Review: The Assistant – Robert Walser

Robert Walser wrote The Assistant in 1908,soon after attending a course in becoming a servant, and while occasionally working as a secretary in Berlin.  The book is about a young man, Joseph Marti, who secures a position as live-in personal assistant to an inventor and entrepeneur, Carl Tobler, who lives with his wife and four children in an elegant lake-side house beautiful mountainous country.  Tobler has invested all his money in buying the house and supporting himself while trying to obtain financial backing for his inventions, including the ill-fated Advertising Clock.

Young Joseph has had a difficult time in finding work, and can hardly believe his good fortune in finding employment in such a luxurious setting (his room, a tower room, a “noble, romantic location), while also being invited to take-part in every part of family life, from sharing morning coffee with Tobler’s wife in the summer-house, to watering the garden in the evening.  The food is excellent, the wine and fine cheroots abundant.  He has to deal with the capricious moods of his master, but he sees this as the inevitable lot of the clerk, and something which can only spur him on to greater achievements in his career.

Tobler makes great efforts to raise investment for his projects, but he has been living on his inheritance, and slowly the debts being to build up and increasinly more of the assistant’s time is spent fending off creditors than writing advertisements and letters of introduction.  He becomes adept at running the business side of the enterprise and Tobler becomes increasingly reliant on his services.

One recurring theme in the book is the gradual assimilation of Joseph into the family, while also being conscious of his subordinate position.  His familiarity with the family leads him occasionally to interact naturally with them, and to say things which would be unseemly in a servant.  Whenever he does this, the consciousness of his status returns with a vengeance and throws him into frantic worry that he will have lost his job.

We see Joseph slowly beginning to assert himself by standing up to both Tobler and his wife but on each occasion being overcome with guilt and self-recrimination.  A true introvert, he suffers from “the need to ponder every living thing with which I am confronted. The slightest encounter arouses in me the most peculiar urge to think.  A single word can thrust me into the most monstrous and tempestuous confusion and then I am possessed by thoughts of this apparent miniscule and insignificant thing”.

Tobler travels the country, finding that travel and business lunches are his natural occupation. Joseph spends more time with Tobler’s wife, whose aloofness with the assistant gradually thaws until she is sharing her worries and problems with the young man. For his part, Joseph worries about the poor treatment given to the youngest daughter Silvi, who seems to have become the black-sheep of the family and is left to suffer the abuse from the nanny and house-keeper Pauline.  Eventually he plucks up the courage to confront Frau Tobler with his concerns, who replies that the problem is that she does not love Silvi, never has done and sees no way of solving this problem.  Although Joseph was right in raising the matter, he is typically filled with self-recrimination and when Tobler returns home, Joseph tells him that he has been rude to his wife and accepts that the only fate left to him is to be relieved of his position (the incident is forgotten in the morning and he is able to stay).

Walser writes in a humorous and readable style, and draws the reader on through the increasingly dire financial situation that develops.  Joseph develops his business skills while also in some sense being a detached observer who is able to enjoy the fruits of his position (somewhat luxurious living, despite the lack of salary payments!).

The book occasionally launches off into lyrical passages, creating discursive word pictures of a row on the lake at dusk with the family dog swimming alongside, a walk through the woods, a swim in the lake and the first falls of winter snows on the mountain village.  On the whole, as others have suggested, the book is modernist, covering as it does themes such as:

• the transformational power of technology (though failing in this case)
• the redefinition of traditional roles and the resulting confusion of status
• the psychological growth and interior development of the main character
• the confrontation of the master’s wife with her mistreatment of her daughter

In the end, Joseph leaves the house, and this edition, the translator, Susan Bernofsky, helpfully includes and alternative ending, showing some clues as to the self-conviction that Joseph has achieved during his time with the Toblers.  Waler has allowed his main character to grow, to shrug off his subordinate role and to do what is right for himself rather than for his somewhat reckless employer who has brought his family to the brink of financial ruin.

A fine book, rightly published by Penguin under the Modern Classics range.