May 4th, 2009 / 9:21 pm
 Power Quote

Robert Walser offers an alternate reason for the decline and fall of fine booksellers everywhere

walser2

You have disappointed me. Don’t look so astonished, there’s nothing to be done about it, I shall quit your place of business this very day and ask you to pay me my wages. Please, let me finish. I know perfectly well what I want. During the past week I’ve come to realize that the entire book trade is nothing less than ghastly if it must entail standing at one’s desk from early morning till late at night while out of doors the gentlest winter sun is gleaming, and forces one to scrunch one’s back, since the desk is far too small given my stature, writing like some accursed happenstance copyist and performing unsuitable for a mind such as my own.

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11 Comments

  1. May 5th, 2009 / 1:56 am André—

      That doesn’t explain the popularity of the internet. Zing, internet.

  2. May 4th, 2009 / 9:56 pm André—

      That doesn’t explain the popularity of the internet. Zing, internet.

  3. May 4th, 2009 / 9:58 pm Book stuff « Suffer the Gringo—

      […] also this Power Quote from this book I’m completely excited to read. In Bunny Miller’s words, “Walser […]

  4. May 4th, 2009 / 10:17 pm Drew Toal—

      I’d take a bullet in the face for the Internet.

  5. May 5th, 2009 / 4:05 am Ross Brighton—

      I would eat the internet. I wish to garner electronic sustenance.

  6. May 5th, 2009 / 12:05 am Ross Brighton—

      I would eat the internet. I wish to garner electronic sustenance.

  7. May 5th, 2009 / 12:10 am pr—

      The internet eats me. I thank it. Thank you.

  8. May 5th, 2009 / 2:06 pm Roberta—

      I love Robert Walser. That was all.

      (Didn’t he die in a manner unnerving like one of his stories, or am I misremembering?)

  9. May 5th, 2009 / 10:06 am Roberta—

      I love Robert Walser. That was all.

      (Didn’t he die in a manner unnerving like one of his stories, or am I misremembering?)

  10. July 10th, 2009 / 3:36 pm Mid year top ten « Suffer the Gringo—

      […] Tanners, by Robert Walser: Walser is the master. This is apparently the last of his novels to be translated into English (I think it’s coming […]

  11. April 14th, 2011 / 10:34 pm Joseph Sannicandro—

      Roberta, he did indeed. That is him lying dead in the snow, after escaping from a mental institution, in his seventies. Quite tasteless how often that photograph is reproduced.