“Middleton translates to perfection both the text and the spirit. . . . Walser’s central themes of self-effacement, the primacy of the imagination, the liberating aim of creative play are richly displayed in the new volume. You’ll find both the Walser deadpan . . . and his pratfall. . . . . Walser’s lightness is lighter than light, buoyant up ... Read moreto and beyond belief, terrifyingly light. At times, he seems closer to writers like the French poet Francis Ponge than to his 'weightier' peers such as Musil, Broch, or Mann. Both Ponge and Walser, through an almost phenomenological parsing and shedding of received notions, reveal the uniqueness of insignificant things. In his insignificance, Walser was among the sovereign.”—Bookforum “Journals (and the contemporary malady of journalishness) are full of solitude and feigned humility, as small as personal; Walser's microtexts are the opposite. Or, small script = large human. Smallness makes text liquid, lose-able, ubiquitous. Walser is a scale explosion.”—Trisha Donnelly, Artforum International “Splendidly translated by the inestimable Christopher Middleton, a poet and champion of Walser’s. . . . They remind us of the pleasure of his keen eye, his alert imagination, and his lyric voice.”—Joseph Dewey, Review of Contemporary Fiction “A little gem. . . . Christopher Middleton has translated and introduced a selection of Walser’s strange scribbles, including many from his pre-asylum period. . . . What a find.”—George Fetherling, New Brunswick Reader Show Less