Three NovellasUniversity of Chicago Press, 23.06.2003 - 174 Seiten Thomas Bernhard is "one of the masters of contemporary European fiction" (George Steiner); "one of the century's most gifted writers" (New York Newsday); "a virtuoso of rancor and rage" (Bookforum). And although he is favorably compared with Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, and Robert Musil, Thomas Bernhard still remains relatively unknown in America. Uninitiated readers should consider Three Novellas a passport to the absurd, dark, and uncommonly comic world of Bernhard. Two of the three novellas here have never before been published in English, and all of them show an early preoccupation with the themes-illness and madness, isolation, tragic friendships-that would obsess Bernhard throughout his career. Amras, one of his earliest works, tells the story of two brothers, one epileptic, who have survived a family suicide pact and are now living in a ruined tower, struggling with madness, trying either to come fully back to life or finally to die. In Playing Watten, the narrator, a doctor who lost his practice due to morphine abuse, describes a visit paid him by a truck driver who wanted the doctor to return to his habit of playing a game of cards (watten) every Wednesday—a habit that the doctor had interrupted when one of the players killed himself. The last novella, Walking, records the conversations of the narrator and his friend Oehler while they walk, discussing anything that comes to mind but always circling back to their mutual friend Karrer, who has gone irrevocably mad. Perhaps the most overtly philosophical work in Bernhard's highly philosophical oeuvre, Walking provides a penetrating meditation on the impossibility of truly thinking. Three Novellas offers a superb introduction to the fiction of perhaps the greatest unsung hero of twentieth-century literature. Rarely have the words suffocating, intense, and obsessive been meant so positively. |
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Aldrans Amras Bad Hall Bernhard body brain breathe BRIAN EVENSON cemetery commit suicide completely constantly consulting room course Czechoslovakian rejects darkness dead dear sir death doctor epilepsy epileptic's chair everything exist face fact faculty of reason fear Friedensbrücke go and play go into Obenaus go walking going to play gone Göttingen gravel pit hand Herrengasse Hollensteiner Hollensteiner’s HOLLHOF horrible human imagine Innsbruck internist jackdaws Karrer miss Klosterneuburgerstrasse landlord large buckles lensteiner lives longer look mind misfortune nature of things never observe Oehler says Oehler told Scherrer pair of trousers papermaker parents person play watten possible question rotten spruce Rusten Rustenschacher Rustenschacher’s nephew Rustenschacher’s store says Karrer says Oehler schoolmaster shoes Siller simply sitting so-called someone Steinhof suddenly suicide talking tell there’s thin spots thought tion totally tower Traun traveler truck driver says Tyrol Tyrolean unbearable uncle Walter Wednesday whole Wilten woodcutter