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Παλιοί δάσκαλοι: Κωμωδία
Μέσα στο Μουσείο Ιστορίας Τέχνης της Βιέννης, καθισμένος στον καναπέ της αίθουσας Μπορντόνε, απέναντι από τον "Άνθρωπο με τη λευκή γενειάδα" του Τιντορέτο, ο γηραιός μουσικοκριτικός Ρέγκερ περιμένει τον φίλο του Άτσμπαχερ, τον αφηγητή που, έχοντας φτάσει νωρίτερα στο ραντεβού, τον παρατηρεί με την άκρη του ματιού του από τη διπλανή αίθουσα. Αυτό είναι το σημείο από όπου ξεκινά αυτή η κωμωδία (ο Μπέρνχαρντ διαλέγει πάντοτε προσεκτικά τους υποτίτλους του), που δεν είναι άλλη από την κωμωδία της τέχνης, των καλλιτεχνών, των συγγραφέων, των φιλοσόφων, των συνθετών, τους οποίους ο συγγραφέας στέλνει διαδοχικά στην πυρά με μια ενθουσιώδη σκληρότητα. Για να μη μιλήσουμε για την Αυστρία και τους Αυστριακούς, που για μια ακόμη φορά τους εξευτελίζει. Μια κωμωδία γεννημένη από την υπερβολή, μια υπερβολή που κάνει να ξεπετιούνται, όπως ο παλιάτσος από το κουτί, οι αλήθειες που, κατά το επικρατούν πνεύμα, δεν είναι καλό να λέγονται. (Από την παρουσίαση στο οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου)
204 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
128 people are currently reading
5,986 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Bernhard
306books2,274followersThomas Bernhard was an Austrian writer who ranks among the most distinguished German-speaking writers of the second half of the 20th century.
Although internationally he’s most acclaimed because of his novels, he was also a prolific playwright. His characters are often at work on a lifetime and never-ending major project while they deal with themes such as suicide, madness and obsession, and, as Bernhard did, a love-hate relationship with Austria. His prose is tumultuous but sober at the same time, philosophic by turns, with a musical cadence and plenty of black humor.
He started publishing in the year 1963 with the novel Frost. His last published work, appearing in the year 1986, was Extinction. Some of his best-known works include The Loser (about a student’s fictionalized relationship with the pianist Glenn Gould), Wittgenstein’s Nephew, and Woodcutters.
Although internationally he’s most acclaimed because of his novels, he was also a prolific playwright. His characters are often at work on a lifetime and never-ending major project while they deal with themes such as suicide, madness and obsession, and, as Bernhard did, a love-hate relationship with Austria. His prose is tumultuous but sober at the same time, philosophic by turns, with a musical cadence and plenty of black humor.
He started publishing in the year 1963 with the novel Frost. His last published work, appearing in the year 1986, was Extinction. Some of his best-known works include The Loser (about a student’s fictionalized relationship with the pianist Glenn Gould), Wittgenstein’s Nephew, and Woodcutters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 384 reviews
July 20, 2023
Old Masters is an angry and bitter book and it is wildly sarcastic. It is an intelligent and sorrowful contemplation of the modern society.
Man is a dichotomous being. Duplicity is a part of the human nature and everybody may become in some degree a two-faced Janus. The protagonist of Old Masters, Reger is one of a kind�
Every man is an admirer and every man is a hater�
Every man is an altruist and every man is a misanthrope�
Every man is a master and every man is a servant�
Every man is a revolutionary and every man is a reactionary�
Everyone is ruled by one’s mind and one’s heart. Sometimes our emotions and reason are in harmony and sometimes they are in conflict... The older we get the more disappointment we accumulate.
Inertia accrues and we become more and more conservative and hurt.
Man is a dichotomous being. Duplicity is a part of the human nature and everybody may become in some degree a two-faced Janus. The protagonist of Old Masters, Reger is one of a kind�
There were people who said Reger was mad because only a madman could for decades go every other day except Monday to the picture gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but he did not believe that. Herr Reger is a clever, educated man, Irrsigler said.
Every man is an admirer and every man is a hater�
The art historians' trade is the vilest trade there is, and a twaddling art historian, but then there are only twaddling art historians, deserves to be chased out with a whip, chased out of the world of art, Reger said, all art historians deserve to be chased out of the world of art, because art historians are the real wreckers of art and we should not allow art to be wrecked by the art historians who are really art wreckers. Listening to an art historian we feel sick, he said, by listening to an art historian we see the art he is twaddling about being ruined, with the twaddle of the art historian art shrivels and is ruined. Thousands, indeed tens of thousands of art historians wreck art by their twaddle and ruin it, he said. The art historians are the real killers of art, if we listen to an art historian we participate in the wrecking of art, wherever an art historian appears art is wrecked, that is the truth.
Every man is an altruist and every man is a misanthrope�
Even as a child I avoided multitudes, I detested crowds, the accumulation of people, the concentration of vileness and mindlessness and lies. Much as we should love each individual, I believe, so we hate the mass.
Every man is a master and every man is a servant�
And we Austrians have the most cunning and at the same time most brainless politicians as murderers of our country and state, Reger said. Politicians as state murderers are at the head of our state, politicians as state murderers sit in our parliament, he said, that is the truth. Every chancellor and every minister is a state murderer and hence also a national murderer, Reger said, and when one of them departs another arrives, Reger said, when one murderer departs as chancellor, another chancellor arrives as a murderer, when one minister departs as a state murderer another arrives at once.
Every man is a revolutionary and every man is a reactionary�
Fussiness and kitsch, after all, are the two principal characteristics of so-called civilized man, highly stylized as he has become into a single human grotesque over hundreds and thousands of years, he said. Anything human is kitschy, he said, there can be no doubt about that. And so is high art and the highest art.
Everyone is ruled by one’s mind and one’s heart. Sometimes our emotions and reason are in harmony and sometimes they are in conflict... The older we get the more disappointment we accumulate.
Inertia accrues and we become more and more conservative and hurt.
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February 23, 2025
Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum
Old Masters - Thomas Bernhard's 1985 novel written in the form of one unending paragraph spanning 156 pages is a torrent of passion and ideas that will captivate and fascinate readers who enjoy reflections on art and aesthetic experience, on literature, music and the interplay of culture and society.
The opening sentence sets the scene: "Although I had arranged to meet Reger at the Kunsthistorisches Museum at half-past eleven, I arrived at the agreed spot at half-past ten in order, as I had for some time decided to do, to observe him, for once, from the most ideal angle possible and undisturbed, Atzbacher writes." Indeed, the tale revolves around the museum's Bordone Room where Atzbacher, the novel's first-person narrator, reports how his friend Reger, a man in his eighties, has been sitting on a velvet-covered settee in front of Tintoretto's White-Bearded Man every other day except Monday for well over thirty years.
Longtime widower Herr Reger studied music in Leipzig and Vienna and continues to write music reviews for The Times even in his advanced age. Young Atzbacher, in turn, has made a career of art appreciation as well as writing unpublished philosophy essays. Alzbacher slides back and forth in his telling between Reger's obsessive thinking and his own. The more pages I turned, the more Reger reminded me alternately of Hermann Hesse's Harry Haller the Steppenwolf and Alceste the Misanthrope from Molière's famous play. There's good reason why Thomas Bernhard labeled Old Masters a comedy.
Since we are at the magnificent Kunsthistorisches Museum, one of Austria's grand jewels, let's begin with a quote from nineteenth-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer: “Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.� Well, just so happens Schopenhauer is among Reger's favorite thinkers and Reger let many exquisite paintings from the golden age of the old masters speak to him. And what did these revered masterpieces have to say to Reger? As we come to learn, Herr Reger judges these so-called masterpieces as nothing more than a third-rate batch of kitsch created by grossly overvalued bunglers more interested in amassing wealth than anything resembling true art. What!?? Why such an outrageous, harsh pronouncement?
Here's a snippet from Reger's rant that goes on for pages: "The old masters, as they have now been called for centuries, only stand up to superficial viewing; if we view them thoroughly they gradually become diminished, and when we have studied them really and truly, and that means as thoroughly as possible for as long as possible, they dissolve, they crumble for us, leaving a flat taste, in fact most of the time, a very bad taste in our mouths."
And the main culprit responsible for producing such bad art? According to Reger, without question the diabolical prime cause is the state, particularly the Catholic state. In support of his position, Reger says, "Just look at Velazquez, nothing but state art, or Lotto, or Giotto, always only state art, just as that dreadful proto-Nazi and pre-Nazi Dürer, who put nature on his canvas and killed it . . . The so-called old masters only ever served the state or the Church, which comes to the same thing."
And the main tool for making sure the Catholic state snuffs out opposition and gets exactly what it wants? Both Reger and Atzbacher sharpen their critical swords and go on the attack when speaking of schools, art education and teachers. "These teachers teach what this Catholic state is and instructs them to teach: narrow-mindedness and brutality, vileness and meanness, depravity and chaos." Atzbacher draws on his own schoolboy days to recall how he received nothing from these feeble-minded, perverted mediators of the state but their incompetence, dull-wittedness and brainlessness. One of his abiding memories is his fingers swollen from repeated canings administered by a hazel switch. Beginning at an early age, these dullards ruin a youngster's artistic taste and drive out any spark for art.
In the spirit of the novel, I can imagine Reger and Atzbacher requiring all schoolteachers and museum guides wear a large placard around their necks to serve as warning: I'M A DULL, VICIOUS MOUTHPIECE OF THE SOUL-DESTROYING STATE
Reger's slam continues well beyond the visual arts. He is relentless in his attack on literature and one of his fellow countrymen comes in for a particular scalding: Adalbert Stifter - a writer Reger recognizes as nothing more than a philistine blockhead. And the fact Stifler committed suicide alters not one iota his mediocrity and the undeniable fact he was a muddled poopstick capable only of the most cramped verse and constipated prose.
And German-Austrian philosophy. Ha! For Reger, Martin Heidegger expresses a kind of German sausage feeble-mindedness, "the women's philosopher, straight from the scholars' frying pan." This is only the warm up. Reger's Heidegger rant goes on for several pages.
Lets pause and step back. Why all the ranting and raging? As we discover in the second half of the novel, Reger is a broken man, a man racked with intense unending pain since the death of his beloved wife ten years prior. The undeniable, ever-present reality of death is the lens through which Reger has come to view all life and art.
Art has let him down, big time. On two counts. First, he can see painters, art historians, museum-goers, the general public use art as a shield to seal off the reality of death - art as a colossal distraction; art as sublimation and illusion. In Reger's words: “Art altogether is nothing but a survival skill, we should never lose sight of this fact, it is, time and again, just an attempt - an attempt that seems touching even to our intellect - to cope with this world and its revolting aspects, which, as we know, is invariably possible only by resorting to lies and falsehoods, to hypocrisy and self-deception."
Secondly, on a profoundly more personal level, Reger himself has attempted to assuage his suffering over the death of his dear wife by immersing himself even more in music, literature and the arts. Try as he might, the arts have failed him. The reality of death, the suffering and psychic agony he has had to endure for the last ten years have triumphed.
