The Tanners Book

As I disgustingly bubbled up my thrill to my son and wife while driving along the coast of eastern Florida, eighty degrees and sunshine, the ocean beckoning and the beach a friendly almost-vacant place ahead at Sebastian Inlet for our dog to run, my trills bursting with the gleaning of my new favorite literary one named Simon who offers so much and is yet unencumbered by any long-term sense of responsibility, his future in the moment always, and his pleasure engulfed in the world of nature, his earth mother, the one he feels the closest to, and my son asks, "Is he better than Seymour?" Of course I could not answer him in a direct way as in a yes or no, but instead chose to express to him that the Glass family as a whole is better than the Tanners, but taken individually Simon is better than even Zooey or Buddy or Franny, or their mom, and how can anyone exactly say anything regarding Seymour as we basically know him only through A Perfect Day For Bananafish and whatever Buddy or Zooey or Franny chooses to say about him? I certainly love to death the Glasses, but the Tanners are a remarkable family as well. Robert Walser's clever use of Simon as both the youngest and the one to forge our way through this three hundred and fifty page book of simple delights that verge on the edges of our greatest philosophy. But the book is not without its customary pain, as anyone knows must equally accompany our given joy along the way.

What was immediately striking to me in The Tanners by Robert Walser was the way in which the author spoke directly to me as if he and I were close old friends and he was revealing to me everything we already both knew about life and art and pain and love, and our mutual devotion to finding out our personal truths. Even the critical side of brother Kaspar and others from time to time rang true as we all have bad days and seem to rise some mornings from the wrong side of the bed. The result being the Tanners all laughing about their personal inadequacies and bitter faults, and this is why it was refreshing and invigorating to me. I laughed to myself when the serious painter-brother Kaspar arose from bed one day to decide after years of devoted vocation to his art that he would almost just because give up his love of painting to become a farmer.

I loved the triangle love affair brothers Kaspar and Simon had for the already-married Klara. How sweet and innocent it seemed and fortunate for Klara to be loved so intensely by a connected pair of suitors. The shotgun blasts projected by the much-traveled and disconnected hunter-husband of Klara also were timely in portending the wrong in general deemed by society and certain therefore to damn their love relationship.

I loved the many jobs Simon took in order to make a living and his trying on of these different employments for size, performing all his tasks and obligatory responsibilities to perfection and then up and quitting abruptly without warning, and then relating long and winded reasons why he wasn't suited for the job he did so well. These instances were really something and resulted in myself wishing again and again I had the courage this Simon had for walking away in the spirit of freedom and another chance to smell the roses blooming outside a typical life of nine to five. I remember forty years ago when my 12th grade English teacher told me I needed to work as others did in order to afford the freedom money gave to those of us willing to keep our noses pressed to the ground. I followed her advice and have never been convinced after all these years that her advice was correct or what I needed. I have continually envied artists such as Bob Dylan and Cormac McCarthy who never worked a regular job in their lives and followed their impulses for living a life of the artist. Of course, I was never one who could take from others, or live off their generosity. I had to "earn" my way, which is, and was, a segment of the blue-collar culture I have carried since childhood and learned from my Finnish heritage.

The many walks Simon takes throughout the book are all scrumptiously well-written. Walser makes your body feel, but also the reader must bring his/her own life experiences and point of view to the page in order to get the most of what he is expressing. It helps to be a like-minded soul as well for I doubt many hard-working industrious money-makers could relate to Simon's relative acceptance and relief for being out of steady employment so often and much of the time. But through this beloved Simon character Walser makes me believe in what I myself am doing with the time remaining of my life. It is a bit regular and bowel-like that I write with the consistency I do. Rarely a day goes by when I am not expressing myself with pen, and eager to do so. I feel I have something to say that is worthy of the eyes that happen onto my page. I know today that there are other like-minded individuals throughout the world we live in and there is ample proof allowed by the books they read. It is no wonder that brutally fierce State regimes like to burn books. There is so much power in the word.

Robert Walser is almost dreamlike in his detailing of time in the forest or on the many long walks his Simon takes pleasure in. It is almost as if we are walking with him as he describes the different scenes and who and what he meets throughout his adventure. My own cabin in northern Michigan is surrounded on all sides by the Huron National Forest. What makes this forest different from many others is the combination sugar sand, red and white oak, and several species of conifer, specifically strands of northern, white pine, and jack. The soft and comfortable forest floor is covered often by a sea of elegant ferns and when not carpeted by these beautiful plants there is a soft composting bed of a dry, ten thousand years of plant and bark of the all-fall dead. The forest consists of almost a million acres. The smell is incredible with its mix of pine and sand and rotting wood. The air moves freely through the wide expanse of majestic trunks and elegant limbs like standing hoards of sentinels guarding the rolling land. And my cabin sits in the middle of this all. Our small community nestled within the forest and surrounded by seven inland lakes that add another scent to the scientific formula. When resting comfortably in my outside chair, or supine in my lounge, these smells waft through and I am more than satisfied.

