Thomas Bernhard, página 2 de 10

Old Masters (1985) is Thomas Bernhard's devilishly funny story about the friendship between two old men. For over thirty years Reger, a music critic, has sat on the same bench in front of a Tintoretto painting in a Viennese museum, thinking and railing against contemporary society, his fellow men, artists, the weather, even the state of public lavatories. His friend Atzbacher has been summoned to meet him, and through his eyes we learn more about Reger - the tragic death of his wife, his thoughts of suicide and, eventually, the true purpose of their appointment. At once pessimistic and exuberant, rancorous and hilarious, Old Masters is a richly satirical portrait of culture, genius, nationhood, class, the value of art and the pretensions of humanity.

Al soterrani hi venien les dones, fins i tot quan no havien de comprar res, sense ni la més mínima intenció de comprar, sempre venien, gairebé totes, en qualsevol moment, per pusil·lanimitat, només per poder intercanviar un parell de paraules; es veia clar nomes amb la seva aparicio a les escales de formigo i completament clar quan baixaven al soterrani i entraven, que havien fugit de les seves cases horroroses per assossegar-se, per tenir una possibilitat de viure. El soterrani era per a moltes daquestes persones de la barriada, moltes vegades, lunica i darrera salvacio. Moltes havien convertit en un habit la visita al soterrani i hi apareixien diariament, no per pobresa entraven eventualment, diverses vegades al dia, al soterrani per comprar una insignificança, per exemple cinquanta grams de mantega, sino perque daquesta manera tenien la possibilitat de baixar al soterrani a petits intervals essencials, aixi ho semblava, per a la seva vida, descapar-se del seu entorn en molts casos mortal. La confusio amb que baixaven al soterrani era per a elles una prova dinnocencia.

La obra de Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) es sin duda una de las empresas creadoras más audaces, originales y valiosas de la literatura alemana del siglo xx. Buena muestra de esta afirmación son los seis Relatos que, seleccionados por Miguel Saenz, ofrecen en este volumen un amplio panorama de su periodo creativo mas fecundo. La obsesion, la locura, el crimen, la descomposicion en suma, bien sea de mentes, de existencias o legados en esa Austria ya rural, ya urbana, pero siempre alucinada y tenebrosa, tan denostada por el autor, son el sustrato plenamente bernhardiano de las seis piezas maestras que integran el libro.

Roithamer, a character based on Wittgenstein, has committed suicide having been driven to madness by his own frightening powers of pure thought. We witness the gradual breakdown of a genius ceaselessly compelled to correct and refine his perceptions until the only logical conclusion is the negation of his own soul.

LRB BOOKSHOPS AUTHOR OF THE MONTH ONE OF THE GUARDIANS BEST BOOKS OF 2019WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY MICHAEL HOFMANNIf you havent read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce ... My advice: dive in. Lucy EllmannI absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers ... A must read for everybody. Karl Ove KnausgaardInstead of the book he is meant to write, Rudolph, a Viennese musicologist, produces this dark and grotesquely funny account of small woes writ large, of profound horrors detailed and rehearsed to the point of distraction. We learn of Rudolphs sister, whose help he invites then reviles; his really marvellous house which he hates; the suspicious illness he carefully nurses; his ten-year-long attempt to write the perfect opening sentence; and his escape to the island of Majorca, which turns out to be the site of someone elses very real horror story, and ultimately brings him no release from himself.Concrete is Thomas Bernhard at his very finest: a bleakly hilarious insight into procrastination and failure that scratches the murky depths of our souls.