Old Masters was my second Thomas Bernhard; Gargoyles was my first. I can see why the author is considered one of the major voices of postwar Europe. Since I'm especially drawn to novels of the existential variety, I plan to read more Thomas Bernhard.
Austrian author Thomas Bernhard, 1931-1989
May 28, 2019
A book full of anger, philosophy, criticism, humor and emotionality.
Zitate:" wir lieben die Philosophie und die ganze Geisteswissenschaft insgesamt ja nur weil sie absolut hilflos ist. Nur die Bücher lieben wir in Wahrheit, die kein Ganzes, die chaotisch, die hilflos sind. So ist es mit allem und jedem." S 43
"Wie nehmen die Menschen immer wieder in Schutz, weil wir nicht glauben können und auch nicht glauben wollen, daß sie so gemein sein können." S 295
Zitate:" wir lieben die Philosophie und die ganze Geisteswissenschaft insgesamt ja nur weil sie absolut hilflos ist. Nur die Bücher lieben wir in Wahrheit, die kein Ganzes, die chaotisch, die hilflos sind. So ist es mit allem und jedem." S 43
"Wie nehmen die Menschen immer wieder in Schutz, weil wir nicht glauben können und auch nicht glauben wollen, daß sie so gemein sein können." S 295
August 29, 2018
"İnsanlık, tarihi boyunca düşündüğü saçmalıkları söylememiş olsaydı çoktan boğulurdu, uzun süre susan her kişi boğulur, insanlık da uzun süre susamaz, çünkü hemen boğulur."
Sayfa 103
Sayfa 103
February 16, 2017
If I were to start by saying that this book is one very long paragraph most of which consists of an intemperate rant, written in reported speech but without quotation marks, about Austria and the arts more generally, I suspect that would sound like hard work. Despite all of that, this book is quite readable, entertaining and full of interesting perspectives.
Ostensibly this is a tale of a friendship between two old men, and we learn very little about one of them, the narrator Atzbacher, who is mostly content to relate the thoughts of his friend Reger, who has summoned him to Vienna's art history museum. Reger is a recently widowed critic, who writes music reviews for The Times and has been visiting the museum every other day for over thirty years. Reger is disillusioned with almost everything, including the greatest art, music and literature which he is drawn to to escape a culture he founds intolerable, and his dislikes are elucidated at great length. Occasionally Atzbacher speaks for himself, and when this happens the change in narrative perspective is not always immediately apparent.
This was my first experience of Bernhard, and I found it intriguing without feeling I want to explore his world more deeply any time soon.
Ostensibly this is a tale of a friendship between two old men, and we learn very little about one of them, the narrator Atzbacher, who is mostly content to relate the thoughts of his friend Reger, who has summoned him to Vienna's art history museum. Reger is a recently widowed critic, who writes music reviews for The Times and has been visiting the museum every other day for over thirty years. Reger is disillusioned with almost everything, including the greatest art, music and literature which he is drawn to to escape a culture he founds intolerable, and his dislikes are elucidated at great length. Occasionally Atzbacher speaks for himself, and when this happens the change in narrative perspective is not always immediately apparent.
This was my first experience of Bernhard, and I found it intriguing without feeling I want to explore his world more deeply any time soon.
October 7, 2018
Reading Alte Meister Komödie (I read it in English but wanted to check its original, full, title), I felt for quite a while as if I were standing in front of a Merry-Go-Round. The sentences kept turning and turning in front of my eyes � similar phrases that appeared and reappeared appeasing, quenching and enervating me. Echoes of Raymond Queneau’s came to mind, but this was different. Small variations differentiated each turn. Nonetheless while looking at its pages was becoming a game of finding the pulse, the beat, and the rhythm of the text. I ought to correct this, though, for I was not holding a book of bound paper, I was holding a screen, which with its dematerialized form contributed further to my falling into a kind of textual torpor.
But then I woke up when I realized that gradually with each turn of already familiar material, something new had slipped in. The game thus transformed into detecting the new ingredient, the new piece of information that was making the story advance, not circularly but with some still unknown direction. These new elements shone and would each time make me perk up out of my less and less tranquil torpor.
Then, however, my interest dampened when I run into a long diatribe of generalities that appeared like empty balloons that made the overall pessimistic and fatalistic tone of this circular game, resemble too much the speech of cheap politicians. Counteracting the tepid sections were also sparks of humour, of self-parody, that the subtitle “Komödie� underscores. These were much needed to lighten the despondent and acerbic tale. For indeed, rather than a Merry-Go-Round this seemed a Gloomy-Go-Round.
But what finally grasped my attention was when the series of scattered pieces of information began forming a picture in my mind. The tale then acquired a true pathos.
The failure of Art, Love, Loss, Fear, Death and ultimate Liberty � all these concepts took off and the Merry-Go-Round stopped its senseless turning�
March 29, 2013
"I pulled out several drawers and several chests and looked into them and kept taking out pictures and writings and correspondence of my wife and put everything on the table, one item after another, and progressively inspected everything, and because I am an honest person my dear Atzenbach, I have to admit that I wept while doing so. Suddenly I gave my tears free reign, I had not wept for decades and suddenly I gave my tears free reign, Reger said. I sat there, giving my tears free reign, and I wept and wept and wept and wept, Reger said. I had not wept in decades, Reger said to me at the Ambassador. I have no need to conceal anything or to hide anything, he said, with my eighty-two years I have no need to conceal or to hide anything at all, Reger said, and therefore I do not conceal the fact that suddenly I wept and wept again, that I wept again for days, Reger said. I sat there, looking at the letters which my wife had written to me over the years and read the notes she had made over the years and just wept. Of course we get used to a person over the decades and love them for decades and eventually love them more than anything else and cling to them and when we lose them it is truly as if we had lost everything. I have always thought that it was music that meant everything to me, and at times that it was philosophy, or great or greatest or the very greatest writing, or altogether that it was simply art, but none of it, the whole of art or whatever, is nothing compared to that one beloved person. The things we inflict on that one beloved person, Reger said, the thousands and hundreds of thousands of pains we inflicted on this one person whom we loved more than anyone else, the torments we inflicted on that person and yet we loved them more than anyone else, Reger said. When that person whom we loved more than anyone else is dead they leave us with a terribly guilty conscience with which we have to live after that person’s death and which will choke us one day, Reger said. None of those books or writings which I had collected in the course of my life and which I had brought to the Singerstrasse flat to cram full all these shelves were ultimately any use, I had been left alone by my wife and all those books and writings were ridiculous.�
Fuck people who call Bernhard a cold nihilist. This is a great book about love and grief, about the hypocrisy of people (ourselves above all) and the inability of art to save us, about embracing survival and finding liberation in the face of tremendous loss. In the largest sense it is (per the subtitle) a comedy, and it utterly destroyed me.
Fuck people who call Bernhard a cold nihilist. This is a great book about love and grief, about the hypocrisy of people (ourselves above all) and the inability of art to save us, about embracing survival and finding liberation in the face of tremendous loss. In the largest sense it is (per the subtitle) a comedy, and it utterly destroyed me.
April 28, 2023
Avertisment. Nu-mi place Bernhard, deși mulți prozatori spun că au învățat meserie de la el (W. G. Sebald, printre alții). Are un ochi lipsit de bunăvoință, un soi de cinism inocent, vrea să fie antipatic cu tot dinadinsul și, uneori, reușește. Probabil că reușita îl amuza. Afirmă grozăvii fără să clipească. Proza lui explorează, de obicei partea întunecată a lumii. Din păcate, aici, partea este egală cu întregul. N-am mare simpatie pentru cărțile lui. Dar ăsta nu-i un motiv să nu-l citiți.
Cu vinovată întîrziere, scriu o notă care nu se vrea luată prea în serios. Thomas Bernhard (1931 - 1989) descrie un personaj, Reger, critic de artă lipsit de orice indulgenţă, înăcrit de propria-i mediocritate, un individ profund meschin, care priveşte lumea cu ochi reci şi răi. În mod firesc, lumea arată după chipul şi asemănarea celui care o priveşte.
Romanul lui Bernhard nu are nici intrigă şi nici desfăşurare evenimenţială. Este, în fond, monologul egoist, meticulos, necruțător al lui Reger. El inspectează lumea din jur, critic şi lipsit de inocenţă, după o „metodă� strict personală. Care este metoda lui?
O descrie el însuşi, la un moment dat: „Pornesc de la faptul cã perfecţiunea, întregul nu existã nicidecum, şi de fiecare dată cînd am redus la fragment vreuna din aşa-zisele opere de artă perfecte agăţate aici pe perete, căutînd atît pînă ce am găsit la aceastã operă de artă eroarea gravă, punctul decisiv al eşecului artistului, am fãcut un pas mai departe. Şi în fiecare din aceste tablouri, aşa-zise capodopere, am găsit şi deconspirat o eroare gravã, eşecul creatorului său� (p.41).
Dar nu doar arta e privită şi judecată fără milă. Nici filosofia nu are parte de un tratament mai blînd. Luat ca pamflet, portretul lui Martin Heidegger e absolut memorabil. Acest „ridicol filistin naţional-socialist în pantaloni bufanţi� (p.74) a micşorat tot ce e mare şi a exagerat tot ce e mic. A întors pe dos toate banalităţile şi a făcut din truism o specialitate. În treacăt fie zis, dacă întorci pe dos o banalitate obții tot o banalitate, cercul e vicios...
Iată ce crede Reger: „Pe Heidegger nu-l pot vedea altfel decît pe banca de acasă din Pădurea Neagră, alături de soaţa lui, care l-a dominat complet toată viaţa şi care i-a împletit toţi ciorapii şi i-a croşetat toate scufiile şi i-a copt pîinea şi i-a ţesut aşternutul de pat şi i-a cîrpit chiar şi sandalele... Heidegger avea un chip obişnuit, nu unul spiritual, spunea Reger, era un om cu desăvîrşire nespiritual, lipsit de orice fantezie, de orice sensibilitate, un rumegător de filosofie străgerman, o vacă filosofică...� (p.75-76).
Şi încă: Heidegger a fost „filosoful papucilor şi al scufiilor de noapte� (p.77). În metafizica lui ilizibilă, imbecilitatea nemţească şi-a aflat o expresie apoteotică. Heidegger a prins îndeosebi la „femeile crispate�, la „călugăriţele şi surorile medicale zeloase, de regulã fete bătrîne şi nefericite�. Cu aspectul său de „ofiţer rotofei de stat-major ieşit la pensie�, Heidegger rămîne „filosoful favorit al lumii feminine germane�.
