I read this 100 years after it was written, at first inkling (or at least: promise) of a new cultural era. I sense that Walser addressed modernity and reason, perhaps in a way reminiscent (preminiscent) of Walter Benjamin. It reads so solidly "modern" that it's easy to overlook the fact it was written so long before its overall feel, outlook, sensibility became the norm. ( )

Jacob Von Gruten by Robert Walser is a look into the life of a young man from the lower middle classes of the Austrian
Empire before WWI.

Enrolled in a school for servants he quickly seperates himself as both an observor and outstanding pupil. The hardest part is giving into the discipline and subservient position but, once accomplished, he stands out as a student with special talents. The principal of the Benjamenta Institue and his sister, the head instructress, both are attracted to him and reach out to him in intimate fashion further distingusihnig him in relation to the other students.

The Institute has trouble attracting new students and the book ends tragically for the sister who dies and the Institute closes but Jacob, still not employed as a servant, throws his lot in with the Principal who seeks companionship from Jacob. The 2 go off to tour the world together.

A curious tale, it certainly decpicts the inner life of this young man as he sets out to find a meager place in the world he lives in. Brief yet dense and engrossing. ( )

the second half of this is when it really picks up, and the climax at the very end has many that's-a-helluva-sentence sentences. mm. ( )

Quick and light and airy. It seems to float around up in the aether. It's hard to get a clear handle on what it's about. It's surrealistic or allegorical at times and realistic at others.

It's told in the form of a journal and the eponymous narrator contradicts himself almost every time he says something that seems definite.

In the end the point seems to be, as related in a dream, to leave behind European culture to wander in some kind of wilderness. ( )

This quirky book is a fictional journal of a student in a school for butlers. Quite enchanting at times, almost always warmhearted and naive and sometimes a bit petulant too. Wisdom in naivety. ( )