Jakob von Gunten

Last updated November 02, 2024

Jakob von Gunten. Ein Tagebuch is a novel by Swiss writer Robert Walser, first published in German in 1909.

Introduction

Jakob von Gunten is a first-person account told by its titular protagonist, a young man of noble background who runs away from home and decides to spend the rest of his life serving others. To this end, he enrolls at the Benjamenta Institute, a school for servants.

Walser based the novel on his own experiences: upon arriving in Berlin in 1905 he attended a school for servants,^[1] and served as a butler the following winter at the castle of Dambrau in Upper Silesia.^[2]

Walser in Jakob von Gunten uses an "ordinary and internalized narrative, turning the novel into what Walser’s translator Christopher Middleton in the novel’s afterword calls, 'an analytic fictional soliloquy'".^[3]

Plot

Jakob von Gunten comes from a well-off family. His father has a car and horse at his disposal and his mother has her own box at the theatre. His brother Johann is a well-known, established artist, who cultivates a bourgeois lifestyle and moves in elite circles. Jakob runs away from home in order to escape the overbearing shadow of his father, an alderman. He joins a school for servants, situated on one floor at the rear of a house in Berlin. The headmaster of the institute is Herr Benjamenta. Due to a lack of teaching staff, the pupils are taught by the headmaster's sister, Lisa Benjamenta. There are in fact more teachers, but they are either absent or said to be fast asleep. The pupils are trained as servants with the aim of securing a job. The teaching predominantly consists of learning-by-heart from one of the institute's brochures with the title "What is the aim of Benjamenta’s School for Boys?" and from the "Rules". The pupils willingly let themselves be treated like children, drilled and pushed hard. A principle of the institute is: "Little, but thoroughly". They are taught how to deal with people in social situations through theory and role-play.

As a new pupil, Jakob is tested by the headmaster. At first he rebels, walks into his office and demands his money back, resenting the poor quality of the education. But then he acquiesces and ends his attempts at revolution. Jakob later gets mixed up in a fight and receives a hit to the head from the headmaster who does not ascertain who was initially responsible. Jakob does not feel inferior. On the contrary, he has ample self-confidence and considers himself the brightest among his classmates. Jakob considers himself conceited and arrogant. His pride is slightly injured and Jakob presumes that he is being dumbed down by the institute. He knows in any case that he is being made to look small.

The headmaster confesses to Jakob that he has a fondness for him which he can no longer control. He perceives something special in Jakob. The headmaster has no explanation for this. Jakob is also surprised, but knows how to act around superiors. He wisely says nothing in reply – even when the headmaster confesses his love for him. When Jakob is supposed to become the friend and confidant of the headmaster the pupil is hesitant. Jakob does not get a job through the headmaster because the headmaster, already over 40, loves someone for the first time and doesn't want to let him go. But then Jakob becomes afraid; the headmaster wants to choke him. Later, however, the headmaster wants to kiss Jakob. Outraged, the splendid young boy refuses.

Frau Benjamenta tells Jakob she is going to die. Herr Benjamenta and Jakob sit in vigil over her dead body before she is taken away. The school has been failing for a long time, with a falling intake of pupils. Jakob agrees to pack up and go travelling with Herr Benjamenta.

Reception

Nobel Prize laureate John Maxwell Coetzee originally published his review—a reappreciation of an almost forgotten classic—in The New York Review of Books Vol.47, No.17 (2 November 2000). It was later reprinted in his Inner Workings: Literary Essays, 2000-2005 .^[4]

Editions

The first edition of the German original was published in Berlin in 1909 by Bruno Cassirer.
Jakob von Gunten, translated from the German and with an Introduction by Christopher Middleton (originally published in 1969, since then reprinted in NYRB Classics, 1999) ( ISBN 978-0940322219).
Today the novel is available in a number of editions, most notably by Suhrkamp Verlag. In 2008, the Süddeutsche Zeitung chose Jakob von Gunten as one of 100 "great novels of the 20th century" (a selection which includes translations from other languages) and published a special edition.^[5]

Film adaptations

A 1971 German television movie, Jakob von Gunten, was directed by Peter Lilienthal.
In 1995, the novel was adapted into the film Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life by the Brothers Quay, starring Mark Rylance as Jakob von Gunten.

External links

Related Research Articles

Hans Magnus Enzensberger was a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Andreas Thalmayr, Elisabeth Ambras, Linda Quilt and Giorgio Pellizzi. Enzensberger was regarded as one of the literary founding figures of the Federal Republic of Germany and wrote more than 70 books, with works translated into 40 languages. He was one of the leading authors in Group 47, and influenced the 1968 West German student movement. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize and the Pour le Mérite, among many others.

Martin Johannes Walser was a German writer, especially known as a novelist. He began his career as journalist for Süddeutscher Rundfunk, where he wrote and directed audio plays. He was part of Group 47 from 1953.

Robert Walser was a German language Swiss writer. He additionally worked as a copyist, an inventor's assistant, a butler, and in various other low-paying trades. Despite marginal early success in his literary career, the popularity of his work gradually diminished over the second and third decades of the 20th century, making it increasingly difficult for him to support himself through writing. He eventually had a nervous breakdown and spent the remainder of his life in sanatoriums.

Robert Menasse is an Austrian writer.

Peter Lilienthal was a German film director, writer, actor and producer. He is most associated with being a liberal director of New German Cinema in the 1970s.

Adolf Muschg is a Swiss writer and professor of literature. Muschg was a member of the Gruppe Olten.

