The Turin Horse

BERNHARD: Because everything’s in ruins. Everything’s been degraded, but I could say that they’ve ruined and degraded everything. Because this is not some kind of cataclysm, coming about with so-called innocent human aid. On the ...

Pile of Shit Reviews Profound Philosophical Rhapsody: Lars Iyer’s Spurious

I reviewed Lars Iyer’s Spurious for the Quarterly Conversation. Blogger reviews blogger. I wrote this review during a break from a longer, far more exhausting project, so I took the opportunity to kick back and ...

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 ...

Michael Haneke: The White Ribbon

I do not have to pay $3.50 to find out what it feels like to be a Jew.      George S. Kaufman on Gentleman’s Agreement I do not like Michael Haneke. I do not like his ...

John Williams: Butcher’s Crossing

Butcher’s Crossing is the most flawed, the most peculiar, and the most exuberant of Williams’ three mature novels (he disowned a first novel, which I have not read). Unlike the near-perfect tenors of the academic ...

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 ...

Thomas Bernhard: Extinction