---
product_id: 207027708
title: "The Assistant (New Directions Paperbook)"
brand: "robert walsersusan bernofsky"
price: "$148482"
currency: COP
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 7
url: https://www.desertcart.co/products/207027708-the-assistant-new-directions-paperbook
store_origin: CO
region: Colombia
---

# The Assistant (New Directions Paperbook)

**Brand:** robert walsersusan bernofsky
**Price:** $148482
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The Assistant (New Directions Paperbook) by robert walsersusan bernofsky
- **How much does it cost?** $148482 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co](https://www.desertcart.co/products/207027708-the-assistant-new-directions-paperbook)

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- robert walsersusan bernofsky enthusiasts

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## Description

The Assistant (New Directions Paperbook)

## Images

![The Assistant (New Directions Paperbook) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51E-I4LNDlL.jpg)
![The Assistant (New Directions Paperbook) - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41hkxJRRSGL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    "Curse those bacon-and-sausage eaters!"
  

*by D***H on Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2007*

Joseph Marti, a young man between jobs, gains the position of Assistant at the villa and workplace of Carl Tobler, a struggling and possibly-cockamamie inventor.  Despite Tobler's unpromising professional struggle and his lack of investors, he puts no brakes on his expensive joie de vivre.  Joseph ends up smoking cheroots, sending away creditors, taking hilarious dictations, alternately entertaining and vexing Tobler's wife, and enjoying the Tobler's bountiful lunches and dinners:"Sit down.  Wherever you like, it doesn't matter.  And eat until you've had your fill.  Here's the bread.  Cut yourself as much as you'd like.  There's no need to hold back.  Go ahead and pour yourself several cups--there's plenty of coffee.  And here is butter.  The butter, as you see, is here to be eaten.  And here's some jam, should you happen to be a jam-lover.  Would you like some fried potatoes as well?"Hospitality is practically stuffed in Joseph's face, though he refuses to believe that he ever earns it.  A good stuffing of hospitality at the dinner table is a recurring theme in Walser's work.The Tobler family slides into dispossession.  Walser captures the impendingness of the situation by describing the characters and their interactions over the course of about a year.  A letter from Tobler's mother coldly punctuates the end of the story with a vicious moral, though that isn't the end of the book.What shines to me isn't the plot (does anyone read for plot?) but the details of Joseph's inner turmoil, its occasional outlets, plus the THEATRICAL MOOD SWINGS OF TOBLER, and Walser's unbelievably fresh and insightful descriptions of simple events like going for a swim in a lake or waking up in bed on a Sunday morning.  His pre-kafkaesque description of a credit auditor's lurking around the villa is a classic passage here, too.  (It rivals or surpasses the supernatural domestic fantasy of Marquez's Solitude and the bureacratic goons of Kafka, and pre-dates both of them).The sudden appearance of a military prison episode forms one of Walser's best and only ensemble scenes.  ("Slap the Ham")Joseph is the usual Walserian hero:  he's timid, he's doubtful of his own importance and abilities, he privately rags on himself out loud in high-style, yet he will burst out with an impudent speech to his masters.  I still don't fully understand whether these impassioned officially-worded outbursts are a piece of comedy, a projection of Walser's mental state, or have some basis in the reality of actual conversations in Switzerland/Germany in the 1900's.If you're new to Walser I recommend Jakob Von Gunten, his most accessible and probably famous work, which is made so breezy by its young schoolboy narrator.  Everyone should start there.  If you're not new to Walser then you'll obviously want this book, there's nothing to say so I've done you no favors, unless you are a stick in the mud.Did I forget to say this is an extremely enjoyable book?

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Would be even better shorter
  

*by S***S on Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2016*

Nyreview has been reissuing some deserving novels and this one has many good passages and virtues. Still you do have to plod through a lot of description of nature which while relevant to the protagonist's state of mind coulld be cut drastically, making room for ome other kinds of insight into a shallow picture of him. There are so many really wonderful neglected novels and unread classics that I would hesitate to ask someone to spend much time on a rather more mediocre example.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    An Extraordinary Book
  

*by A***R on Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2010*

I haven't read anything like Walser's writing before and was engrossed completely from the first pages. This is one of those rare books in which honesty doesn't come at the expense of beauty, nor beauty at the expense of honesty. It was a great pleasure to be in the company of this novel's narrator, a "peculiar" character by his own description, but peculiar in the best sense of the word. He has made me see the world, ordinary life, nature, the complexities of the human mind and heart in an entirely new light.  I can't recommend this book highly enough.

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*Product available on Desertcart Colombia*
*Store origin: CO*
*Last updated: 2026-01-25*