Speaking to the Rose by Robert Walser
"Middleton translates to perfection both the text and the spirit. . . . Walser’s central themes of self-effacement, the primacy of the imagination, the liberating aim of creative play are richly displayed in the new volume. You’ll find both the Walser deadpan . . . and his pratfall. Walser’s lightness is lighter than light, buoyant up to and beyond belief, terrifyingly light. . . . At times, he seems closer to writers like the French poet Francis Ponge than to his 'weightier' peers such as Musil, Broch, or Mann. Both Ponge and Walser, through an almost phenomenological parsing and shedding of received notions, reveal the uniqueness of insignificant things. In his insignificance, Walser was among the sovereign."—Bookforum
