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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
also_present has commented on (2) products
Jakob Von Gunten
by
Robert Walser
also_present
, May 13, 2015
Is there anyone reading here who has regretted coming to the end of a voice in a book? Wished to re-read it at once? Possibly no one who loves works in translation has not, by now, heard of Robert Walser, esp. his short stories, and his little odd hilarious poignant masterpiece, Jakob Von Gunten. If any reading this know Walser spent his last years in an asylum, that he was schizophrenic (if so) I argue this is irrelevant. If you've read that Kafka read Walser, I argue that it's irrelevant, although it's true. Kafka wrote narrative. Kafka is prominent on my shelf. A genius. Is there not room for small genius? There is no use in comparing. Or, with Pessoa, whom some mention, who was not schizophrenic but ingenerious with his multiple personae. They reflect an entirely different literary sensibility. Different goals. explorations. Was Robert Walser conscious of his sardonicism? We cannot know. To me, it suggests at least flashes of conscious awareness that not all is as it seems. Was he aware of how outright funny some of his ideas and phrases are? Don't know. Quite simply: there is no one like Walser, miniaturist, episodic diarist with a syntax so intrinsic to him one cannot write of it that it's concerted. It is what it is. Humble and observant. And charming. And odd. Unwittingly original? He made his first readers gasp. I'm not going to copy out quotes. Virtually every line is quotable. Jakob Von Gunten is Walser's only novel and his last work. Think now of the setting: a school for butlers, naifs in training for servitude. (Don't even think of "Remains of the Day"!) The teachers are Herr Benjamenta and his dying sister. (She's dying?) Bizarre? Funny? Decide for yourself. And! what about der Herr? He makes my hair stand on end. Written in first person, in the form of a diary, we learn what Jakob learns through a tiny and distorted magnifying glass. The infinitessimal takes on a kind of grandeur in the small. Simplicity in the large. If you are a writer, your head will be dizzied with ideas for new kinds of sentences. Parenthetically, Walzer wrote almost all his work on European-size business cards with large logos leaving little room for the text. These took years to transcribe. By nature and necessity Walser felt obliged to see small. The way a student's hair is parted. A frayed buttton loop. Yet, in the hands of a genius -- disturbed or not, Walser's works encompass universal human experience. Obsrvations on everything from the petty bourgeoisie to the humility of misplaced, dislocated people. Much like himself. Also, things e.g. shoe, button, sound. While I did find many laugh-out-loud passages, I found much to cry about: the solitude, the comic sadness of world (his). Ours is darker, bleaker. Walzer wrote of the nondescript, himself, who also serves who sits and waits. I want to commend TNYRB Classics with its estimable list and outstanding translators (where required). The paper, the print, the covers all add to the tactile and sensual pleasure of BOOK. I own as much Walser as I can for all reasons. But you will discover some works cobbled together from bits and scraps after Walser became known to a wider readership -- and that, as with any author, some works are stronger than others. But, few books I can cite, where, picking it up and turning to any page, I don't find a sentence that unsettles me. Or, charms me. A message from a solitary walker on the alpine slopes in snow, in the dead of winter ---or in late summer dusks, direct to a nowhere place we leave hollow for books as uncategorizable as Jakob Von Gunten. Students of what you think of as new writing---read this! Read the short stories.
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Chess Story
by
Stefan Zweig
also_present
, May 12, 2015
How many times have we gone from a film in search of a book? This book is NOT a film. But, here's why it's relevant. I heard of the book while listening to actors working with Wes Anderson on The Grande Budapest Hotel state that Anderson is a voracious reader. They amplified by stating he had set up a library of anything related in the least way to Budapest Hotel. Central to the film, I heard them say were three books by the Austrian author Stefan Zweig. A memoir: "The World of Yesterday". A novel. "Beware of Pity." And a novella, "Chess Story". I immediately googled the books! That's the backstory. I was riveted in reading about "Chess Story". No. I don't play chess. It's unnecesary. Zweig lived in the same city and time as Freud when his psychoanalytic theories were just coming into prominence. Zweig applied psychoanalytic theory to literature. In doing so, he created a masterpiece. In the interplay between two chess masters in aggressive competition, and a third character about whom Zweig tells the reader little. It is the moves, literal and figurative, that make this short novel so distinguished. Yet, the language is not elevated. This is what professors call a character-driven story. Call it a psychoanalytic thriller-mystery with shifting POV. I couldn't put the book down. Lincoln said, If this is the sort of thing you like, you will find this is the sort of thing you like. I say the same. A tragedy at the heart of Zweig's own life story deepens and makes more profound the levels of meaning in "Chess Story". Read it. Find out for yourself!
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