I read this over a long period of time - a bedside book. Best that way I think. It's of its time yet Walser has an entertaining and often poignant view of the city and the world that is recognizable to us today. ( )

Oh, Walser. I'm woefully behind in reviews, and yet more people need to read you; at the same time, I'm not sure that any words can adequately convey the experience of reading your prose.

This collection of stories and critical essays compiles the work that Walser produced during his time in Berlin. One can feel the allure of the city, the possibilities and dreams that Walser felt in every fiber of the city—from the parks and gardens, to the people congregating on the streets, from the theatre to the literary life—and yet one can also sense an underlying melancholy, a growing sense of malaise as the pieces progress chronologically, not seeing Walser fulfill his goals, forced to return to Switzerland just on the brink of a world war.

In her introduction to Microscripts, Susan Bernofsky notes that we can't know for sure when Walser began writing in microscript form. Many of these pieces here in Berlin Stories read like some of his microscript stories, but these are more like vignettes than stories: they run together to create a full portrait of Walser's Berlin, its inhabitants, its pace of life, and his own precarious position in the city as both an outsider and an artist.

The simplicity of Walser's writing is balanced equally by his deft approach to a humanistic view of society and our individual responsibilities to others: his moral approach to life—even something as simple as traipsing through a park and chancing upon a woman reading or a lone bird—suggest that art is as much an every day sentimentality as it is setting thoughts to paper.

This collection ends with Walser examining his own critical output, looking back to his previous work and criticism with a sense of self-exile but also a sense of having accomplished what he set out to do. Hermann Hesse said of Walser: "If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place." And so it would. ( )

The introduction to this translation of Robert Walser's short pieces on Berlin promises to reflect the original's playful style and affirming eagerness. The selections translated by Christopher Middleton do that. Those translated by Susan Bernofsky do not. Bernofsky's sense of playfulness, in particular, seems often to fall into mere mockery or cattiness. This is especially true of the pieces gathered under "The Theater" and "Berlin Life." The Middleton translations, however, really do achieve their purpose. Part could be that while "The Theater" and "Berlin Life" deal with slightly earlier prose reviews, the longer works in "Looking Back," translated by Middleton, come a bit later during Walser's sojourn in the German capital. Yet it is night and day reading the legitimate short stories, "Frau Wilke and "Frau Scheer." These latter two take the reader into a melancholic world of an even earlier Berlin, which is now overwhelmed by the vigor, movement, and eagerness of the emergent Berlin of the early 20th century, the capital of an empire seeking its "day in the sun."

I once knew Berlin, although I haven't revisited the city since a few month's before the Wall was torn down. Because of my memories, I was drawn to this volume. In some ways, it disappoints. No doubt a great deal is because two world wars and a cold war now separate Walser's Berlin from today's city. And the appetite that Walser exhibits, which by the way is somewhat akin to that of Thomas Wolfe's in his descriptions of life in New York City and 1930's Berlin, cannot help but be tainted by those catastrophes during which Berlin often stood at the epicenter for most of the last century.

Yet my Berlin is as likely disappeared into the past as is Walser's. No more the rush of commerce and wealth and excitement that was West Berlin contrasted with East Germany. Nor the on edge discomfort of the long checks at the control points for the entrance into East Berlin, where corridors of buildings made of recycled stone and rubble made for a dreary, gray metropolis imprinted with the oversized and alien looking Soviet war memorial.

Walser's Berlin had no hint of the Berlin to come that I would know. So there is still an optimism, sometimes outright joy, at the "electric trams," the boulevards whirling with pedestrians, the brilliance of the Tiergarten, and even the sparkling mysteries of the city at night.

Walser left Berlin to return home to Switzerland in 1913. The war marked the beginning of the great divide between the old Europe and the new. But Walser gives us a brief insight into Germany on the brink. And perhaps his own later schizophrenia might symbolize the crisis of Europe that followed after that war--and the next one. ( )

Logarithms and "friend" suggestions will never totally replace the anxious and arbitrary means by which I travel from book to book. Yesterday I was sort of between books. A friend of mine called and asked if I could take him to doctor's residence. Sure, I quipped and ignoring my haggard state of toilette - I'd been tooling around in the yard -- I grabbed Berlin Stories from atop a stack and headed out the door. There are many stacks in our hose. My wife would add there are TOO many stacks. I hadn't thought of this particular tome at all lately.

I was prepared to dislike Berlin Stories. Despite many efforts I still don't "like" Bruno Schulz. I was ready for a similar encounter here. My, was I ever mistaken. Berlin Stories is a series of sketches of the metropolis, many reflect a gaping wide-eyed perspective. This appears apt as the most modern city in the world engulfs the reader. The trams and the stand-up restaurants are viewed as marvels. The regal nature of the posh neighborhoods doesn't alienate the visiting stroller, it encourages. The anxiety of penury is quickly muffled by these dazzling displays. It is interesting to contrast these views of Berlin with Alfred Doblin's.

I will likely pursue the other Walser works now.
( )

This is a series of short essays about Berlin in the first decade of the 20th century and some of its people, sometimes with praise and other times satire. The writing is clever, full of surprising but clear images. Reading one after the other, however, they tend to loose their punch and feel repetitious; better read in spurts. ( )