Herbert Achternbusch was a German film director, writer and painter. He began as a writer of avant-garde prose, such as the novel Die Alexanderschlacht, before turning to low-budget films. He had a love-hate relationship with Bavaria which showed itself in his work. Some of his controversial films, such as Das Gespenst, were presented at the Berlinale festival.

Christoph Hein is a German author and translator. He grew up in the village Bad Düben near Leipzig. Being a clergyman's son and thus not allowed to attend the Erweiterte Oberschule in the GDR, he received secondary education at a gymnasium in the western part of Berlin. After his Abitur he jobbed inter alia as assembler, bookseller and assistant director. From 1967 to 1971 Hein studied philosophy in Leipzig and Berlin. Upon graduation, he became a dramatic adviser at the Volksbühne in Berlin, where he worked as a resident writer from 1974. Since 1979 Hein has worked as a freelance writer.

Hans-Ulrich Treichel is a Germanist, novelist and poet. His earliest published books were collections of poetry, but prose writing has become a larger part of his output since the critical and commercial success of his first novel Der Verlorene. Treichel has also worked as an opera librettist, most prominently in collaboration with the composer Hans Werner Henze.

Hermann Robert Richard Eugen Kasack was a German writer. He is best known for his novel Die Stadt hinter dem Strom. Kasack was a pioneer of using the medium broadcast for literature. He published radio plays also under the pen names Hermann Wilhelm and Hermann Merten.

Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life is a 1995 drama film by the brothers Quay in their directorial debut. Based on Robert Walser's novel Jakob von Gunten, the film stars Mark Rylance, Alice Krige and Gottfried John.

Der Kanon or more precisely Marcel-Reich-Ranickis Kanon is a large anthology of exemplary works of German literature. Edited by the literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki (1920–2013), he called the anthology, announced on 18 June 2001 in the German news magazine Der Spiegel under the title "The Canon of worthwhile German Works", his magnum opus. The five parts appeared from 2002 to 2006 published by Insel Verlag: 1. Novels (2002), 2. Tales/Stories (2003), 3. Dramatic Works (2004), 4. Poetry (2005), and 5. Essays (2006). As expected, the anthology met with opposition and criticism, and even the idea of an anthology was questioned, but Reich-Ranicki called this questioning "incomprehensible, because the lack of a canon would mean relapse into barbarism. Reich-Ranicki sought to differentiate his anthology from previous compilations in his hope to imagine a "reader judge" such as teachers, students, librarians, who would need to draw from this canon because they were in the "first line of those who deal with literature professionally."

Carl Seelig was a German-Swiss writer and patron. He was best known as a friend, promoter and guardian of Robert Walser and the first biographer of Albert Einstein.

Fritz Joachim Raddatz was a German feuilletonist, essayist, biographer, journalist and romancier.

Sibylle Lewitscharoff was a German author. She first wrote in her spare time as a bookkeeper, quitting after her first novel, Pong, appeared in 1998. Pong was successful with critics and the public, earning her the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. It was followed by Consummatus (2006), Apostoloff (2009) and Blumenberg (2011). She received several German literary awards, including the Georg Büchner Prize in 2013, for "[re-exploring] the boundaries of what we consider our daily reality with an inexhaustible energy of observation, narrative fantasy and linguistic inventiveness.".

Clemens J. Setz is an Austrian writer and translator.

Johann Jakob Fugger or Hans Jakob Fugger was a German banker and patron of the arts and sciences from the von der Lilie line of the noted Fugger banking family.

Norbert Gstrein is an Austrian writer. He was born in Mils in Tyrol, the son of the hotelier and ski school director Norbert Gstrein (1931–1988) and Maria Gstrein, née Thurner. He grews up with his five siblings in Vent and attended the secondary school from 1971 to 1979 in Imst. From 1979 to 1984, Gstrein studied mathematics in Innsbruck, Stanford and Erlangen. He not completed his PhD in 1988 at the University of Innsbruck, under the supervision of Roman Liedl and Gerhard Frey.

Ilma Rakusa is a Swiss writer and translator. She translates French, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Hungarian into German.

Robert Schindel is an Austrian lyricist, director and author.

References

↑ Mächler, Robert (1976). Das Leben Robert Walsers. Eine dokumentarische Biographie (in German). Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. p. 82. ISBN 3-518-06821-0.
↑ Mächler, Robert (1976). Das Leben Robert Walsers. Eine dokumentarische Biographie (in German). Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. p. 215. ISBN 3-518-06821-0.
↑ Ahmadian, M. and Hanif, M. (November 2018). "An Existential Crisis: the Significance of the Opening and Concluding Passages of Robert Walser's Jakob Von Gunten". Forum for World Literature Studies. 10 (3): 463–472.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ Coetzee, J. M. (2 November 2000). "The Genius of Robert Walser". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 29 May 2016.{{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Bibliothek

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Mächler, Robert (1976). Das Leben Robert Walsers. Eine dokumentarische Biographie (in German). Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. p. 82. ISBN 3-518-06821-0.

[2] Mächler, Robert (1976). Das Leben Robert Walsers. Eine dokumentarische Biographie (in German). Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. p. 215. ISBN 3-518-06821-0.

[3] Ahmadian, M. and Hanif, M. (November 2018). "An Existential Crisis: the Significance of the Opening and Concluding Passages of Robert Walser's Jakob Von Gunten". Forum for World Literature Studies. 10 (3): 463–472.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[4] Coetzee, J. M. (2 November 2000). "The Genius of Robert Walser". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 29 May 2016.{{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)

[5] Süddeutsche Zeitung: Bibliothek

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]