Edition Additions: More Walser.

In the mail today, some Elfriede Jelinek, crossed with Robert Walser, in the shape of Her Not All Her.

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Year in Reading, 2012 edition.

It’s the end of the year again. My year in reading was strange. I read less than I was hoping to (the second semester within the year just overtook me somehow). I also feel guilty at not having had a more balanced diet. I read comparatively little non-fiction and criticism/theory this year, as you might be able to tell from this list.

That said, it was also a wonderful year of old and new. I picked up a couple of new favourites, and revisited some old ones (something I don’t do often enough). These, then, are the books that left the deepest impressions. I’ve split them up into the newly published, the not-so-newly published, and the re-reads, just because that’s the way it panned out for me.

THE NEW

From the Observatory, by Julio Cortázar, translated by Anne McLean, archipelago books
Satantango, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by George Szirtes, New Directions
The Smoke of Distant Fires, by Eduardo Chirinos, translated by G. J. Racz, Open Letter
Scars, by Juan José Saer, translated by Steve Dolph, Open Letter

Here we have two novels, one poetry collection, and one slender and unclassifiable volume!

THE NOT-SO-NEW

Dead Man Upright*, by Derek Raymond, Melville House
The First Person Singular, by Alphonso Lingis, Northwestern University Press
The Walk, by Robert Walser, translated by Christopher Middleton and Susan Bernofsky, New Directions
Your Face Tomorrow, by Javier Marías, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, New Directions

* this is a new edition, but it is an old book.

A crime novel! A novella! A gigantic novel (in three volumes)! And philosophy!

THE RE-READS

Autonauts of the Cosmoroute, by Julio Cortázar and Carol Dunlop, translated by Anne McLean, archipelago books
Gasoline, by Quim Monzó, translated by Mary Ann Newman, Open Letter
The Hour of the Star, by Clarice Lispector, translated by Benjamin Moser, New Directions

And to round off, we have a novel, a novella, and one heck of an adventure.

So that’s it from me. What were your notable books of the year?

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Edition Additions: Walser attacks!

Yup.

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Talking The Walk.

Walser’s writing cunningly masquerades irony with self-effacement, and vice-versa; embodied in the figure of the bedraggled walker/poet, an almost baroque politesse spills over into the incongruous, the obsequious, and the disconcerting. Articulated in a language of almost hallucinatory virtuosity, the narrator’s soliloquies reveal a social awkwardness that makes it difficult for him to navigate his environment unharmed; his basic underlying state is fear, and his writing a compulsive flight from that fear. Endless elaborations are delivered with a decorousness W. G. Sebald terms “anarchistic”; they serve to buy time, to delay the inevitable—for while he remains at a safe enough distance from nearly every individual he encounters, disdain and humiliation always seem close at hand, potential threats ready to pounce on him and blot him out.

Conversational Reading points us to this article on Robert Walser’s The Walk over at The Brooklyn Rail. [The Brooklyn Rail, via Conversational Reading]

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Another review of The Walk.

Walser’s writing cunningly masquerades irony with self-effacement, and vice-versa; embodied in the figure of the bedraggled walker/poet, an almost baroque politesse spills over into the incongruous, the obsequious, and the disconcerting. Articulated in a language of hallucinatory virtuosity, the narrator’s soliloquies reveal a social awkwardness that makes it difficult for him to navigate his environment unharmed. His basic underlying state is fear, and his writing a compulsive flight from that fear. Endless elaborations are delivered with a decorousness W.G. Sebald terms “anarchistic”; they serve to buy time, to delay the inevitable—for while he remains at a safe-enough distance from nearly every individual he encounters, disdain and humiliation always seem close at hand, potential threats ready to pounce on him and blot him out.

Andrea Scrima review Robert Walser’s The Walk. [via The Rumpus]

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Edition Additions: So pretty.

As reported yesterday, my copy of the new edition of Robert Walser’s The Walk arrived a day or two ago. It came along with Roberto Bolaño’s Antwerp.

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Robert Walser’s The Walk

In his revisions, Bernofsky suggests, Walser “minimiz[ed] the divide between the writing protagonist and the walking protagonist.” But the divide remains, at least at the beginning, and throughout the novel, though the two personalities merge, a metaphysical struggle persists between them. The two roles are introduced separately in the opening pages, as the narrator refers to himself in the third person as first one—“With a kind face, a bicycling town chemist cycles close by the walker”; and then the other—“The writer is nonetheless very humbly asked to be a bit careful to avoid jokes as well as other superfluousnesses.” (Happily, as the latter example shows, Walser didn’t leave all of his thickly layered ironies behind when he left Berlin. The Walk might be read, I think, as a tragicomedy of the tension between irony and sincerity as played out by the contenders, walker and writer.)