Thomas Bernhard, one of the most distinct, celebrated, and perverse of 20th century writers, took his own life in 1989. Perhaps the greatest Austrian writer of the 20th century, Bernhards vision in novels like Cutting Timber was relentlessly bleak and comically nihilistic. His prose is torrential and his stlye unmistakable. Bernhard is the missing link between Kafka, Beckett, Michel Houellebecq and Lars von Trier; without Bernhard the literature of alienation and self-contempt would be bereft of its great practitioner. Cutting Timber:An Irritation is widely recognised as his masterpiece. Over the course of a few hours, following a performance of Ibsens The Wild Duck, we are in the company of the Auersbergers, and our narrator, who never once leaves the relative comfort of his wing-backed chair where he sips at a glass of champagne. As they anticpate the arrival of the star actor, and the commencement of dinner, the narrator of Cutting Timber dismantles the hollow pretentiousness at the heart of the Austrian bourgeoisie. The effect is devastating; the horror only redeemed by the humour.

LRB BOOKSHOPS AUTHOR OF THE MONTH ONE OF THE GUARDIANS BEST BOOKS OF 2019 WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY BEN LERNER, AUTHOR OF THE TOPEKA SCHOOLIf you havent read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce ... My advice: dive in. Lucy EllmannI absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers ... A must read for everybody. Karl Ove KnausgaardIt is 1967. Two men lie bedridden in separate wings of a Viennese hospital. The narrator, Thomas Bernhard, is stricken with a lung ailment; his friend Paul, nephew of Ludwig Wittgenstein, is suffering from one of his periodic bouts of madness. As their friendship quickens, these two eccentric men discover in each other an antidote to their feelings of despair on the unexpected strength of what they share - a spiritual symmetry forged by their love of music, black humour, disgust for bourgeois Vienna, and fear of mortality. A restless blend of fiction and memoir, Wittgensteins Nephewis not only a haunting meditation on the artists struggle to maintain a foothold on reality, but an impassioned eulogy to a real-life friendship - newly illuminated by Ben Lerners afterword.

LRB BOOKSHOPS AUTHOR OF THE MONTH ONE OF THE GUARDIANS BEST BOOKS OF 2019WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY GEOFF DYERIf you havent read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce ... My advice: dive in. Lucy EllmannI absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers ... A must read for everybody. Karl Ove KnausgaardFranz-Josef Murau is the intellectual black sheep of a powerful Austrian land-owning family. He now lives in Rome in self-imposed exile, surrounded by a coterie of artistic and intellectual friends. On returning from his sisters wedding on the family estate of Wolfsegg, having resolved never to go home again, Murau receives a telegram informing him of the death of his parents and brother in a car crash. Not only must he now go back, he must do so as the master of Wolfsegg: and he must decide its fate.The summit of Thomas Bernhards artistic genius - mesmerising, addictive, explosively tragicomic - Extinction is a landmark of post-war literature, newly illuminated by Geoff Dyers afterword.

né discrètement en hollande où sa mère va cacher un accouchement hors mariage, thomas bernhard est bientôt recueilli par ses grands-parents qui vivent à vienne. la crise économique des années trente les force à s'établir dans un village aux environs de salzbourg où l'enfant découvre avec ravissement la vie campagnarde. le grand-père, vieil anarchiste, doit aller s'installer à traunstein, en bavière. le jeune thomas se familiarise avec le monde de la petite ville, commence à s'émanciper, fait l'école buissonnière et ses premières escapades à vélo. il découvre aussi le national socialisme et la guerre aérienne. " le monde enchanté de l'enfance " n'est pas celui pourtant du petit thomas. persécuté par ses maîtres, souffrant du complexe de l'immigré et du pauvre, il a plusieurs fois la tentation du suicide, tentation qui plus tard hantera aussi l'adolescent et le jeune homme.

LRB BOOKSHOPS AUTHOR OF THE MONTH ONE OF THE GUARDIANS BEST BOOKS OF 2019 WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY ANNE ENRIGHT, AUTHOR OF THE ACTRESSIf you havent read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce ... My advice: dive in. Lucy EllmannI absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers ... A must read for everybody. Karl Ove KnausgaardAn unnamed writer arrives at an artistic dinner hosted by a composer and his society wife: a couple he once admired, but has now come to detest. They have been brought together by their friend Joanas suicide, but the guest of honour, a famous actor from the Burgtheatre, is late. As the guests await his arrival, little do they know that they are being subjected to the narrators merciless scrutiny from his wing-backed throne, the targets of a tirade of epic, frenzied proportions. When the star actor finally arrives, he ushers in an explosive end to the evening that is impossible to see coming. Originally banned in Thomas Bernhards homeland, Woodcutters brutally exposes the hollow pretentiousness of the Austrian bourgeoisie in an unforgettable firework display of humour and horror.

