"Uncertainty is in the nature of man, as well as his despair" (TB)
The Austrian Thomas Bernhard is one of the luminaries of world literature of the last century. For numerous thinkers and nurtured written words, Bernhard is - along with Thomas Mann and Heinrich Bell - the greatest writer of the German-speaking world.
The density of his sentences is permeated with force. It is followed by pain and bitterness. Monolithicity is a feature of every Bernhard reading. And meaningful, varying repetitions. Talent on multiple levels up to genius in "The Loser" (the names of his novels are cited below): the pianist tries to "infuse" himself into the art itself, specifically into Stanway in the sense of total dedication to the instrument, identification, monomania. Correctional home, hospital, sanatorium, is one of the directions of Bernhard's life. Humiliation and misunderstanding, difficult family past. It is followed by grief for the mother's closeness and closeness. He adores his maternal grandfather and Hedvig Stavjanisek, his protector and "the love of his life". She has a relatively narrow circle of friends.
"Erasing, disintegration": fabrications and dosed "clearing up" of personal legacy, "remaking the past" that sound more convincing than the truth. And the whole of her seems to be gone, she disappeared in "Cutting the Forest", on the pages of "Wittgenstein's Cousin". And he settled there. Through its pages, human wanderings, the urge to "Walk" in circles, not being found and dying, and isolation are unsettlingly felt. "My awards", scandals. Bernhard's open abhorrence of National Socialism and Catholicism, whose circle he belonged to for a while.
Fragile lungs that seek out and embrace especially Spain (Palma de Mallorca, Madrid), then Portugal, then coastal Yugoslavia, Italy, especially Sicily. He often says publicly and in his books that he despises Vienna, especially Salzburg. The contradictions of faces and events become magical harmony with the magic of his pen. Pieces that reveal the whole only at the end. Poetry and plays grow into "Frost", into stable solid marble, into his "Concrete". Illness and nothingness are the main motifs, one would say the essence of his work. "Illness is the shortest way to return to oneself" (from "Disorder").
From time to time, he is occupied by journalism, theater and operas. Gifted and undisciplined, with a melodious voice; passion for music is evident in his novels ("Gubitnik"). It delights and hypnotizes readers with its literary audacity and openness, the strict, flawless beauty of the narrative. Sarcastic and unpredictable, he knew how to both make people laugh and make them angry, having fun both at his own expense and at the expense of others. Often irritating and unscrupulous, unrestrained in polemics. He spared no one, not even himself, until exhaustion. A thunderous condemnation of hypocrisy and corruption. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that love and eroticism are suppressed, in the background of his literature. Perhaps he was afraid of them, preserving in himself the ingredients of a kind of emotional innocence, that hidden corner of his personality.
As a rule, you either leave Bernhard's books as incomprehensible, tiring and boring after reading a few pages - or simply "voraciously devour" them from cover to cover. He has a kind of sense of humor and a wonderfully surreal twist on things. Bernhard's icy indifference and peace in describing tragic external events and depraved people, internal fractures and abnormality, maladjustment ("Disorder") - are shocking.
All in all, his work is impressively original: "Amras", "Vaten". The "limestone" of humanity. "Correction" of yesterday and everyday. Bans, the long-term condemnation of his actions in the homeland.
He was hard hit by the departure of his Hedda into eternal memories. And "Ghetto on death" exposes human nature "down to the bone". The "Old Masters" fascinate us, as do the "Voice Imitators". By the way, Bernhard is impossible to copy. Some try to follow him in a surrogate form, by no means in the luxury and quintessence of insight. Not even in the layers of thought and intoxicating chaos.
His autobiographical writings are apparently scattered and without order. From "Cause" to "Child", through "Basement", to the two central, particularly indicative ones - "Breath" and "Coldness". And as if the occasional lack of the first of them clearly corresponds with the abundance of the second. He is characterized by an obsession with the end of life, at an early age and with suicide. "Death always thinks of him," not he of her (according to his biographer Miguel Saenz). It approaches him in stages, to catch up with him in 1989.
Some claim that he read relatively little and superficially (?), mostly "just leafed through" and yet wrote a lot, even with what he barely knew (!). And again, it leaves a strong impression that it sovereignly rules not only literature, music and dramaturgy, but also philosophy and psychology, and even sociology, and partially also medicine and architecture. It must have been a huge imagination and intelligence, a vast inner world that was largely out of harmony with reality, dry documents and bureaucratic data. Maestro Tomas made something out of nothing, and something even bigger, more grotesque!
Darkness, upside-down logic, incoherence and desperation are the characteristics of a number of his heroes (for example, in "Mraz") - not the heroines, who in any case are significantly represented in the minority in his works. Was Bernhard really a hater, an eccentric, or did he deliberately present himself as such in his writings, and tô very vividly? Was he mentally unstable or did he magnificently translate his own unserial lucidity into brilliant literature? If he had not been so different from the others, his oeuvre probably would not have been so fascinating and eternally valuable, capitally significant.
In the end, does Bernhard, mostly with his virtuoso prose, communicate to us the authentic secrets of the shell of the soul and psyche, the causes of the problematic behavior of the vast majority of people? Worrying, sobering assessments and observations, feelings that we are regularly ashamed of, we bury them. Does aimless "digging" in itself further and definitively bury us, without return? While the huge gap with reality is growing. Bernhard mercilessly demystifies the so-called civilized society and the Austrian state, the ruling morality and religion of that time: destructive, destructive in terms of what he writes about, in contrast to the cohesion and harmony of the author's style and the literary product he presents to the readers.
Finally, is all that tragically happening to us in recent weeks, months and years on a global and national level "Bernhard's prophecy" of general delirium, schizophrenia, dehumanization, mutual misunderstanding, insanity? Panics, unacceptable passivity and stupidity. The absence of a clear vision and objectivity, a serious lack of composure, intelligence, memory and strength, as well as a minimum of agreement to save both man and the world from chaos, anomie, from total ruin. From the absolute and permanent loss of identity and integrity. And the medicine is not somewhere out there, but inside us.
And "only those who are independent in spirit walk quite casually". (TB)
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