THE ASSISTANT

Name: THE ASSISTANT
Author: Robert Walser
ISBN: 978-0-8112-2590-9

by Robert Walser & translated by Susan Bernofsky ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 27, 2007

One understands why Kafka acknowledged Walser’s influence. He’s one of the most underrated, and accomplished, of all the...

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The mixed pleasures of introspection and tensions between solitude and society are wryly considered in the great, eccentric Swiss author’s previously untranslated 1908 novel.

Walser (1878–1956), best known for his autobiographical novel Jakob von Gunten and his virtually unclassifiable semi-fictional short stories, was a master of bemused self-deprecation whose directionless characters echo his own sad personal history of rootlessness and passivity (he spent the last 20 years of his life in an insane asylum). This novel’s feckless antihero Joseph Marti, whose early life has been “devoted” to entry-level jobs and oppressive compulsory military service, believes his fortunes have improved when he becomes an “assistant” to flamboyant inventor Carl Tobler, who lives with his wife and children in a comfortable villa overlooking Lake Zurich in the placid village of Bärenswil. A former machine factory worker, Tobler has received a generous inheritance that permits the indulgence of his engineering skills in the creation of such innovative wonders as an Advertising Clock, an Invalid Chair and a vending machine that dispenses live ammunition. But all is not perfect. Tobler has overspent unwisely, and Joseph’s primary tasks are attempts to keep the seemingly mad inventor’s numerous creditors at bay. The fetching Frau Tobler (to whom Joseph is helplessly attracted) is obliged to expend her beauty and dignity in fruitless appeals for further support from her imperious mother-in-law. And, as the Tobler children endure both abuse and neglect, Joseph—increasingly “tormented by the impossibility of thinking”—withdraws further from the collapsing world of his employers into gloomy memories of unrequited love and unfulfilled ambitions, and a bizarre friendship with his predecessor Wirsich, the drunken incompetent whose failed tenure with the Toblers has preceded, and prefigured, Joseph’s own.

One understands why Kafka acknowledged Walser’s influence. He’s one of the most underrated, and accomplished, of all the great European modernist writers.

Pub Date: July 27, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-8112-2590-9

Page Count: 304

Publisher: New Directions

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
GIRLFRIENDS, GHOSTS, AND OTHER STORIES
by Robert Walser ; translated by Tom Whalen & Nicole Kongeter & Annette Wiesner

- BOOK REVIEW
LOOKING AT PICTURES
by Robert Walser translated by Susan Bernofsky

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ROBBER
by Robert Walser & translated by Susan Bernofsky

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).

Pub Date: July 1, 2002

ISBN: 0-345-45071-X

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.