Berlin Stories by Robert WalserMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
"The world in all directions is a smile... Listen, linger, remain rooted to the spot. Be divinely touched by something slight... Turn your Sunday head in all directions to fully relish this Sunday world."
In BERLIN STORIES we find a collection of feuilletons (short essays meant to entertain) written between 1907 and 1917 by a Swiss writer living in a foreign city, describing its beauties as only a besotted outsider can.
This was meant to be read on a Sunday. Robert in his thirties was a most joyful young man, in love with the world and unable to be sad for the entire length of an essay. To read this book is to wander about a bustling metropolis, drinking lager at the Aschinger, then climbing on an electric tram to walk around the Tiergarten, catching the Russian ballet corps in a nearby theater, before walking back to one's rented room, hearing the sobs of one's millionaire landlady dying of loneliness next door.
The width and breadth of human existence, with youth's tendency to focus on light irrepressibly overshadowing the dark, is inside this very short book.
"How simple it all is. And where should one go now? To a coffeehouse? Really? Can one really be so barbaric? Indeed, one can. Such things a person does! How lovely to be doing something that another person is doing as well!"
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