Paseos con Robert Walser

Carl Seelig's notes on his walks with Robert Walser are unparalleled in the history of literature. They portray someone who has fallen silent, a poet who "had the tact to step off life." Upon turning fifty, he stopped writing and contented himself with his life as a patient in a mental sanatorium. Carl Seelig, wanting to help him and his seemingly doomed work, visited him regularly at the sanatorium, and for twenty years "they were allowed to go for walks." The notes relating to these walks are unusual, for their author uses writing to transmit Robert Walser's authentic words. No one knows if this patient is ill, but, in any case, he is wise. His knowledge of literature is immense; his pronouncements give rise to the poetics of his own work; his political judgments are accurate and enigmatic.