Reviews

Microscripts by Susan Bernofsky, Robert Walser, Walter Benjamin

breadandmushrooms's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

briancrandall's review against another edition

It amuses me to believe that readers are, as it were, writers' chaperones; but even the most rigorous thinker may well have arrived perhaps at the surely capital insight that these lines of mine are autumnally fading—with which, in point of fact, their purpose has been fulfilled. [89]

lizjig's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.5

bloodstreamcity's review against another edition

4.0

The story behind this book was interesting enough for me to pick it up, and now it seems the writing is excellent as well, with moments of brilliance surrounded by a strong command of language. This is a unique piece as well as an insight into mental illness and it's relation to artistic frustration. A great addition to my collection.

bookscatsandjazz's review against another edition

challenging funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

jimmylorunning's review against another edition

4.0

Assuming I do not lie, she wept with joy, although quite possibly she did so for some other reason.

("Assuming I do not lie" is the best clause to start off any sentence)

Obviously, this work has hip-appeal and almost Herzog-like marketability with its back-story. In case you haven't heard it yet: Walser spent many of his waning years writing in a kind of tiny hieroglyphic code that only he understood on the back of slips, envelopes, napkins, strips of paper, and whatnot. It took them 35 years to decode (and they still haven't decoded them all), and the contents of this book is the result of those snippets translated PLUS beautiful facsimiles of the original pieces of paper each story was written on.

The actual pieces are dizzying in the way they twist about. It is hard enough to follow one sentence of his, much less a whole sketch, which moves quickly from topic to topic. There is a sense that he tossed these off without much thought, although this casualness is coupled with his typical ornate overblown formality of style to a very strange effect. I find these pieces generally much more complicated and dense (on the sentence-level) than his early novels like [b:The Assistant|335333|The Assistant (New Directions Paperbook)|Robert Walser|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173843242s/335333.jpg|3120198], there is a sense of over-crowdedness here.

The casual manner in which I loved my beloved, who was forever distinguishing herself by her utter absence, resembled a soft-swelling, enchanting sofa.

Walter Benjamin writes an afterword to this book, and it has some great insights which I will now share with you. Exhibit 1.

For we can set our minds at rest by realizing that to write yet never correct what has been written implies both the absence of intention and the most fully considered intentionality

Exhibit 2.

Everything seems to be on the verge of disaster; a torrent of words pours from him in which the only point of every sentence is to make the reader forget the previous one.

Exhibit3.

The tears they shed are his prose. For sobbing is the melody of Walser's loquaciousness. It reveals to us where his favorite characters come from--namely, from insanity and nowhere else. They are figures who have left madness behind them, and this is why they are marked by such a consistently heartrending, inhuman superficiality.

josh_caporale's review against another edition

4.0

http://caponomics.blogspot.com/2015/01/book-review-microscripts-by-robert.html

quintusmarcus's review

2.0

The Microscripts are Robert Walser's short stories written in teeny tiny pencil script on the back of business cards, matchbook covers, and scraps of paper. Walser is appreciated by some as a modernist, but I'm afraid I found these micro-narratives to be a little thin. The author is deeply removed from the stories, which are highly abstract occasionally nonsensical. It's a shame New Directions lavished so much attention on the book, which is absolutely beautiful: finely bound on thick paper, with richly colored images of Walser's original texts. I tried very hard to enjoy these stories, but they were so profoundly affectless, I simply could not engage. Perhaps another time.

luiscorrea's review

4.0

Curious, tiny scenes emphasizing the smallest emotions. Most of the allure of the book is rooted in its context, but still an interesting book to have read and to own, if not only to stare at the microscripts.