În sfîrşit, adaugă maleficul Reger, „cînd mergeţi într-o societate mic-burgheză ori într-una aristocrat-mic-burghezã, vi se serveşte deseori, înainte de aperitiv, Heidegger; nici nu v-aţi scos bine paltonul şi vi s-a şi oferit o bucată de Heidegger; nu v-aţi aşezat bine şi amfitrioana, ca sã zicem aşa, v-a şi adus pe tava de argint, pe lîngă sherry, pe Heidegger. Heidegger este filosofia germană întotdeauna bine gătitã, care poate fi servită pretutindeni şi oricînd, spunea Reger, în orice menaj� (p.77-78).
După acest portret binevoitor, mai aveţi curajul să-l citiţi pe Heidegger?
P. S. Să mai spun că nu sînt un fan al lui Heidegger?
June 27, 2022
It’s possible that some readers might be put off by a novel consisting of one 247-page unbroken block of type, no paragraphs, no quotation marks anywhere, containing the bile-filled rantings of a batty old music critic who is an Olympic gold standard hater of ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. 99.9% of this novel is this guy (Reger) spewing forth his maniacally repetitive rantings on such subjects as Viennese toilets, Austrian schoolteachers, Austrian hygiene (it has been scientifically established that a Viennese uses a piece of soap only once a week), Heidegger (a market crier who only brought stolen goods to the market) and pages and pages about how terrible the writer Stifter is. Who is this Stifter? An author who is almost entirely unknown in the English speaking world, according to Wiki. Is a badtempered old fart spending pages trashing an author you never heard of fun? .......Not really.
This novel, therefore, is one of those plotless incontinent diatribes that are mother’s milk to Bernhard fans. They love this stuff.
REPETITION REPETITION REPETITION
Here’s a flavour of 82-year-old Reger’s monologue. The situation is simple � this old fart likes to go to a particular room in a particular art museum and sit on a settee for hours every other day (except Mondays).
…quite often other people in the Bordone Room would like to sit down on the Bordone Room settee but cannot do so because I am sitting on the Bordone Room settee. By now the Bordone Room settee has more or less become a prerequisite of my thinking. the Bordone Room suits me much better than the Ambassador, where I also have an ideal seat for thinking, on the Bordone Room settee I think with a much greater intensity than I do at the Ambassador
And on he warbles about the Bordone Room settee for a couple more pages then his brain hops on to another obsessively chewed subject ("The White-Bearded Man" by Tintoretto � this one pops up regularly throughout). At other times he can’t stop saying the word twaddle, or mouthpiece. Frankly, he is a bit of an old loony.
DOES HE LIKE ANYTHING AT ALL?
I noticed that you have to get to page 72 before he has something nice to say and it is about Wagner. Then more meanminded raving until page 118 when he meets an Englishman in the museum (where else?) who unaccountably he likes.
ISN’T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A COMEDY?
Well I thought this was funny �
I have not read a book at home for years, here in the Bordone Room I have read hundreds of books, but that is not to say that I read all those books in the Bordone Room through to the end, I have never read a single book through to the end, my way of reading a book is that of a highly talented page turner, that is of a person who would rather turn the pages than read, who therefore turns dozens, or at times hundreds, of pages before reading a single one; but then when this person does read a page he reads it more thoroughly than anyone and with the greatest reading passion imaginable.
THE HAND-BRAKE TURN
Bernhard, having got you to despise this rancid old man for 200 pages, then lets him reveal to his best mate his true situation, that after the recentish death of his wife of nearly 40 years he has been drowning in grief, and the rest of the book demonstrates that horrible old fart haters can be tender and loving. At the same time you shudder at the marriage that poor woman had to put up with, poor soul. (He would get her to read aloud entire volumes by Kant.) Some readers find this humanising coda to be a profound gutpunch but me I was yeah whatever, you’re still a nasty hysterical privileged old music critic and ain’t nobody will be boohooing at your sparsely attended funeral.
This novel, therefore, is one of those plotless incontinent diatribes that are mother’s milk to Bernhard fans. They love this stuff.
REPETITION REPETITION REPETITION
Here’s a flavour of 82-year-old Reger’s monologue. The situation is simple � this old fart likes to go to a particular room in a particular art museum and sit on a settee for hours every other day (except Mondays).
…quite often other people in the Bordone Room would like to sit down on the Bordone Room settee but cannot do so because I am sitting on the Bordone Room settee. By now the Bordone Room settee has more or less become a prerequisite of my thinking. the Bordone Room suits me much better than the Ambassador, where I also have an ideal seat for thinking, on the Bordone Room settee I think with a much greater intensity than I do at the Ambassador
And on he warbles about the Bordone Room settee for a couple more pages then his brain hops on to another obsessively chewed subject ("The White-Bearded Man" by Tintoretto � this one pops up regularly throughout). At other times he can’t stop saying the word twaddle, or mouthpiece. Frankly, he is a bit of an old loony.
DOES HE LIKE ANYTHING AT ALL?
I noticed that you have to get to page 72 before he has something nice to say and it is about Wagner. Then more meanminded raving until page 118 when he meets an Englishman in the museum (where else?) who unaccountably he likes.
ISN’T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A COMEDY?
Well I thought this was funny �
I have not read a book at home for years, here in the Bordone Room I have read hundreds of books, but that is not to say that I read all those books in the Bordone Room through to the end, I have never read a single book through to the end, my way of reading a book is that of a highly talented page turner, that is of a person who would rather turn the pages than read, who therefore turns dozens, or at times hundreds, of pages before reading a single one; but then when this person does read a page he reads it more thoroughly than anyone and with the greatest reading passion imaginable.
THE HAND-BRAKE TURN
Bernhard, having got you to despise this rancid old man for 200 pages, then lets him reveal to his best mate his true situation, that after the recentish death of his wife of nearly 40 years he has been drowning in grief, and the rest of the book demonstrates that horrible old fart haters can be tender and loving. At the same time you shudder at the marriage that poor woman had to put up with, poor soul. (He would get her to read aloud entire volumes by Kant.) Some readers find this humanising coda to be a profound gutpunch but me I was yeah whatever, you’re still a nasty hysterical privileged old music critic and ain’t nobody will be boohooing at your sparsely attended funeral.
November 21, 2019
"Είχα ένα σωρό κόσμο, μα κανέναν άνθρωπο".
Είχα τόσο καιρό να απολαύσω μ' αυτόν τον τρόπο ένα βιβλίο. Τελείωσα γεμάτος σημειώσεις. Μία κατηγορία μόνος του ο Bernhard. Τον θεωρώ πλέον ίσο του Thomas Mann, στην γερμανόγλωσση λογοτεχνία.
Είναι εντυπωσιακό, πως ένα μυθιστόρημα αργό, με συνεχείς επαναλήψεις, που μάλλον υπάρχουν για να τονίσουν αυτό το κλίμα το απαισιόδοξο, γεμάτο κριτική προς κάθε κατεύθυνση, είναι τόσο ελκυστικό, τουλάχιστον κατάφερες να μου κεντρίσει το ενδιαφέρον από τις πρώτες σελίδες. Οι παλιοί δάσκαλοι είναι ο Μότσαρτ, ο Μπετόβεν, ο Τιντορέτο, ο Καντ, ο Νίτσε και όλοι τους ενώ έπαιξαν σημαντικό ρόλο στη ζωή του ήρωα, πλέον τους απαξιώνει. Το να εντρυφείς πολύ σε μια αυθεντία, στο τέλος κουράζει, χάνει την αξία του.
Κι όμως αυτό είναι το ωραίο στη ζωή. Αν ο άνθρωπος αποσιωπούσε τις ανοησίες του, η ανθρωπότητα θα είχε αποτύχει. Ο τυφλός θαυμασμός σημαίνει αμβλύνοια, σε αντίθεση με τον σεβασμό και την εκτίμηση.
Μου θύμισε Ντοστογιέφσκι. Έχει και αυτός την ικανότητα να διαβάζει την ψυχή. Όλο αυτό το κάνει με έναν τελείως διαφορετικό τρόπο. Μπορεί να είναι απαισιόδοξος και σκοτεινός, όμως πετυχαίνει να επιβάλει τον δικό του τρόπο γραφής και να τον ακούσουμε με προσοχή.
ΕντυπӬσιασμένος!
Είχα τόσο καιρό να απολαύσω μ' αυτόν τον τρόπο ένα βιβλίο. Τελείωσα γεμάτος σημειώσεις. Μία κατηγορία μόνος του ο Bernhard. Τον θεωρώ πλέον ίσο του Thomas Mann, στην γερμανόγλωσση λογοτεχνία.
Είναι εντυπωσιακό, πως ένα μυθιστόρημα αργό, με συνεχείς επαναλήψεις, που μάλλον υπάρχουν για να τονίσουν αυτό το κλίμα το απαισιόδοξο, γεμάτο κριτική προς κάθε κατεύθυνση, είναι τόσο ελκυστικό, τουλάχιστον κατάφερες να μου κεντρίσει το ενδιαφέρον από τις πρώτες σελίδες. Οι παλιοί δάσκαλοι είναι ο Μότσαρτ, ο Μπετόβεν, ο Τιντορέτο, ο Καντ, ο Νίτσε και όλοι τους ενώ έπαιξαν σημαντικό ρόλο στη ζωή του ήρωα, πλέον τους απαξιώνει. Το να εντρυφείς πολύ σε μια αυθεντία, στο τέλος κουράζει, χάνει την αξία του.
Κι όμως αυτό είναι το ωραίο στη ζωή. Αν ο άνθρωπος αποσιωπούσε τις ανοησίες του, η ανθρωπότητα θα είχε αποτύχει. Ο τυφλός θαυμασμός σημαίνει αμβλύνοια, σε αντίθεση με τον σεβασμό και την εκτίμηση.
Μου θύμισε Ντοστογιέφσκι. Έχει και αυτός την ικανότητα να διαβάζει την ψυχή. Όλο αυτό το κάνει με έναν τελείως διαφορετικό τρόπο. Μπορεί να είναι απαισιόδοξος και σκοτεινός, όμως πετυχαίνει να επιβάλει τον δικό του τρόπο γραφής και να τον ακούσουμε με προσοχή.
ΕντυπӬσιασμένος!
March 10, 2025
Ein Buch über Liebe�
Und gerade die Liebe, an die sie jetzt glauben, fehlt. Es gibt naturgemäß keinen Eros in Bernhard. Aber ich werde euch zeigen, dass in diesem Buch alle anderen klassischen Formen der Liebe vorkommen, die von den antiken Griechen � den klügsten Menschen, die jemals die Erde betreten haben � erkannt und definiert wurden.
(Spannendes Intermezzo: Das scheinbare Hauptthema dieses Buches ist die Kunst. Alles Künstliche tritt sozusagen auf die Bühne, nur um meisterhaft verspottet und scharfzüngig von dem luziden und verzweifelten Kunstkritiker Reger ausgebuht zu werden. Aber diese Bühne hat einen Doppelboden: Weder die genialste Kunst noch die zugleich rationalste und tollste Kunstkritik können in einem verzweifelten Moment ein echter Trost sein. Kein alter Meister hilft und rettet dann. Nur ein anderer Mensch kann helfen und retten.)
