Preface: I'm going through old Goodreads reviews of mine, fixing coding errors from when I imported them to this new account. This was the first Walser's I read, and I really, really need to re-read it soon; for those new to Walser, this is not the title to begin with: I would highly recommend Jakob von Gunten instead, followed by The Walk—those links will talk you to my reviews of those respective novels by this master.

Some time in 2012...
I feel like Walser and I are off to a bit of a rocky start. What interests me most about The Assistant and Walser's approach to the main character, Joseph, are precisely the problems I found with the novel. When Walser is writing an incisive and bleak psychological portrait of a borderline sociopath, his prose is stunning and his observations often poignant; however, Walser mixes his psychological portraiture with an iterative and boring bourgeois narrative that places Joseph in a classed subject position repeatedly, ad nauseam.

Perhaps The Assistant might have worked better as a short story or novella—these repetitions become cumbersome and detract from Walser's more intriguing character study. I often felt, too, that Walser wants us as readers to be far removed from the characters: the way that he's able to create such a phenomenal narrative distancing is truly astounding here, but with the repetition and cumbersome, often cliched plotting, the distancing causes more rupture than interest, creates more of a rift between the reader and the book itself than the reader and the characters.

I do look forward to reading more Walser, but I suspect it will be some time before I feel ready to tackle another of his books. ( )

Joseph, de bediende , werkt bij Tobler. Tobler is een ingenieur die na een poos als werknemer , zelf als zelfstandige zakenman aan de slag wil . Hij wil zijn uitvindingen op de markt brengen. Deze automaten zijn eigenlijk nutteloos en er is geen belangstelling voor. Tobler heeft heel zijn kapitaal in zijn bureel, zijn uitvindingen en in zijn villa gestoken. Vrouw Tobler houdt niet van haar jongste dochtertje en verstoot haar. Ook de huishoudster mishandelt het kind. Joseph maakt regelmatig opmerkingen over de gang van zaken, zowel over de opvoeding van de kinderen als over het brutale gedrag v zijn baas. Joseph krijgt dan een hoop verwijten naar het hoofd. Tobler is geen zakenman en wil ondanks de gang van zaken toch een voornaam en rijkelijk leven blijven behouden. Joseph heeft medelijden met het gezin en kan niet vertrekken, wat uiteindelijk wegens te erge vernederingen er toch van komt.
Joseph beschrijft in het boek de dreigende ondergang, het verval en de schrijnende toestand binnenshuis. Bijzonder ingetogen, gevoelig en lyrisch geschreven ondanks het zichtbaar aankomende noodlot. Typische stijl van Walser! ( )

It is supposed to be a very boring book indeed; a book where nothing exciting happens; a book about disintegration of a house on a socio-historical background of Swiss countryside a hundred years ago. I was prepared to read it in small portions months on end. But the language is beautiful (as everyone keeps saying in all reviews), and it does suck you in; the uncanny Swiss words, the impossible syntax - the language does make you uneasy, expectant, interested. Here is a sample: "Der Ernst der männlichen Weltanschauung lag in einem fallen gelassenen und zerbrochenen und seinen Inhalt ausgeschütteten Glas Wein am Boden."
I had to put matches between my eyelids though, to read the poetic descriptions of the nature, which should probably rank among the finest prosa sections of the book, so poetic they are. They make up may be 5% of the book (how I like to shove a figure into this text), but are tortuously repetitious with painful seasonal regularity. ( )

In seiner autobiografischen Erzählung beschreibt Robert Walser, wie ein junger Mann für einen erfolglosen Erfinder als Gehilfe arbeitet. Kurz vor dem Konkurs des Erfinders verlässt er die Stellung. Hier handelt es sich um eine szenische Lesung in schönem Schweizerdeutsch, untermalt mit Musik von Schumann. Mir hat das Hörbuch die Zeit wunderbar vertrieben und ich fand es sehr gut. ( )

Non credo che questo commento sarà utile a nessuno per farsi un'idea del libro, ma lo scrivo lo stesso per comunicare con i lettori della community.
Walser e i suoi personaggi sono proprio in sintonia con me. Oziosi che si perdono in fantasie, che godono a mischiarsi nella folla, che se ne sbattono di fare carriera, che si preoccupano di essere comprensivi, che ascoltano. Persone tranquille che non nuocciono a nessuno e che spesso sono di aiuto a molti. Gente bizzarra e che ama stare in armonia con la natura...TUTTI quanti si riconoscano in questo elenco di caratteristiche godrebbero nel leggere le opere di questo grande scrittore.
E' tutto. ( )