Robert Walser: The Assistant

Robert Walser’s The Assistant tells of Joseph Marti, a young rambler who commences employment in the titular position for well-to-do inventor Carl Tobler in the (presumed Swiss) town of Barenswil. Tobler has a number of inventions he is trying to peddle, with limited success, the most noteworthy being the ‘Advertising Clock’, containing pop-out promotional banners, space upon which is intended for sale to ‘enterprising capitalists’. There is also the ammunition-distributing ‘Marksman’s Vending Machine’ to be located at shooting ranges and hunting grounds.

Tobler’s misguided enthusiasm for the profitability of his gadgets finds him frequently on the road, purportedly in the pursuit of finance for his projects but increasingly down the local pub drowning his sorrows. This leaves Marti responsible for helping out Tobler’s wife and four children around the house, playing Jass, drinking coffee and smoking endless cheroots. His chief business responsibility concerns writing letters to fend off creditors. Business difficulties prevent Marti from receiving any salary owed him, but his fondness for the members of the household, from the abused Silvi to the doted upon Dora, and their provisions prevent him from leaving.

Written in 1907 when Walser was under 30, The Assistant has much in common with other European modernist fiction of the time, particularly Kafka and Canetti. It was apparently written in 6 weeks so as to enter a competition, and the easy, drifting narrative flow, often unpredictable and occasionally chaotic, like Canetti’s Auto Da Fe, supports this. Marti’s erratic frame of mind meanwhile, mistrustful of his own thoughts, leading to verbal outbursts with Frau Tobler, only to humbly apologise and about face, recalls the quandaries of Kafka’s characters. However, with such an engaging premise relayed in Walser’s dry and witty style, as conveyed bu Susan Bernofsky’s translation, he is much funnier than either of them.

Had the Advertising Clock suddenly proved a washout? Not a bit of it. On the contrary, the elegant wings of the advertising fields shone brighter and more resplendently than ever, and the Marksman’s Vending Machine? Hadn’t the fabrication of the very first specimen been underway for weeks now? Didn’t the most efficient and assiduous of mechanics turn up almost daily at the villa in order to play cards with Tobler? Other people played cards as well and enjoyed a glass of wine, and yet continued to prosper – why shouldn’t Tobler prosper as well?

The depiction of the Toblers’descent to financial ruin, and Marti's to joblessness, provides Walser with a vehicle with which to critique and satirise contemporary commerce, and it’s here that The Assistant is particularly modern.

The grotto in the garden had now been completed as well, except for a few minor details. The contractors submitted their bill, which ran to approximately five hundred marks, a sum that had not been seen in the Villa Tobler for quite some time. Where would they get it? Could they dig it up from beneath the earth? Should they set Leo on some retiree out for a nocturnal stroll, knock him down and rob him? Alas, it was the twentieth century, the age of moonlit robberies was over.

And later:

Leo was no dragon. He might even have responded somewhat currishly to such outrageous Medieval assumptions. All in all, it was a twentieth century tableau.

The befuddlement felt by the Toblers and their inability to engage with the new realities of twentieth century society point to nostalgia for earlier, simpler times, and seem to reflect the insecurities of the author. Walser’s brother Karl, also a writer, was a successful member of Berlin high society, a world Robert, Bernofsky tells us, found difficult to engage with. Not long after the publication of The Assistant Walser attempted suicide, his depression misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, and he was committed to an asylum. There he spent the remaining 35 years of his life, never to write again. ‘I’m not here to write, I’m here to be mad’. After the joys found herein I’ll be reading everything the young Walser wrote.