Zuerst: Die augenfälligste Liebe zeigt sich naturgemäß in Regers Egoismus, der auf Griechisch „Philautia� oder „Selbstliebe� genannt wird. Diese steht in starkem Kontrast zu einer anderen Form der Liebe: Der einfältige und treue Saaldiener Irrsigler hält stets eine Bank vor dem Gemälde Der weißbärtige Mann von Tintoretto für seinen verehrten Mentor Reger frei � was selbstverständlich gegen die Museumsregeln verstößt, da alle Bänke immer für alle Museumsbesucher zugänglich sein sollen. Doch Reger möchte jeden Woche genau dort sitzen, um Der weißbärtige Mann zu betrachten. Irrsigler wiederum zeigt in seiner eifrigen Treue gegenüber dem Hauptgast des Museums die sogenannte „Xenia�, oder Gastfreundschaft:
Außerdem besteht zwischen dem Saaldiener und Reger „Storge�, was sich mit „Liebe zwischen Vater und Sohn� oder, in diesem Fall, eher mit „Liebe zwischen Meister und Schüler� übersetzen lässt:
Sowohl Reger, auf seine zynische Weise, als auch Atzbacher � Regers Freund und zugleich der Erzähler � kümmern sich um den einfältigen Irrsigler; sie zeigen Mitgefühl für ihn, also „Agape�.
Reger selbst ist verzweifelt über seine tragisch verlorene Partnerin und verlangt seinerseits nach Mitleid. Hier zeigt sich ein tief autobiografischer Moment und zugleich ein Schwanengesang, denn dies ist chronologisch Bernhards letzter Roman. Sein Sexualleben ist ein autobiografisches Mysterium. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, der bekannteste Literaturkritiker des deutschsprachigen Raums, behauptete in einer Fernsehsendung, dass Bernhard aufgrund seiner Lungenkrankheit zu keinem Sexualleben fähig gewesen sei.
Er hatte jedoch eine enge und merkwürdige Beziehung zu einer Frau, die 27 Jahre älter war als er: Hedwig Stavianicek. Sie war eine finanziell gut gestellte Witwe, die Bernhard unterstützte. Gemeinsam reisten sie oft nach Italien und Jugoslawien, wo das Klima gut für Bernhards Gesundheit war. Er stellte Hedwig als seine „Tante� und sich selbst als ihren „Kofferträger� vor. Im Grunde war sie jedoch eine echte Mäzenin und Mentorin für ihn. Dank ihrer Hilfe lernte er viele einflussreiche Persönlichkeiten der Wiener Kunstszene kennen und knüpfte wichtige Kontakte. Letztendlich war sie Bernhards wahre „Lebensmensch�, wie er es zu sagen pflegte. Sie starb kurz bevor er diesen Roman schrieb, und sein großes Leid über ihren Verlust wird in der Figur Regers personifiziert und durch dessen Worte wiederholt. Allein gelassen, dieser sarkastische und raffinierteste Mensch, der eine Art hohe Verwandtschaft mit den alten Meistern verspürt, gelangt zu einer sehr einfachen, konkreten und deshalb eindringlichen Erkenntnis: dass die Anderen das Einzige sind, was ihm bleibt und was er braucht:
Doch was mich am meisten beeindruckt, ist die Freundschaftsliebe oder „Philia� zwischen Atzbacher und Reger.
Warum kam Atzbacher, um Reger im Museum zu treffen, obwohl sie sich dort bereits am Tag zuvor gesehen hatten?
Erstens kam er einfach um ihn zu sehen, um Reger heimlich aus einem anderen Saal der Galerie zu beobachten, während dieser routinemäßig das Gemälde Der weißbärtige Mann von Tintoretto betrachtete:
Zweitens kam er, um � noch einmal! � all den Regerschen Vorträgen und Beschwerden zuzuhören (wer außer einem Freund könnte das tun?). Drittens tritt am Ende der geheime Grund Atzbachers zutage: Er kam, um Reger ins Theater einzuladen, ins Burgtheater, das sie beide verabscheuen. Er hatte zwei Karten für ein Theaterstück, Der Zerbrochene Krug. Die Vorstellung war naturgemäß „entsetzlich� (das ist � es gibt bei Bernhard keine möglichen Spoiler � das allerletzte Wort des Buches), aber sie gingen zusammen hin.
Ich denke, das ist es, was am Ende zählt. Ich denke, Atzbacher kam ins Museum, um seinen Freund zu retten.
Und gerade die Liebe, an die sie jetzt glauben, fehlt. Es gibt naturgemäß keinen Eros in Bernhard. Aber ich werde euch zeigen, dass in diesem Buch alle anderen klassischen Formen der Liebe vorkommen, die von den antiken Griechen � den klügsten Menschen, die jemals die Erde betreten haben � erkannt und definiert wurden.
(Spannendes Intermezzo: Das scheinbare Hauptthema dieses Buches ist die Kunst. Alles Künstliche tritt sozusagen auf die Bühne, nur um meisterhaft verspottet und scharfzüngig von dem luziden und verzweifelten Kunstkritiker Reger ausgebuht zu werden. Aber diese Bühne hat einen Doppelboden: Weder die genialste Kunst noch die zugleich rationalste und tollste Kunstkritik können in einem verzweifelten Moment ein echter Trost sein. Kein alter Meister hilft und rettet dann. Nur ein anderer Mensch kann helfen und retten.)
Zuerst: Die augenfälligste Liebe zeigt sich naturgemäß in Regers Egoismus, der auf Griechisch „Philautia� oder „Selbstliebe� genannt wird. Diese steht in starkem Kontrast zu einer anderen Form der Liebe: Der einfältige und treue Saaldiener Irrsigler hält stets eine Bank vor dem Gemälde Der weißbärtige Mann von Tintoretto für seinen verehrten Mentor Reger frei � was selbstverständlich gegen die Museumsregeln verstößt, da alle Bänke immer für alle Museumsbesucher zugänglich sein sollen. Doch Reger möchte jeden Woche genau dort sitzen, um Der weißbärtige Mann zu betrachten. Irrsigler wiederum zeigt in seiner eifrigen Treue gegenüber dem Hauptgast des Museums die sogenannte „Xenia�, oder Gastfreundschaft:
Reger, der seit über sechsunddreißig Jahren das Kunsthistorische Museum aufsucht, kennt Irrsigler vom ersten Tag seines Dienstantritts an und steht zu ihm in einem durchaus freundschaftlichen Verhältnis. Es bedurfte nur einer ganz kleinen Bestechungssumme, um mir die Sitzbank im Bordone-Saal für immer zu sichern, so Reger einmal vor Jahren. Reger ist mit Irrsigler ein Verhältnis eingegangen, das den beiden schon seit über dreißig Jahren zur Gewohnheit geworden ist. Will Reger, was nicht selten der Fall ist, in der Betrachtung des Weißbärtigen Mannes von Tintoretto allein sein, so sperrt Irrsigler ganz einfach den Bordone-Saal für Besucher, er stellt sich dann ganz einfach in den Eingang und läßt keinen passieren. Reger braucht nur sein Handzeichen zu geben und Irrsigler sperrt den Bordone-Saal, ja er scheut sich nicht, im Bordone-Saal stehende Besucher aus dem Bordone-Saal hinauszudrängen, weil Reger das wünscht.
Außerdem besteht zwischen dem Saaldiener und Reger „Storge�, was sich mit „Liebe zwischen Vater und Sohn� oder, in diesem Fall, eher mit „Liebe zwischen Meister und Schüler� übersetzen lässt:
Seit Jahrzehnten wird von den Museumsführern immer dasselbe gesagt und natürlich sehr viel Unsinn, wie Herr Reger sagt, sagt Irrsigler zu mir. Die Kunsthistoriker überschütten die Besucher nur mit ihrem Geschwätz, sagt Irrsigler, der mit der Zeit viele, wenn nicht gar alle Sätze Regers wortwörtlich übernommen hat. Irrsigler ist das Sprachrohr Regers, fast alles, das Irrsigler sagt, hat Reger gesagt, seit über dreißig Jahren redet Irrsigler das, was Reger gesagt hat. Wenn ich genau hinhöre, höre ich Reger durch Irrsigler sprechen. Wenn wir den Führern zuhören, hören wir doch nur immer das Kunstgeschwätz, das uns auf die Nerven geht, das unerträgliche Kunstgeschwätz der Kunsthistoriker, sagt Irrsigler, weil es Reger so oft sagt.
Sowohl Reger, auf seine zynische Weise, als auch Atzbacher � Regers Freund und zugleich der Erzähler � kümmern sich um den einfältigen Irrsigler; sie zeigen Mitgefühl für ihn, also „Agape�.
Ist mir Irrsigler selbst der angenehmste Mensch, so ist mir die ganze Irrsiglerfamilie die unangenehmste. Wie kommt ein Mensch wie Irrsigler, so Reger, an eine Frau wie die Irrsigler, die eine so kreischende Stimme und einen so hennenhaften Gang hat. Wir fragen uns ja oft, wie kommen diese Leute zusammen, die sich vollkommen entgegengesetzt sind, so Reger. Eine Frau mit einer so hysterischen Tierstimme und mit einem so hennenhaften Gang und ein Mann wie Irrsigler, der so ausgeglichen und so angenehm ist.
Reger selbst ist verzweifelt über seine tragisch verlorene Partnerin und verlangt seinerseits nach Mitleid. Hier zeigt sich ein tief autobiografischer Moment und zugleich ein Schwanengesang, denn dies ist chronologisch Bernhards letzter Roman. Sein Sexualleben ist ein autobiografisches Mysterium. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, der bekannteste Literaturkritiker des deutschsprachigen Raums, behauptete in einer Fernsehsendung, dass Bernhard aufgrund seiner Lungenkrankheit zu keinem Sexualleben fähig gewesen sei.
