Robert Walser is an overwhelmingly original author with many ardent fans: J.M. Coetzee ( dazzling ), Guy Davenport ( a very special kind of whimsical-serious-deep writer ), and Hermann Hesse ( If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place ). Charged with compassion, and an utterly unique radiance of vision, Walser is as Susan Sontag exclaimed a truly wonderful, heart-breaking writer. Essential, exquisitely poised absurdity.