Man is so abysmally stupid that he continually attacks his saviors in the most loudmouthed and utterly unthinking manner, encouraged of course by the politicians and the politically controlled press.
This quotation from Concrete is actually referencing how modern medication is so often reviled when it in most instances heals and prolongs life. But it can certainly apply metaphorically to the inexplicable tendency of the population to support people and ideas which are actually against their best interests.
Locally in Austria Thomas Bernhard was called a Nestbeschmutzer: one who be-fowls his own nest or, in a different version, one who shits where he sleeps. Internationally, Thomas Bernhard is considered one of the most significant writers since WWII.
Thomas Bernhard spent most of his life under the cloud of tuberculosis and was always acutely aware that his life was fragile. I wonder what he would have said about the anti-vaxxers or the Fascist regime currently destroying America?
If you haven’t read Bernhard, please add him to your short-term reading list. I believe all of his titles have been translated from the German and are readily available.
The following is taken from the Wikipedia bibliography:
Novels
- Frost (1963), translated by Michael Hofmann (2006)
- Gargoyles (Verstörung, 1967), translated by Richard and Clara Winston (1970)
- The Lime Works (Das Kalkwerk, 1970), translated by Sophie Wilkins (1973)
- Correction (Korrektur, 1975), translated by Sophie Wilkins (1979)
- Yes (Ja, 1978), translated by Ewald Osers (1991)
- The Cheap-Eaters (Die Billigesser, 1980), translated by Ewald Osers (1990)
- Concrete (Beton, 1982), translated by David McLintock (1984)
- Wittgenstein’s Nephew (Wittgensteins Neffe, 1982), translated by David McLintock (1988)
- The Loser (Der Untergeher, 1983), translated by Jack Dawson (1991)
- Woodcutters (Holzfällen: Eine Erregung, 1984), translated by Ewald Osers (1985) and as Woodcutters, by David McLintock (1988)
- Old Masters: A Comedy (Alte Meister. Komödie, 1985), translated by Ewald Osers (1989)
- Extinction (Auslöschung, 1986), translated by David McLintock (1995)
- On the Mountain (In der Höhe, written 1959, published 1989), translated by Russell Stockman (1991)
Novellas
- Amras (1964)
- Playing Watten (Watten, 1964)
- Walking (Gehen, 1971)
- Collected as Three Novellas (2003), translated by Peter Jansen and Kenneth J. Northcott
Plays
- The Force of Habit (1974)
- Immanuel Kant (1978); a comedy, no known translation to English, first performed on 15 April 1978, directed by Claus Peymann at the Staatstheater Stuttgart.
- The President and Eve of Retirement (1982): Originally published as Der Präsident (1975) and Vor dem Ruhestand. Eine Komödie von deutscher Seele (1979), translated by Gitta Honegger.
- Destination (1981), originally titled Am Ziel.
- Histrionics: Three Plays (1990): Collects A Party for Boris (Ein Fest für Boris, 1968), Ritter, Dene, Voss (1984) and Histrionics (Der Theatermacher, 1984), translated by Peter Jansen and Kenneth Northcott.[13]
- Heldenplatz (1988)
- Over All the Mountain Tops (2004): Originally published as Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh (1981), translated by Michael Mitchell.
- The World-fixer (2005)
I started reading Elfriede Jelinek’s novel, Greed, and almost immediately was confused. The indirect narration by shifting narrators is hard to follow and in this novel there is very little direct exposition: everything is cloaked by the opinions of the narrator and even (fiction wise) by occasional authorial interjection. Two things helped me out: first I related the novel to novels by Robert Pinget whom I had already struggled with and conquered to some extent (also authors such as Joseph McElroy and Samuel Beckett); second, I read the publisher’s blurb on the novel and it gave me just enough of an insight into the narrative so as to keep me reading in the right spirit.
A Celebration of Reading 