The Assistant: 1071 (New Directions Paperbook) - Softcover

Walser, Robert; Bernofsky, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811215903 ISBN 13: 9780811215909

Publisher: New Directions, 2007

Synopsis

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."

About this title

Review:

Essential, exquisitely poised absurdity.--Christian Carly

About the Author:

Robert Walser (1878-1956) was born in Switzerland. He left school at fourteen and led a wandering and precarious existence working as a bank clerk, a butler in a castle, and an inventor's assistant while producing essays, stories, and novels. In 1933 he abandoned writing and entered a sanatorium--where he remained for the rest of his life. "I am not here to write," Walser said, "but to be mad."

Susan Bernofsky is the acclaimed translator of Hermann Hesse, Robert Walser, and Jenny Erpenbeck, and the recipient of many awards, including the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize and the Hermann Hesse Translation Prize. She teaches literary translation at Columbia University and lives in New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0811215903
• ISBN 13: 9780811215909
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320