Er hatte jedoch eine enge und merkwürdige Beziehung zu einer Frau, die 27 Jahre älter war als er: Hedwig Stavianicek. Sie war eine finanziell gut gestellte Witwe, die Bernhard unterstützte. Gemeinsam reisten sie oft nach Italien und Jugoslawien, wo das Klima gut für Bernhards Gesundheit war. Er stellte Hedwig als seine „Tante� und sich selbst als ihren „Kofferträger� vor. Im Grunde war sie jedoch eine echte Mäzenin und Mentorin für ihn. Dank ihrer Hilfe lernte er viele einflussreiche Persönlichkeiten der Wiener Kunstszene kennen und knüpfte wichtige Kontakte. Letztendlich war sie Bernhards wahre „Lebensmensch�, wie er es zu sagen pflegte. Sie starb kurz bevor er diesen Roman schrieb, und sein großes Leid über ihren Verlust wird in der Figur Regers personifiziert und durch dessen Worte wiederholt. Allein gelassen, dieser sarkastische und raffinierteste Mensch, der eine Art hohe Verwandtschaft mit den alten Meistern verspürt, gelangt zu einer sehr einfachen, konkreten und deshalb eindringlichen Erkenntnis: dass die Anderen das Einzige sind, was ihm bleibt und was er braucht:
Plötzlich wissen Sie, was das ist, Leere, wenn Sie unter Tausenden und Abertausenden von Büchern und Schriften stehen, die Sie vollkommen alleingelassen haben, die Ihnen aufeinmal nichts sind, als eben diese fürchterliche Leere, so Reger. Wenn Sie den nächsten Menschen verloren haben, ist Ihnen alles leer, Sie können hineinschauen, wo Sie wollen, alles ist leer und Sie schauen und schauen und Sie sehen, alles ist wirklich leer und zwar für immer, so Reger. Und Sie erkennen, nicht diese großen Geister und nicht diese Alten Meister sind es, die Sie Jahrzehnte am Leben erhalten haben, sondern daß es nur dieser eine einzige Mensch, den Sie wie keinen zweiten geliebt haben, gewesen ist. Und in diesem Erkennen und mit diesem Erkennen sind Sie allein und es hilft Ihnen nichts und niemand, so Reger. Sie sperren sich in Ihre Wohnung ein und verzweifeln, so Reger, und Sie verzweifeln von Tag zu Tag tiefer und Sie kommen von Woche zu Woche in eine noch verzweifeltere Verzweiflung hinein, so Reger, aber aufeinmal gehen Sie aus dieser Verzweiflung heraus. Sie stehen auf und gehen aus dieser tödlichen Verzweiflung heraus, noch haben Sie die Kraft, aus dieser tiefsten Verzweiflung herauszugehen, so Reger, ich bin plötzlich von dem singerstraßenseitigen Schemel aufgestanden und aus meiner Verzweiflung herausgegangen und auf die Singerstraße hinuntergegangen, so Reger, und ein paar hundert Meter in die Innere Stadt hineingegangen; ich bin vom singerstraßenseitigen Schemel aufgestanden und aus der Wohnung hinausund in die Innere Stadt hineingegangen in dem Gedanken, jetzt noch einen einzigen Versuch, einen Überlebensversuch zu machen, so Reger. Ich bin aus der Singerstraßenwohnung hinausgegangen und habe gedacht, ich mache noch einen einzigen Überlebensversuch und bin in diesem Gedanken in die Innere Stadt hineingegangen, so Reger. Und dieser Überlebensversuch ist geglückt, wahrscheinlich bin ich im entscheidenden und wahrscheinlich im allerletzten Moment von meinem singerstraßenseitigen Schemel aufgestanden und auf die Singerstraße hinunter- und in die Innere Stadt hineingegangen, so Reger. Natürlich habe ich dann, wieder zu Hause in meiner Wohnung, einen Rückschlag nach dem andern erlitten, das können Sie sich denken, daß es nicht mit diesem einen einzigen Versuch, zu überleben, getan war, ich mußte viele Hunderte solcher Überlebensversuche machen dann, aber ich habe sie immer wieder gemacht und ich bin immer wieder vom singerstraßenseitigen Schemel aufgestanden und auf die Straße gegangen und tatsächlich dann auch wieder unter Menschen, unter die Menschen gegangen und habe mich schließlich gerettet, so Reger.
Doch was mich am meisten beeindruckt, ist die Freundschaftsliebe oder „Philia� zwischen Atzbacher und Reger.
Warum kam Atzbacher, um Reger im Museum zu treffen, obwohl sie sich dort bereits am Tag zuvor gesehen hatten?
Erstens kam er einfach um ihn zu sehen, um Reger heimlich aus einem anderen Saal der Galerie zu beobachten, während dieser routinemäßig das Gemälde Der weißbärtige Mann von Tintoretto betrachtete:
Erst für halb zwölf Uhr mit Reger im Kunsthistorischen Museum verabredet, war ich schon um halb elf Uhr dort, um ihn, wie ich mir schon längere Zeit vorgenommen gehabt hatte, einmal von einem möglichst idealen Winkel aus ungestört beobachten zu können, schreibt Atzbacher.
Zweitens kam er, um � noch einmal! � all den Regerschen Vorträgen und Beschwerden zuzuhören (wer außer einem Freund könnte das tun?). Drittens tritt am Ende der geheime Grund Atzbachers zutage: Er kam, um Reger ins Theater einzuladen, ins Burgtheater, das sie beide verabscheuen. Er hatte zwei Karten für ein Theaterstück, Der Zerbrochene Krug. Die Vorstellung war naturgemäß „entsetzlich� (das ist � es gibt bei Bernhard keine möglichen Spoiler � das allerletzte Wort des Buches), aber sie gingen zusammen hin.
Ich denke, das ist es, was am Ende zählt. Ich denke, Atzbacher kam ins Museum, um seinen Freund zu retten.
November 4, 2021
Thomas Bernhard’ın “Beton”dan sonra en sıkı kitabı “Eski Ustalar: Bir Komedi� bir felsefi roman. Kitabın anlatıcısı Atzbacher (yazar) bir kısım düşüncelerini doğrudan söylüyor, bir kısım düşüncelerini ise Reger’e söyletiyor. Reger kim mi? O tanımlanamayan bir muhalif, ters monte bir adam, eleştiride sınır tanımayan bir pesimist. Sinir bozucu bir bilen. Bukowski’gillerden. Onu tanımlamak mümkün değil, okumak gerek. T.
Bernhard bence bir taşla iki kuş vuruyor, hem eski ustalar üzerinden sanat ve insana dair eleştirilerini iletiyor hem de bu kitabı dahil tüm yazdıklarını da bu eleştirilere karşı açıyor, belki de koruyor. Çünkü kitabın bir yerinde anlatıcı olarak “benim yazdığım şey üzerine insanların ne söylediklerine merak ederek yanıp tutuşuyorum, bunu her zaman öğrenmek istiyorum ve insanlar yazdıklarım üzerine ne söylerlerse söylesinler bundan etkileniyorum� diyor T.Bernhard.
Eski ustalar içinde Bernhard’ın zehirli oklarından kurtulan çok az. Diğer kitaplarında olduğu gibi Avusturya’yı kendi tanımıyla “Katoliknasyonal sosyalıst Avusturya”yı ve tabii ki Avusturyalılar’� Hitler’e olan hizmetlerinden dolayı bir türlü affetmeyen Bernhard yine dümdüz gidiyor. İnsanlardan nefret eden, ama onları aynı zamanda tek yaşam amacı olarak gören Reger, “eski ustalar� diye anılanları her zaman devlete ya da kiliseye hizmet etmekle bu nedenle de sanatçılıklarının sorgulanmasını gerektiğini ileri sürmektedir.
T.Bernhard iki yönlü bir yazıyor, felsefi ve edebi. Bu kitabında felsefe ön planda, “Beton”da ise edebiyat. Hangisinde daha iyi karar veremiyorum. Aynı cümle veya konuyu tekrarlama tarzındaki yazımına da alışamadım hala.
�. � insanlar için saygı duymak ve değer vermek çok güç olduğu için hayranlık duyarlar, bu daha kolaydır onlar için, dedi Reger. Hayranlık saygı duymaktan, değer vermekten daha kolaydır�.
Notum 4.5’dan 5, öneririm.
Bernhard bence bir taşla iki kuş vuruyor, hem eski ustalar üzerinden sanat ve insana dair eleştirilerini iletiyor hem de bu kitabı dahil tüm yazdıklarını da bu eleştirilere karşı açıyor, belki de koruyor. Çünkü kitabın bir yerinde anlatıcı olarak “benim yazdığım şey üzerine insanların ne söylediklerine merak ederek yanıp tutuşuyorum, bunu her zaman öğrenmek istiyorum ve insanlar yazdıklarım üzerine ne söylerlerse söylesinler bundan etkileniyorum� diyor T.Bernhard.
Eski ustalar içinde Bernhard’ın zehirli oklarından kurtulan çok az. Diğer kitaplarında olduğu gibi Avusturya’yı kendi tanımıyla “Katoliknasyonal sosyalıst Avusturya”yı ve tabii ki Avusturyalılar’� Hitler’e olan hizmetlerinden dolayı bir türlü affetmeyen Bernhard yine dümdüz gidiyor. İnsanlardan nefret eden, ama onları aynı zamanda tek yaşam amacı olarak gören Reger, “eski ustalar� diye anılanları her zaman devlete ya da kiliseye hizmet etmekle bu nedenle de sanatçılıklarının sorgulanmasını gerektiğini ileri sürmektedir.
T.Bernhard iki yönlü bir yazıyor, felsefi ve edebi. Bu kitabında felsefe ön planda, “Beton”da ise edebiyat. Hangisinde daha iyi karar veremiyorum. Aynı cümle veya konuyu tekrarlama tarzındaki yazımına da alışamadım hala.
�. � insanlar için saygı duymak ve değer vermek çok güç olduğu için hayranlık duyarlar, bu daha kolaydır onlar için, dedi Reger. Hayranlık saygı duymaktan, değer vermekten daha kolaydır�.
Notum 4.5’dan 5, öneririm.
June 28, 2020
Κλείνω το βιβλίο ενός οξυνου διανοητή, δύστροπου συγγραφέα και απαιτητικού γραφιά. Διότι μόνο ένας τέτοιος θα έγραφε με αυτή τη γλώσσα, το ύφος, το στυλ και την διάθεση να απομακρύνει τον αναγνώστη από το έργο του, αν δεν είναι έτοιμος να τον "διαβάσει". Και για να τον "διαβάσει" πρέπει να είναι κάποιος - πιστεύω πια - πολλάκις ηττημένος μεν αλλά εξοικειωμένος δε με το αμφισημο, κυνικό και ατελές της ζωής· και ακόμα ζωντανός!
Δεν ξέρω πως να περιγράψω το παρόν έργο. Στο ίδιο μοτίβο παραληρηματικου μονολόγου ο αφηγητής αυτή τη φορά αγγίζει το θέμα των πνευματικών και καλλιτεχνικων μορφών που καθορίζουν την ζωή ενός ανθρώπου. Με διασκέδασε ευχάριστα η σκηνοθεσία μέσα στο Κινχιστορισες Μυσεουμ, ένα τόσο πλούσιο σε εκθέματα μουσείο που το επισκέφτηκα μέρα και όταν βγήκα ήταν νύχτα...
Μπροστά σε ένα πίνακα του Τισιανο ο 82χρονος Ρεγκερ ακολουθεί το κλασσικό μοτίβο του συγγραφέα να "υβριζει" την Αυστρία και την κοινωνία, την πολιτική και τους ανθρώπους της, να υποβαθμίσει μουσικούς και ζωγράφους και διανοητές (το κράξιμο στον Χαιντεγκερ και στον βρωμιαρη χοντροΜπαχ αγγίζει το κωμικό - είναι μια κωμωδία). Να χλευαζει οικτρά και με μπουφονικο ρυθμό κάθε έννοια και αξία καλλιτεχνική...
