Michael Hofmann on Thomas Bernhard: Missing the Point

I was disappointed in Hofmann’s article on Bernhard, Reger Said, in the LRB, not only because it neglects the most important aspects of Bernhard’s work, but also because it seems to confirm so many preconceptions ...

Bernhard on Heidegger

And speaking of Heidegger, here is the much less subtle Thomas Bernhard on him, from the always amusing Old Masters: I always visualize him sitting on his wooden bench outside his Black Forest house, alongside ...

John Williams: Augustus

Williams wrote the serious, affecting academic novel Stoner before he wrote this (mostly) epistolary novel about Augustus Caesar. Despite Williams’ protestations that both novels are concerned with power, the poor academic Stoner had no power ...

David B.: Two Stories

Thomas Bernhard: Extinction

2.1.2 Mme Swann at Home: Bloch and Marcel

The section roughly from page 592 to page 654 elaborates on and ties together most of what has gone before. It’s the most concentrated, the most focused, and the best writing in the book so ...

“Walking”, Thomas Bernhard