Hedwig, Simon's sister, has her own set of problems as she considers her happiness as a school teacher, the respect given her though she feels oppressed by the daily grind of it all, the number of students she has to deal with, and the route that life has taken her. Her nighttime of regret punishes her so severely that Hedwig decides to leave it all instead for a life in the city as a governess, teaching and taking care of two young children, following her mistress's orders, and in a letter she composes for employment with this family pleading that she deserves the job and that there is no one better than she to perform the duties expected by her hiring. But by morning Hedwig is feeling better. She has slept and feels equipped to handle her days again with the number of children in her tutelage. She is also prepared to find a husband and to marry, becoming his for a lifetime of rearing children, raising crops, and keeping a household together. It could be construed that Hedwig is as troubled as her brother Simon is, but the fact is, she isn't. Fact is, Simon isn't either. It is the judgmental uncourageous public who casts their looks down upon the wayward man who is in search of more life within his living. Almost the entire book deals with his not working a regular job, and if he is working, then what takes place behind these doors and why it is important to seek a life outside, under the sky, away from the masses, and without shame for not measuring up to others expectations.

Robert Walser was not a big, strapping man. He wasn't a smooth operator who could charm the ladies. There wasn't any threat deemed imminent by his behavior as if he was after something or attempting to get untoward, and for example, make his way into a woman's hidden place beneath her underwear as other men most likely are wont to do. And because of this non-threatening character of Walser's it is easy in my opinion to read him. Easier than say an Ernest Hemingway or a more contemporary Jim Harrison for lack of better examples. Robert Walser is a gentle soul and most obviously lacking any agenda or having something to prove. That is not to say that I am not of like-mind as Walser and that I also have a desire more for the company of women than men, but my appearance could prove skeptical to a stranger who might think otherwise of me as I am quite a large man, a strapping and powerfully-built man, and I certainly have want and attitude for hurting others who threaten me and other men like our gentle Walser. Just last night in a fit of boredom I asked our server in an outdoor drinking establishment as to where one might find a good place to engage in an old-fashioned fist fight. The server immediately went from a step away and erect to a more receptive posture for leaning in and smiling, an acceptance now on her face for a man she just might find more to her liking. Her new opening-up to my violent love was not wasted on either my adult son to my right nor my wife sitting across the table next to her sister and brother-in-law. Of course I was only kidding her, but never did I relax my disposition to suggest other than a sincere and almost crazy need for being involved this very evening in some kind of crazy fight.

But Walser too stands up to any and all persons unfairly passing judgment on himself or others. He speaks in long monologues and argues the good and bad points of certain behavior and stereotypical ideas society has proffered on the masses. I love these types of intelligent tirades though at times this character Simon goes off the deep end to become what he admits is a bit silly for the simple reason he feels better afterward and can finally go to sleep. I know how he feels. I do the same thing sometimes. I am no more serious about what I am in a tirade about than when Jesus went fishing. It just feels good to let off some steam and to be absurd. But not everybody appreciates this type of behavior and it can provide for some unpleasant experiences all around. The Tanners all have their own personal struggles and it is interesting to be intimately let in on them. One example being when Simon's sister Hedwig throws him out of her house after his spending three joyous winter months freeloading there, and in his unique point of view, finds his dismissal to have a good side: She said to me that all she felt for me was a faint, insuppressible contempt, but she said that so sweetly I couldn't help but feel it as a caress.

For the naysayers in our midst, the esteemed readers of so much other fiction to be themselves thought of in the highest esteem here because of their thoughtful and intelligent reviews but nonetheless regular discounters of the writings of Robert Walser based on previous books they read such as Selected Stories and Jakob von Gunten, please note that these two books were translated by a man person by the name of Middleton and in no way should the other works by Walser that others of us love such as The Assistant, The Robber, and The Tanners be tarnished because, truth be told, these beloved three gems all were translated by an enormously talented lady by the name of Susan Bernofsky. She is the brightest star in the galaxy of German translations. Enough cannot be said in regards to the talent of Susan Bernofsky. She makes everyone better, reader or writer, male or female, and never disappoints.