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"Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories brings together eighty-one brief texts spanning Robert Walser's career, from pieces conceived amid his early triumphs to later works written at a psychiatric clinic in Bern. Many were published in the feuilleton sections of newspapers during Walser's life; others were jotted down on slips of paper and all but forgotten. Together they string together small nutshells of consciousness, idiosyncratic and vulnerable, genuine in their irony, wistful in their humor. The portraits and landscapes here are observed with tenderness and from a place of great anxiety. Some dwell on childish or transient topics--carousels, the latest hairstyles, an ekphrasis of the illustrations in a picture book--others on the grand themes of nature, art, and love. But they remain conversational, almost lighter than air. Every emotion ventured takes on the weight of a sincerity that is imperiled as soon as it comes into contact with the outside world, which retains all of the novelty it had in childhood--and all of the danger. Walser's speakers are attuned to the silent music of being; students of the ineffable and neighbors to madness, they are now exhilarated, now paralyzed by frequencies inaudible to less sensitive ears"--… (more)
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A couple samples from some of the better essays will give you the flavor...
The first essay, “A Morning,” is about an agonizingly long Monday morning, as experienced by a spectacularly reluctant bank employee (arriving at work, late, he is “totally be-Mondayed, his face pale and bewildered”)
”Eight thirty, Helbling pulls out his pocket watch to compare its face with the face of the big office clock. He sighs; only ten little, tiny, thin, delicate, spiky minutes have trickled past, and before him loom fat, indifferent hours. He tries to see if it's possible to grasp the idea that now he must work. The effort fails, but at least it's shifted the face of the clock a little. Five more dear, dainty minutes have slipped away. Helbling loves the minutes that have passed, but hates the ones still to come and those that appear unwilling to move forward. He would like to clobber each and every one of these lazy minutes. In his mind he beats the minute hand to death. The hour hand he doesn't dare look at, for he has good reason to fear that would make him faint.”
This, from “Autumn Afternoon,” is about a walk in the country.
”It's delightful to walk quietly and leisurely over the land and be greeted friendlily by solemn, sturdy country women. Such a greeting does one good, like the thought of immortality. A heaven opens when people are kind to one another. The afternoon and soon evening sun strew liquid love and fantasy gold over the road and it glowed reddish. On everything was a touch of violet, but only a delicate, barely visible tint...”
Finally, from “Toothache”...
”Finally I went to the dentist, that is, for the sake of sweet frugality, to a dental clinic, where I gladly handed myself over for purposes of study. My mouth was diligently examined by the hand of a young lady apprentice, and, after that the procedures began. I may say with some authority that I placidly endured a tremendous amount and accepted with considerable composure all sorts of things.
Much I patiently suffered, but from time to time I found it apt to utter a rather loud scream, which I did on purpose because by so doing I succeeded in causing the master to rush up and intervene, helping with his masterly skills, which for me was no insignificant relief. In such moments, of course, the young lady became annoyed with me; she thought it very naughty of me to emit such a forceful sound. I allowed myself to say I would be willing to scream even more often whenever unnecessary pain was inflicted upon me. It was not at all nice of me to speak like that, she responded. Gradually I came to have a fairly delightful intercourse with her, and once she had the idea to ask me what I was. I was a sort of writer, I said modestly. She called loudly into the dentist's room, “I've got a writer,” whereupon all the gentlemen and ladies, among them the master, came running up to engage in a cozy study of the peculiar patient...”
So. These are quirky, and there were quite a few I didn't enjoy, but if your library has this it's worth a look.