Retour dans la neige

by Robert Walser, Bernhard Echte (Preface), Golnaz Houchidar (Translator)

Un voyage en tramway, une escapade à la campagne, un hall de gare ou une rêverie dans les rues de Berlin : Robert Walser, flâneur d'exception, nous emmène dans un univers poétique et nostalgique, à la lisière du merveilleux. Chacun de ces textes, parus en feuilletons entre 1899 et 1920, possède une grâce particulière, dévoilant la profondeur des choses qui se cache « à la surface ».

142 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Robert Walser, a German-Swiss prose writer and novelist, enjoyed high repute among a select group of authors and critics in Berlin early in his career, only to become nearly forgotten by the time he committed himself to the Waldau mental clinic in Bern in January 1929. Since his death in 1956, however, Walser has been recognized as German Switzerland’s leading author of the first half of the twentieth century, perhaps Switzerland’s single significant modernist. In his homeland he has served as an emboldening exemplar and a national classic during the unparalleled expansion of German-Swiss literature of the last two generations.

Walser’s writing is characterized by its linguistic sophistication and animation. His work exhibits several sets of tensions or contrasts: between a classic modernist devotion to art and a ceaseless questioning of the moral legitimacy and practical utility of art; between a spirited exuberance in style and texture and recurrent reflective melancholy; between the disparate claims of nature and culture; and between democratic respect for divergence in individuals and elitist reaction to the values of the mass culture and standardization of the industrial age.

Reviews

[Dina Rahajaharison · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Que les enfants qui jouent sont grands et riches."

[Leonardo Rodríguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dicen que Kafka se reía a carcajadas con los cuentos o "prosas breves" de Walser. Veo en esa risa un parentesco. Sólo que donde Kafka escribía pesadillas cómicas, Walzer parecía proponer idilios delirantes. Regreso en la nieve es de sus últimos años, cuando ya tenía muchos en el manicomio. Cuando Walser se creyó loco se internó para siempre. A escribir.

[Lolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un petit recueil de nombreuses courtes nouvelles. L'ensemble est poétique, doux et optimiste, bien que masquant à peine une contemplation mélancolique de la vie, du monde. Très beau.