[Full review via Three Percent]

I just received this book today, but have been hyped for ages and can’t wait to get to it. For the uninitiated, Robert Walser is definitely required reading.

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What the student bought.

Yes, in celebration of the end of the semester, I ordered/pre-ordered some books. Here’s what’s coming:

The Lifelong-Ambition-to-Collect-Julio-Cortázar-Books Purchases

62: A Model Kit
Julio Cortázar
Translated by Gregory Rabassa

Autonauts of the Cosmoroute
Carol Dunlop and Julio Cortázar
Translated by Anne McLean

I’ve actually read one of these before, and not the other. But it is part of my happy ambition to build on my Cortázar library. These are also the only books that will be sent almost immediately. If you don’t count the stationery, that is.

Stationery Purchase

Moleskine Pocket Plain Notebook Red

Well, my little black one is running out of pages.

The Finally-It-Is-In-Paperback Purchases

Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything
David Bellos
To be released: 16th October 2012

Microscripts
Robert Walser
Illustrated by Maira Kalman
Translated by Susan Bernofsky
To be released: 21st November 2012

Yes, these will be released far ahead in the year, but I’ve been waiting on these for ages. Robert Walser is finally joining my library! The David Bellos created quite a buzz last year, and being interested in translated literature as I am, I’m sure it’ll prove fascinating.

The Old-Addictions Purchases

The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira
César Aira
Translated by Katherine Silver
To be released: 16th October 2012

The Return
Roberto Bolaño
Translated by Chris Andrews
To be released: 20th September 2012

There were actually three Bolaño books I was considering: this one, The Secret of Evil, and the new one coming… The uhhhhh True Woes of the Policeman (well, I’m actually very sure that’s the wrong title). I’ve had my eye on this for a long while, so I’m glad to see a paperback edition. As for the César Aira, certainly sounds like what you’d expect from him. One thing that strikes me about Aira books is that New Directions generally puts out very pretty editions of them, and that makes me doubly happy.

The Too-Far-Away-To-Really-Worry Purchase

Two American Scenes
Lydia Davis and Eliot Weinberger
To be released: 17th January 2013

I’m quite fond of Lydia Davis’s work, and I thought it’d be good to have some essays in, so this is one of two essay books. It’s a very short volume to be released really far into the future, so I’m kind of banking on this to be something of a surprise for myself by the time it actually gets released.

The New-Editions-of-Old-Classics Purchases

Exercises in Style
Raymond Queneau
Translated by Barbara Wright
To be released: 18th October 2012

Locus Solus
Raymond Roussel
Translated by Rupert Copeland Cuningham
To be released: 21st June 2012

Watermark: An Essay on Venice
Joseph Brodsky
To be released: 6th September 2012

Another luminary of the I-can’t-believe-it-took-so-long variety joins the shelves in Joseph Brodsky. I also have those two Oulipo books down because… Well, they’re the sorts of books that people tell you to read. That’s a poor basis for making cultural consumption decisions, but they do sound quite precisely like the sort of things I would be happy with.

The Special-Treat Purchase

The Plain in Flames
Juan Rulfo
Translated by Ilan Stavans
To be released: 1st September 2012

I have very hazy memories of when I read bits and pieces of Pedro Páramo. So much has changed since then, and I am eager to return to the writing of Juan Rulfo.

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Book wallpaper.

Click on the link to see a copy of Robert Walser’s Microscripts used as wallpaper. [via New Directions]

Having desired my own copy for quite a while now, the sight of it makes me a tiny bit sad, but also enormously happy.

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On Berlin Stories.

The description applies to the present volume as well, as it does to a great deal of Walser’s work; again, therein lies the appeal. These stories, more than revealing the texture of Berlin life at the turn of the century, allow us a window into Walser’s states of mind and into the mechanics of his thought process (he wrote quickly and claimed he never corrected a single line of his writing). Whether he is observing an Abyssinian lion in the zoo, or complaining about pompous, self-important people, or thinking about a park, or observing a play, or assessing the character of the city street, it is always the quality of mind that holds us rapt.

A short note on Robert Walser’s Berlin Stories over at the Book Bench. [via The Book Bench]

Incidentally, the Enrique Vila-Matas book I was just reading is an excellent, excellent portrait of Walser.

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