Thomas Bernhard

[sixsmith]

I've recently read The Loser (Der Untergeher) and Correction (Korrektur). I won't wax lyrical about Bernhard's digressive, obdurate style, nor the exceedingly bleak (though possibly redemptive) picture of humanity that it paints. I'll simply ask whether anyone has read Bernhard and, if so, what they think of his work.

[Panglossian]

I've read Correction, The Loser, and Yes by Bernhard. I found them intense reads. He has a unique writing style. No doubt about it. His narrators were similar in all three books. Paranoid, relentless, rambling, disillusioned, uneasy, etc. What Bernhard captures brilliantly is how people actually think when they are deeply troubled by a problem (or by life in general). They talk to themselves, repeating over and over what's on their mind, what's worrying them. In this sense I'd say Bernhard is a *realist* writer and also an honest one.

[Gregory Samsa]

I have just read "Wittgenstein's Nephew" and it was absolutely brilliant. The power of Bernhard's repetitive, passionate, hard-driving prose is wonderful and the book is both moving and funny.