Ωστόσο κάτω από αυτό το σκιερό πρελούδιο ο συγγραφέας διαπερνά τη ζωή του αφηγητή μετά την απώλεια της συζύγου του, για να καταδείξει ότι όσο και αν έχουμε διδαχτεί και μελετήσει και "εμβαθύνει εμβριθως" σε όλα τα έργα της τέχνης, αυτή η τέχνη σε κάθε μορφή, αυτοί οι παλιοί Δάσκαλοι δεν μπορούν να μας βοηθήσουν όταν έρθουμε αντιμέτωποι με το αναποδραστο του τέλους - του δικού μας ή του ανθρώπου μας! Τίποτε και κανένας δεν μπορεί να μας σταθεί μετά την απώλεια πάρα μόνο οι άνθρωποι. Από αυτούς προσπαθούμε να ξεφύγουμε, μας αηδιάζουν και τους συγχαινομαστε αλλά μέσα από αυτούς και με αυτούς μπορούμε να ξαναβρούμε το θάρρος, ή μάλλον την αντοχή, για να συνεχίσουμε μέχρι το τελικό φινάλε.
Είχα καιρό να αισθανθώ ότι με αφορά τόσο προσωπικά ένα μυθιστόρημα - από το Ταξίδι στην άκρη της νύχτας του Σελίν! Κρατάω κάτι που - ομολογώ - αισθάνομαι ασυναίσθητα εδώ και μερικά χρόνια!
Η προτροπή του για συνειδητή άρνηση του Θαυμασμού που κουβαλάμε σε όλα, στα έργα τέχνης και στις ιδέες και στις σκέψεις, και στις Μορφές, τους Δασκάλους, στα Πρόσωπα, στις αξίες, στη ζωή! Μόνη δύναμη επιβίωσης και συνέχισης "για να μην πάμε κατά διόλου..." αποτελεί η κατανόηση της Γελοιότητας Όλων! Η γελοιοποίηση όλων, το γελοίο που γεννιέται από την απασχόληση με κάθε πνευματικό δημιούργημα, αυτό το ίδιο το έργο! Η διαπίστωση ότι ο θαυμασμός ανήκει στους κουτούς - και αλίμονο στους καλλιεργημενους κουτούς! - και ότι μόνο ο σεβασμός και η υπόληψη αρκούν, όλα τα υπόλοιπα εμπεριέχουν και εκπέμπουν τελικά γελοιότητα, ένα σκέτο kitsch (με την γερμανική έκφραση της λέξης), η γελοιοποίηση σε κάθε ιερό ��οτέμ της ζωής μας. Τίποτε περισσότερο!
Δεν ξέρω πως να περιγράψω το παρόν έργο. Στο ίδιο μοτίβο παραληρηματικου μονολόγου ο αφηγητής αυτή τη φορά αγγίζει το θέμα των πνευματικών και καλλιτεχνικων μορφών που καθορίζουν την ζωή ενός ανθρώπου. Με διασκέδασε ευχάριστα η σκηνοθεσία μέσα στο Κινχιστορισες Μυσεουμ, ένα τόσο πλούσιο σε εκθέματα μουσείο που το επισκέφτηκα μέρα και όταν βγήκα ήταν νύχτα...
Μπροστά σε ένα πίνακα του Τισιανο ο 82χρονος Ρεγκερ ακολουθεί το κλασσικό μοτίβο του συγγραφέα να "υβριζει" την Αυστρία και την κοινωνία, την πολιτική και τους ανθρώπους της, να υποβαθμίσει μουσικούς και ζωγράφους και διανοητές (το κράξιμο στον Χαιντεγκερ και στον βρωμιαρη χοντροΜπαχ αγγίζει το κωμικό - είναι μια κωμωδία). Να χλευαζει οικτρά και με μπουφονικο ρυθμό κάθε έννοια και αξία καλλιτεχνική...
Ωστόσο κάτω από αυτό το σκιερό πρελούδιο ο συγγραφέας διαπερνά τη ζωή του αφηγητή μετά την απώλεια της συζύγου του, για να καταδείξει ότι όσο και αν έχουμε διδαχτεί και μελετήσει και "εμβαθύνει εμβριθως" σε όλα τα έργα της τέχνης, αυτή η τέχνη σε κάθε μορφή, αυτοί οι παλιοί Δάσκαλοι δεν μπορούν να μας βοηθήσουν όταν έρθουμε αντιμέτωποι με το αναποδραστο του τέλους - του δικού μας ή του ανθρώπου μας! Τίποτε και κανένας δεν μπορεί να μας σταθεί μετά την απώλεια πάρα μόνο οι άνθρωποι. Από αυτούς προσπαθούμε να ξεφύγουμε, μας αηδιάζουν και τους συγχαινομαστε αλλά μέσα από αυτούς και με αυτούς μπορούμε να ξαναβρούμε το θάρρος, ή μάλλον την αντοχή, για να συνεχίσουμε μέχρι το τελικό φινάλε.
Είχα καιρό να αισθανθώ ότι με αφορά τόσο προσωπικά ένα μυθιστόρημα - από το Ταξίδι στην άκρη της νύχτας του Σελίν! Κρατάω κάτι που - ομολογώ - αισθάνομαι ασυναίσθητα εδώ και μερικά χρόνια!
Η προτροπή του για συνειδητή άρνηση του Θαυμασμού που κουβαλάμε σε όλα, στα έργα τέχνης και στις ιδέες και στις σκέψεις, και στις Μορφές, τους Δασκάλους, στα Πρόσωπα, στις αξίες, στη ζωή! Μόνη δύναμη επιβίωσης και συνέχισης "για να μην πάμε κατά διόλου..." αποτελεί η κατανόηση της Γελοιότητας Όλων! Η γελοιοποίηση όλων, το γελοίο που γεννιέται από την απασχόληση με κάθε πνευματικό δημιούργημα, αυτό το ίδιο το έργο! Η διαπίστωση ότι ο θαυμασμός ανήκει στους κουτούς - και αλίμονο στους καλλιεργημενους κουτούς! - και ότι μόνο ο σεβασμός και η υπόληψη αρκούν, όλα τα υπόλοιπα εμπεριέχουν και εκπέμπουν τελικά γελοιότητα, ένα σκέτο kitsch (με την γερμανική έκφραση της λέξης), η γελοιοποίηση σε κάθε ιερό ��οτέμ της ζωής μας. Τίποτε περισσότερο!
March 28, 2022
I'm not writing a review of this because it's proving difficult for me and there's no need: GR already has a selection of superb reviews, worthy of this book, to which I have nothing of substance to add. This was my first Thomas Bernhard, I loved it, I will read more. If the particular narrative genius of a tightly-controlled, cultured, cultural, conceptual get-off-my-lawnish rant -- this one a single paragraph running, in my copy, 156 pages) with an undercoat of pure comedy and a patina of -- uh-oh, off I go again. I'm not being humble, I'm being real: if you're still here and curious or interested, leave now and read a quality review or a few.
With thanks to author João Reis for recommending this in response to my request for recs.
With thanks to author João Reis for recommending this in response to my request for recs.
March 26, 2018
Senryu Review:
Breathtaking rancour
spewed with wicked humour and
touches of pathos.
Breathtaking rancour
spewed with wicked humour and
touches of pathos.
September 8, 2017
Il libro è grande dalla prima all'ultima pagina, com'è del resto ovvio trattandosi di Bernhard.
Voglio qui trascrivere soltanto un brano su Heidegger, "quel ridicolo filisteo nazionalsocialista coi pantaloni alla zuava". Una vera goduria per quanti, come me, detestano (real) visceralmente questo "imbonitore della filosofia" , oltretutto umanamente miserrimo, opportunista e vile.
"Heidegger, il filosofo della Foresta Nera Heidegger, ha annegato nel kitsch la filosofia. (...) Heidegger, sulle cui orme si sono mosse le generazioni della guerra e del dopoguerra, sommergendolo con stupide e disgustose tesi di dottorato quando ancora era in vita, Heidegger me lo vedo sempre seduto sulla panchina davanti a casa sua nella Foresta Nera accanto a sua moglie, la quale, nel suo perverso entusiasmo per il lavoro a maglia, lavora ininterrottamente per confezionargli le calze invernali con la lana che lei stessa ha tosato dalle loro pecore heideggeriane. Heidegger non riesco a vederlo altrimenti che seduto sulla panca davanti a casa sua nella Foresta Nera, e accanto a lui vedo sua moglie che lo ha completamente soggiogato per tutta la vita, e che a maglia gli lavorava tutte le calze, e all'uncinetto tutti i berretti, e gli infornava il pane, e gli tesseva le lenzuola, e gli confezionava personalmente persino i sandali. Heidegger era una mente inzuppata di kitsch, (...) un comico piccolo borghese megalomane, un imbecille delle Prealpi, credo, giusto quello che ci vuole per la filosofia tedesca. Heidegger se lo sono pappato tutti a grandi cucchiaiate, con una fame da lupi, per decenni, rimpinzando così i loro stomaci di germanisti e di filosofi tedeschi. Heidegger aveva un volto ordinario, non un volto dal quale trapelasse l'ingegno, era un essere del tutto sprovvisto di ingegno, assolutamente privo di fantasia, assolutamente privo di sensibilità, un ruminante della filosofia tipicamente tedesco, una vacca della filosofia gravida in permanenza, (...), che pascolava sui prati della filosofia tedesca e che per decenni ha lasciato cadere il suo lezioso sterco nella Foresta Nera. Heidegger era per così dire un fedifrago della filosofia, uno che è riuscito a mettere nel sacco un'intera generazione di studiosi tedesco. Heidegger è un episodio rivoltante nella storia della filosofia tedesca, un episodio di cui sono stati responsabili e sono tuttora responsabili tutti gli uomini di cultura tedeschi. (...) La fotografia di Heidegger coi pantaloni alla zuava infeltriti davanti alla finta casamatta di Todtnauberg, mi è del resto rimasta in mente come una foto più che rivelatrice, il filisteo del pensiero, con il berretto nero da Foresta Nera in testa, testa in cui non ribolliva comunque nient'altro che l'imbecillità tedesca."
... e via così per numerose altre pagine.
(pp. 60/65, per l'esattezza)
Voglio qui trascrivere soltanto un brano su Heidegger, "quel ridicolo filisteo nazionalsocialista coi pantaloni alla zuava". Una vera goduria per quanti, come me, detestano (real) visceralmente questo "imbonitore della filosofia" , oltretutto umanamente miserrimo, opportunista e vile.
