric and dense. I came to this book having already reread The Robber several times, and Microscripts reads much like outtakes from that novel. That said it is a joy to read, and even a joy to look at. It is alarming how many paperbacks that will only survive one reading are still being produced in a world with e-readers and libraries, but this book makes the case for the publishing industry going forward. It is solidly constructed, tightly bound, and beautifully (if plainly) arranged. The size of my bookshelf is dwindling as I shift to e-readers, but this book will never leave it.Also, I can't praise the translation of Susan Bernofsky enough. I cannot attest to its accuracy, but as with her translations of the Robber and Masquerade, this is delightful to read.

... whether any reader could or should remain non-committal for more than five pages of Robert Walser's prose, in this or any other of his books, in the original German or in translation. You'll get it or you won't. I could label his typical story/sketch as gnomic, hermeneutic, oracular, whimsical ... or trivial, picayune, infantile, coy ... but you still wouldn't know what to expect. So I think the only way to review Walser's Microscripts is to quote one at some length; here's the beginning of one:""He numbered, as might well have been true of many others, among the good. Perhaps it is an error to go about considering oneself good with no further ado. One might naturally also refer to him as a refined individual, since all good people believe they are very refined, and because all beautiful people are virtually incapable of relinquishing the illusion that they are good. Once he founded a sort of enterprise, counting on the support of all the other nice, good, devout. joyous refined persons. Was there not a certain recklessness in this sort of calculation? Be that as it may. these good people left him utterly in the lurch, and the completeness with which they abandoned him might appear in itself to possess great worth. The good man was, at some point or other, good enough not to attribute particularly much importance to a beautiful woman. Moreover, thsi good fellow had brown hair, and when he began to think of something, his train of thought was brown. His blood was of the brownest brown. With his doe eyes he gazed -- as one might possibly be permitted to say -- in headwaiter fashion, perusing some Vienna Choir heights that can scarcely have existed, where the most stalwart acts of laziness were being performed.""The Good Man has a wife, Mrs. Brown, and an adversary, Mr. Black, with a Mrs. Black wife. The whole tale of their disharmony is completed in less than two pages of Walser's elliptical narration. It gets quirkier and quirkier, and then it's finished.

I love the Sueterlin script. And Walser’s funny genius.

This book is a wonder cabinet. Strange bits of coded texts concealed on scraps of everyday detritus are here elegantly presented, beautifully reproduced, skillfully de-coded and lovingly translated. All with such care that the mysteriousness remains as Walser points at a world flowing precipitously just beneath the surface of perception and language but made of them.

Amazing journey into brilliance. Beautiful writing that might have been lost to the world if not for devoted scholars who saw more than tic marks on a piece of paper.

Amazing stuff; so glad I bought this book.

What a beautiful gift from Robert Walser to us. Even though some of the stories are fragmented, they give us a excellent view of Walser's imagination.