Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories brings together eighty-one
brief texts spanning Robert Walser's career, from pieces conceived amid
his early triumphs to later works written at a psychiatric clinic in
Bern. Many were published in the feuilleton sections of newspapers
during Walser's life; others were jotted down on slips of paper and all
but forgotten. They are strung together like consciousness,
idiosyncratic and vulnerable, genuine in their irony, wistful in their
humor. Some dwell on childish or transient topics--carousels, the latest
hairstyles, an ekphrasis of the illustrations in a picture book--others
on the grand themes of nature, art, and love. But they remain
conversational, almost lighter than air. Every emotion ventured takes on
the weight of a sincerity that is imperiled as soon as it comes into
contact with the outside world, which retains all of the novelty it had
in childhood--and all of the danger.