SOURCE: A foreword to "Masquerade " and Other Stories, translated by Susan Bernofsky, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990, pp. ix-xix.

Gass is an American fiction writer and critic. Widely praised for the virtuosity of his prose style, he is among the most conspicuous modern proponents of the view that literature's sole meaning lies in the aesthetic forms an author creates with language. In the following foreword to "Masquerade" and Other Stories, Gass gives an overview of Walser's life and attempts to describe the philosophy behind Walser's thinking and his writing, commenting that Walser was a "columnist before the time of columns. "

They found Robert Walser's body in the middle of a snowy field. It was Christmas Day, so the timing of his death was perhaps excessively symbolic. I like to think the field he fell in was as smoothly white as writing paper. There his figure, hand held to...