"Heidegger, il filosofo della Foresta Nera Heidegger, ha annegato nel kitsch la filosofia. (...) Heidegger, sulle cui orme si sono mosse le generazioni della guerra e del dopoguerra, sommergendolo con stupide e disgustose tesi di dottorato quando ancora era in vita, Heidegger me lo vedo sempre seduto sulla panchina davanti a casa sua nella Foresta Nera accanto a sua moglie, la quale, nel suo perverso entusiasmo per il lavoro a maglia, lavora ininterrottamente per confezionargli le calze invernali con la lana che lei stessa ha tosato dalle loro pecore heideggeriane. Heidegger non riesco a vederlo altrimenti che seduto sulla panca davanti a casa sua nella Foresta Nera, e accanto a lui vedo sua moglie che lo ha completamente soggiogato per tutta la vita, e che a maglia gli lavorava tutte le calze, e all'uncinetto tutti i berretti, e gli infornava il pane, e gli tesseva le lenzuola, e gli confezionava personalmente persino i sandali. Heidegger era una mente inzuppata di kitsch, (...) un comico piccolo borghese megalomane, un imbecille delle Prealpi, credo, giusto quello che ci vuole per la filosofia tedesca. Heidegger se lo sono pappato tutti a grandi cucchiaiate, con una fame da lupi, per decenni, rimpinzando così i loro stomaci di germanisti e di filosofi tedeschi. Heidegger aveva un volto ordinario, non un volto dal quale trapelasse l'ingegno, era un essere del tutto sprovvisto di ingegno, assolutamente privo di fantasia, assolutamente privo di sensibilità, un ruminante della filosofia tipicamente tedesco, una vacca della filosofia gravida in permanenza, (...), che pascolava sui prati della filosofia tedesca e che per decenni ha lasciato cadere il suo lezioso sterco nella Foresta Nera. Heidegger era per così dire un fedifrago della filosofia, uno che è riuscito a mettere nel sacco un'intera generazione di studiosi tedesco. Heidegger è un episodio rivoltante nella storia della filosofia tedesca, un episodio di cui sono stati responsabili e sono tuttora responsabili tutti gli uomini di cultura tedeschi. (...) La fotografia di Heidegger coi pantaloni alla zuava infeltriti davanti alla finta casamatta di Todtnauberg, mi è del resto rimasta in mente come una foto più che rivelatrice, il filisteo del pensiero, con il berretto nero da Foresta Nera in testa, testa in cui non ribolliva comunque nient'altro che l'imbecillità tedesca."
... e via così per numerose altre pagine.
(pp. 60/65, per l'esattezza)
February 15, 2021
1985 erschien Bernhards zuletzt geschriebener Roman "Alte Meister, Komödie". Der Untertitel trifft jedoch nur eine Seite des Textes, wer tiefer eindringt, wird schnell auf die Kehrseite der Komödie stoßen.
Reger sitzt seit dreißig Jahren jeden zweiten Tag im Kunsthistorischen Museum vor Tintorettos "Weißbärtigem Mann" und rät seinem Freund Atzbacher: "Wehe, Sie lesen eindringlicher, Sie ruinieren sich alles, was Sie lesen. Es ist ganz gleich, was Sie lesen, es wird am Ende lächerlich und ist am Ende nichts wert. Hüten Sie sich vor dem Eindringen in Kunstwerke, sagte er, Sie verderben sich alles und jedes, selbst das Geliebteste."
Der "Weißbärtige Mann" ist laut Reger das einzige ernstzunehmende Kunstwerk im Kunsthistorischen Museum, alles andere sei wertlos und verlogen. Die sogenannten Alten Meister haben immer nur dem Staate gedient oder der Kirche gedient, was auf das gleiche hinausläuft, so Reger immer wieder, einem Kaiser oder einem Papst, einem Herzog oder einem Erzbischof. Reger hält auch nichts von Mozart, Beethoven oder Mahler, gar nicht zu reden von Philosophen und Schriftstellern. Es folgen irrwitzige Schimpftiraden auf Stifter und auf Heidegger. Doch nicht nur Kunst und Kultur werden beschimpft, ebenso Politik, Kirche, Medien, die ԾädzDZDz Analyse Wiens ist vernichtend: Und mit den Toiletten verhält es sich genauso, die Wiener Toiletten sind die ekelerregendsten nicht nur in Europa, sondern in der ganzen Welt. und Tatsächlich sind die Wiener die schmutzigsten Leute in Europa und es ist wissenschaftlich festgestellt, daß der Wiener nur einmal in der Woche ein Stück Seife verwendet, wie es ebenso wissenschaftlich festgestellt ist, daß er seine Unterhosen nur einmal wöchentlich wechselt, wie er seine Hemden auch höchstens zweimal in der Woche wechselt und die meisten Wiener wechseln ihre Bettwäsche nur monatlich einmal, so Reger.
So weit so komisch. Ab der Hälfte etwa begann für mich die Sache zu kippen (vielleicht hab ich zu eindringlich gelesen). Immer öfter kommt Regers Frau ins Spiel - sie ist vor kurzem gestorben. Sie ist am Eis ausgerutscht und hingefallen. Wir wollen gar nicht mehr weiterleben, wenn wir den uns am nächsten stehenden Menschen verloren haben, so er damals im Ambassador, aber wir müssen weiterleben, wir bringen uns nicht um, weil wir zu feig dazu sind, wir versprechen noch am offenen Grab, daß wir bald nachfolgen werden und dann leben wir ein halbes Jahr später noch immer und es graust uns vor uns selbst, so Reger damals im Ambassador. Reger sagt, die Stadt Wien hätte nicht gestreut, das Naturhistorische Museum hätte zu spät die Rettung verständigt und die Chirurgen im Krankenhaus zu den Barmherzigen Brüdern hätten die Operation verpfuscht. Stadt, Staat und Kirche wären an ihrem Tod schuld. Die Komödie ist zur Lamentatio geworden. Siebenundachtzig Jahre alt ist seine Frau geworden, aber sie hätte sicher weit über hundert Jahre alt werden können, wenn sie nicht gestürzt wäre, so Reger damals im Ambassador. So geht das viele Seiten und speziell dieser Abschnitt wirkt, wenn man wirklich zuhört, durch seine Repetitionen tatsächlich wie ein Klagegesang und gehört zum Eindringlichsten, was ich je gelesen habe.
1984, ein Jahr vor Alte Meister, ist Bernhards "Lebensmensch", seine Vertraute und Förderin Hedwig Stavianicek gestorben. Der eigentliche Schrecken des Todes ist der Schmerz der Anvertrauten, der Verlust eines geliebten Menschen. Und so muß Alte Meister auch als Wehklage gelesen werden. Der Tod ist für den Verstand so unverständlich, dass Stadt, Staat und Kirche, Stifter, Heidegger und Mahler, die Wiener, die Steirer und Oberöٱer, die Alten Meister und selbst Toiletten und angepatzte Tischtücher herhalten müssen, angeklagt und beschimpft werden, wie um wenigstens eine Schuld und damit einen geringen Trost zu finden. Nach der Beschimpfung folgen weitere Phasen der Trauer, Agonie, Verzweiflung, endlich Tränen und die Einsicht, dass die Alten Meister, auf die man sich sein ganzes Leben gestützt und verlassen hat, im Angesicht des Todes nichtig werden, so Reger im Ambassador. Auch die Kunst sei ja nur ein verzweifelter Überlebensversuch in einer hinfälligen Welt und im letzten Augenblick eines jedes Menschen nutzlos.
Was denken wir und was reden wir nicht alles und glauben, wir sind kompetent und sind es doch nicht, das ist die Komödie, und wenn wir fragen, wie soll es weitergehn?, ist es die Tragödie, mein lieber Atzbacher. Das Ende stimmt versöhnlich und gereift. Die Komödie als Tragödie als Komödie war ein Lebensthema Thomas Bernhards. In Form eines schonungslosen Bekenntnisses schließt er dieses Thema und damit sein Romanwerk ab. Das Lachen ist wohl unser einziges Kraut gegen den Tod.
Reger sitzt seit dreißig Jahren jeden zweiten Tag im Kunsthistorischen Museum vor Tintorettos "Weißbärtigem Mann" und rät seinem Freund Atzbacher: "Wehe, Sie lesen eindringlicher, Sie ruinieren sich alles, was Sie lesen. Es ist ganz gleich, was Sie lesen, es wird am Ende lächerlich und ist am Ende nichts wert. Hüten Sie sich vor dem Eindringen in Kunstwerke, sagte er, Sie verderben sich alles und jedes, selbst das Geliebteste."
Der "Weißbärtige Mann" ist laut Reger das einzige ernstzunehmende Kunstwerk im Kunsthistorischen Museum, alles andere sei wertlos und verlogen. Die sogenannten Alten Meister haben immer nur dem Staate gedient oder der Kirche gedient, was auf das gleiche hinausläuft, so Reger immer wieder, einem Kaiser oder einem Papst, einem Herzog oder einem Erzbischof. Reger hält auch nichts von Mozart, Beethoven oder Mahler, gar nicht zu reden von Philosophen und Schriftstellern. Es folgen irrwitzige Schimpftiraden auf Stifter und auf Heidegger. Doch nicht nur Kunst und Kultur werden beschimpft, ebenso Politik, Kirche, Medien, die ԾädzDZDz Analyse Wiens ist vernichtend: Und mit den Toiletten verhält es sich genauso, die Wiener Toiletten sind die ekelerregendsten nicht nur in Europa, sondern in der ganzen Welt. und Tatsächlich sind die Wiener die schmutzigsten Leute in Europa und es ist wissenschaftlich festgestellt, daß der Wiener nur einmal in der Woche ein Stück Seife verwendet, wie es ebenso wissenschaftlich festgestellt ist, daß er seine Unterhosen nur einmal wöchentlich wechselt, wie er seine Hemden auch höchstens zweimal in der Woche wechselt und die meisten Wiener wechseln ihre Bettwäsche nur monatlich einmal, so Reger.
So weit so komisch. Ab der Hälfte etwa begann für mich die Sache zu kippen (vielleicht hab ich zu eindringlich gelesen). Immer öfter kommt Regers Frau ins Spiel - sie ist vor kurzem gestorben. Sie ist am Eis ausgerutscht und hingefallen. Wir wollen gar nicht mehr weiterleben, wenn wir den uns am nächsten stehenden Menschen verloren haben, so er damals im Ambassador, aber wir müssen weiterleben, wir bringen uns nicht um, weil wir zu feig dazu sind, wir versprechen noch am offenen Grab, daß wir bald nachfolgen werden und dann leben wir ein halbes Jahr später noch immer und es graust uns vor uns selbst, so Reger damals im Ambassador. Reger sagt, die Stadt Wien hätte nicht gestreut, das Naturhistorische Museum hätte zu spät die Rettung verständigt und die Chirurgen im Krankenhaus zu den Barmherzigen Brüdern hätten die Operation verpfuscht. Stadt, Staat und Kirche wären an ihrem Tod schuld. Die Komödie ist zur Lamentatio geworden. Siebenundachtzig Jahre alt ist seine Frau geworden, aber sie hätte sicher weit über hundert Jahre alt werden können, wenn sie nicht gestürzt wäre, so Reger damals im Ambassador. So geht das viele Seiten und speziell dieser Abschnitt wirkt, wenn man wirklich zuhört, durch seine Repetitionen tatsächlich wie ein Klagegesang und gehört zum Eindringlichsten, was ich je gelesen habe.
