SOURCE: Spycher, Peter. Review of Meßmers Gedanken, by Martin Walser. World Literature Today 59, no. 4 (autumn 1985): 587.

In the following review, Spycher focuses on the identity of the narrator-protagonist of Meßmers Gedanken, noting the individual's relationship to the narrative.

As the title [Meßmers Gedanken] indicates, we are offered a (three-part) collection of aphoristically and often poetically expressed thoughts by a man named Tassilo Herbert Meßmer. Meßmer himself and a “narrator” have taken irregular turns in noting them down. The narrator's identity remains totally unknown, Meßmer's almost totally. Their mutual relationship is not explained; the narrator may be the editor. Meßmer claims to be an “optician” but would prefer to be a carrier of far-reaching messages; he must be a real or a would-be poet. He is also a traveler (the USA, Ireland, West Germany, Switzerland are fleetingly mentioned). From his fifty-fourth to his...