Con motivo del vigésimo aniversario del fallecimiento de Thomas Bernhard, se reúnen aquí los cinco volúmenes de los escritos autobiográficos cuya publicación se inició con El origen en 1983, seguido de El sotano, El aliento, El frio y Un niño. Desde una furiosa invectiva contra el sistema educativo y, en particular, contra el nacionalismo y el catolicismo, hasta la descripcion de una epoca de horror marcada por el nazismo y la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el lector de estos Relatos autobiograficos descubrira como Bernhard logro concebir y construir una obra que es una exaltacion de la supervivencia. Claro, objetivo, ironico, iconoclasta, sublevandose contra el hecho mismo de estar en el mundo, el autor nos situa aqui ante una pentalogia que muy bien podria calificarse de novela autobiografica: lo que leemos es la descripcion de una vida como invencion de una vida. Asi, Bernhard nos revela en estos relatos como llego a ser el escritor que fue. Durante todos estos años nos hemos preguntado que aspecto tendria lo Nuevo... Aqui esta lo Nuevo (Ingeborg Bachmann, 1969); La autobiografia es la obra mas rica y mas madura de Thomas Bernhard (Marcel Reich-Ranicki, FAZ).NOTAS PARA ISBN:El autor es aleman. El subtitulo es correcto, en la anterior no se puso. La encuadernacion estaba mal. ahora es correcta, es rustica con solapas

Una obra abierta, delicada y vulnerable que parte desde la intimidad.Una obra abierta, delicada y vulnerable que parte desde la intimidad.Anotar, utilizar la falta de consideración hacia todo y, por consiguiente, tambien hacia si mismo: ese podria ser el lema que encabezara este libro, un gran poema en forma de relato. Partiendo de innumerables retazos de pensamiento, observaciones y alusiones, Thomas Bernhard esboza una verificacion del mundo y de si mismo cuyo objetivo es el conocimiento: Me preparo para mi mismo; todo esto no es mas que una preparacion para mi mismo.Entretejidos, hay jirones de un fin de semana en un hostal que el cronista de tribunales visita para encontrarse alli con la señorita. Aparecen otros personajes: el hostelero, el jardinero, el chofer, la cantante, los asilados del vecino manicomio, pero tambien la voz del catedratico, a quien el amor ha precipitado en la infelicidad, o la figura de la judia, a quien atormenta el vecino.Entre esos seres -repelido por ellos, pero atraido tambien, una y otra vez- vive el narrador. Sin embargo, en realidad su unica compañia es su perro, que esta alrededor de el, con el, dentro de el. Sorprende ver con que claridad pueden encontrarse ya casi todos los elementos de la imaginacion de Thomas Bernhard en este libro, escrito antes deHelada. Por añadidura, su autor se muestra abierto, delicado y vulnerable hasta tal punto, que tal vez pudieramos llamarlo su obra mas personal.

comme " l'agent immobilier moritz ", nous sommes, dès les premiers mots, " agressés sans ménagement " par un narrateur véhément, qui ne nous lâchera pas avant de nous avoir dit tout ce qu'il a sur le coeur. dès la première phrase, une interminable tirade hérissée de conjonctions qui se bousculent et d'incidentes emboîtées les unes dans les autres, tout est joué : ou bien nous lâchons prise, ou bien nous reprenons notre élan et nous ne pouvons plus nous arrêter avant la fin. tout, alors, s'éclaire très vite : nous saurons tout sur moritz et sa famille, sur les suisses, nous saurons tout sur le narrateur et nous en saurons encore bien plus sur notre compte. car plus il accumule à plaisir les détails sur son mal, plus sa voix furieuse devient universelle.