After the tightly constructed Ehen in Philippsburg and the amorphous, arbitrary Halbzeit, Das Einhorn comes as a happy combination of freedom and self-control. (p. 54)

Walser's "Unicorn" can be seen as a challenge to the Proustian attempt to regain the past through recollection: a dismal way to have again what was lost, Anselm Kristlein, the hero, muses in mockery of himself. Memory is the electricity of the brain, it is accidental, it is—nothing.

Anselm Kristlein, whom some readers will remember as the traveling salesman of "Half-Time," is lying in bed and remembering. This is what the book is about. What happens then—and a great deal does happen—must always be referred back to Anselm Kristlein in bed: a bedtime story, if you like….

The story originates from the commission by a Swiss lady publisher to aspiring-writer Kristlein to delineate precisely the act of love, and so rescue...