1984, ein Jahr vor Alte Meister, ist Bernhards "Lebensmensch", seine Vertraute und Förderin Hedwig Stavianicek gestorben. Der eigentliche Schrecken des Todes ist der Schmerz der Anvertrauten, der Verlust eines geliebten Menschen. Und so muß Alte Meister auch als Wehklage gelesen werden. Der Tod ist für den Verstand so unverständlich, dass Stadt, Staat und Kirche, Stifter, Heidegger und Mahler, die Wiener, die Steirer und Oberöٱer, die Alten Meister und selbst Toiletten und angepatzte Tischtücher herhalten müssen, angeklagt und beschimpft werden, wie um wenigstens eine Schuld und damit einen geringen Trost zu finden. Nach der Beschimpfung folgen weitere Phasen der Trauer, Agonie, Verzweiflung, endlich Tränen und die Einsicht, dass die Alten Meister, auf die man sich sein ganzes Leben gestützt und verlassen hat, im Angesicht des Todes nichtig werden, so Reger im Ambassador. Auch die Kunst sei ja nur ein verzweifelter Überlebensversuch in einer hinfälligen Welt und im letzten Augenblick eines jedes Menschen nutzlos.
Was denken wir und was reden wir nicht alles und glauben, wir sind kompetent und sind es doch nicht, das ist die Komödie, und wenn wir fragen, wie soll es weitergehn?, ist es die Tragödie, mein lieber Atzbacher. Das Ende stimmt versöhnlich und gereift. Die Komödie als Tragödie als Komödie war ein Lebensthema Thomas Bernhards. In Form eines schonungslosen Bekenntnisses schließt er dieses Thema und damit sein Romanwerk ab. Das Lachen ist wohl unser einziges Kraut gegen den Tod.
March 21, 2023
Πρώτο βιβλίο του Μπέρχαρντ που απολαμβάνω τόσο μετά από το μέτριο Βαδίζοντας και το Μπετόν
July 9, 2024
The things we think and the things we say, believing that we are competent and yet we are not, that is the comedy, and when we ask how is it all to continue? that is the tragedy, my dear Atzbacher. p. 246
I am not thrilled with this translation. Osers doesn’t feel entirely connected to Bernhard’s verbiage, mixing misery with humor, as did McLintock in his masterful translations of Wittgenstein's Nephew and Woodcutters. All the same, not even an occasionally subpar translation can defeat Bernhard’s curmudgeonry, this time aimed at a whole spectrum of culture (or better said the so-called culture, which would be more in the spirit of his thoughts). So a brief laundry list of those who were massacred as incompetent, vile, hypocritical, and so on, this time around.
tutti: art historians, contemporary artists, contemporary writers, politicians, Priests, teachers (“the henchmen of the state�), Austrians
most: artists, especially the so-called old masters, and most composers (“Mahler really is the most overrated composer of the century� - oh, no!) , philosophers, classic writers
BUT not the entire civilization is bleak, there were a few exceptions which his alter ego Reger lavished as “great� such as Schopenhauer (above all! “[Schopenhauer] probably saved my life�), perhaps Nietzsche, Diderot (I paraphrase, a Western version of Dostoyevsky], Dostoyevsky, Montaigne, Wieland, Novalis; Wagner, Schubert; Goya, Kokoschka� and maybe a few more that I missed.
Bernhard is not really quotable to get a good sense of his writing -this would require extensive sampling among the multitudes of variations of his compulsive thoughts about the same despised person/artist/object/(fill in the blank)- but a few of his thoughts (attributed to Reger) might be interesting for sharing:
We truly love only those books which are not a whole, which are chaotic, which are helpless. The same is true of everything and everybody, Reger said, we only feel particularly attached to a person because he is helpless and not a whole, because he is chaotic and not perfect. p. 31
A good mind is a mind that searches for the mistakes of humanity and an exceptional mind is a mind which finds these mistakes of humanity, and a genius's mind is a mind which, having found these mistakes, points them out and with all the means at its disposal shows up these mistakes. p. 32
our lives are interesting in exactly the measure to which we have succeeded in developing our mastery of speech and our mastery of silence. p. 148
Suddenly you realize what emptiness is when you stand there amidst thousands and thousands of books and writings which have left you totally alone, which suddenly mean nothing to you except that terrible emptiness, Reger said. When you have lost your closest human being everything seems empty to you� p. 230
Like other Bernhard novels, Old Masters is probably best read in 2-3 sittings as I did except that the life intruded a month in between my first and second sittings.
4.5 (again, not entirely impressed with the translation)
I am not thrilled with this translation. Osers doesn’t feel entirely connected to Bernhard’s verbiage, mixing misery with humor, as did McLintock in his masterful translations of Wittgenstein's Nephew and Woodcutters. All the same, not even an occasionally subpar translation can defeat Bernhard’s curmudgeonry, this time aimed at a whole spectrum of culture (or better said the so-called culture, which would be more in the spirit of his thoughts). So a brief laundry list of those who were massacred as incompetent, vile, hypocritical, and so on, this time around.
tutti: art historians, contemporary artists, contemporary writers, politicians, Priests, teachers (“the henchmen of the state�), Austrians
most: artists, especially the so-called old masters, and most composers (“Mahler really is the most overrated composer of the century� - oh, no!) , philosophers, classic writers
BUT not the entire civilization is bleak, there were a few exceptions which his alter ego Reger lavished as “great� such as Schopenhauer (above all! “[Schopenhauer] probably saved my life�), perhaps Nietzsche, Diderot (I paraphrase, a Western version of Dostoyevsky], Dostoyevsky, Montaigne, Wieland, Novalis; Wagner, Schubert; Goya, Kokoschka� and maybe a few more that I missed.
Bernhard is not really quotable to get a good sense of his writing -this would require extensive sampling among the multitudes of variations of his compulsive thoughts about the same despised person/artist/object/(fill in the blank)- but a few of his thoughts (attributed to Reger) might be interesting for sharing:
We truly love only those books which are not a whole, which are chaotic, which are helpless. The same is true of everything and everybody, Reger said, we only feel particularly attached to a person because he is helpless and not a whole, because he is chaotic and not perfect. p. 31
A good mind is a mind that searches for the mistakes of humanity and an exceptional mind is a mind which finds these mistakes of humanity, and a genius's mind is a mind which, having found these mistakes, points them out and with all the means at its disposal shows up these mistakes. p. 32
our lives are interesting in exactly the measure to which we have succeeded in developing our mastery of speech and our mastery of silence. p. 148
Suddenly you realize what emptiness is when you stand there amidst thousands and thousands of books and writings which have left you totally alone, which suddenly mean nothing to you except that terrible emptiness, Reger said. When you have lost your closest human being everything seems empty to you� p. 230
Like other Bernhard novels, Old Masters is probably best read in 2-3 sittings as I did except that the life intruded a month in between my first and second sittings.
4.5 (again, not entirely impressed with the translation)
September 28, 2023
This is the book I hoped to write one day. Imagine my dismay when I realised it had already been written and it is far better than anything I could ever come up with. A longish meditation on art from the mouth of a Viennese who loves the idea of Vienna but detests Austria, a misanthrope who loved intensely, a musicologist who can't stand Beethoven.
Reger is a mass of contradictions condensed into the body of an 80 year old man. He writes for The Times about music which is obviously only one of his areas of expertise. Throughout the book he pontificates about art and literature as if he wrote for the newspapers about them too. Perhaps Bernhard was aware that Reger looks like rage something his character has in spades.
Reger sits more or less clandestinely on a museum’s settee asking himself whether Art matters, and if it does, then what does it matter for? Through his meditations (or ravings, depending on your philosophical bent) we travel from the masters of the 16th century to the conmen of the 20th. Bernhard excels himself: biting, angry, cynical. But behind all derision, he is kind enough to offer us a glimmer of hope. After all, Reger might despise masterpieces, but there’s no doubt he stars in one.
Reger is a mass of contradictions condensed into the body of an 80 year old man. He writes for The Times about music which is obviously only one of his areas of expertise. Throughout the book he pontificates about art and literature as if he wrote for the newspapers about them too. Perhaps Bernhard was aware that Reger looks like rage something his character has in spades.
Reger sits more or less clandestinely on a museum’s settee asking himself whether Art matters, and if it does, then what does it matter for? Through his meditations (or ravings, depending on your philosophical bent) we travel from the masters of the 16th century to the conmen of the 20th. Bernhard excels himself: biting, angry, cynical. But behind all derision, he is kind enough to offer us a glimmer of hope. After all, Reger might despise masterpieces, but there’s no doubt he stars in one.
Read
September 26, 2020The most unusual novel on fine art
Almost the only fictional book on fine art that I can stand to read. Nearly every auhor worships the art they describe: from Proust on Vermer to Donna Tartt on Fabricius or Ben Lerner on Bastien-Lepage. But why should visual art be treated this way? Why can't a painting or sculpture be flawed, or worse?
The protagonist here visits the Kunshistorisches Museum in Vienna, again and again, just to see one portrait by Tintoretto, but not because he loves it, or it's sublime, or he's hypnotized, or entranced or mesmerized or overawed... it's because the Tintoretto is the only art in the world that he can stomach.
That is so utterly refreshing. What is uninteresting about disgust? What isn't tiresome about worship? One of the world's best novels about an actual artwork.
Almost the only fictional book on fine art that I can stand to read. Nearly every auhor worships the art they describe: from Proust on Vermer to Donna Tartt on Fabricius or Ben Lerner on Bastien-Lepage. But why should visual art be treated this way? Why can't a painting or sculpture be flawed, or worse?
The protagonist here visits the Kunshistorisches Museum in Vienna, again and again, just to see one portrait by Tintoretto, but not because he loves it, or it's sublime, or he's hypnotized, or entranced or mesmerized or overawed... it's because the Tintoretto is the only art in the world that he can stomach.
That is so utterly refreshing. What is uninteresting about disgust? What isn't tiresome about worship? One of the world's best novels about an actual artwork.
November 2, 2024
“Es mejor leer doce líneas de un libro con la mayor intensidad y, por consiguiente, penetrarlas por completo, como puede decirse, que leer todo el libro como un lector normal que al final conoce tan poco el libro que ha leído como un pasajero aéreo el paisaje que ha sobrevolado. Yo entro en un libro y me establezco en él en cuerpo y alma.�
A estas alturas no sé que mucho más que decir de un autor que se ha ido convirtiendo poco a poco en uno de mis favoritos, y realmente, tengo la impresión de haberlo dicho ya todo sobre él, especialmente desde que a principios de este año me leí su Autobiografía, que yo diría que quién se quiera aproximar a él, debería empezar por ahí. El caso es que este libro que me ocupa lleva como subtítulo Una Comedia, y es cierto a lo largo de este monólogo de 200 y algo páginas, no puedes por menos que sonreír de vez en cuando por esta mala leche que se gasta Bernhard: quizás de todas las novelas que llevo leídas suyas es dónde menos se corta un pelo, no deja títere con cabeza en ninguno de los temas que va tocando, sus temas recurrentes de siempre, su amor-odio a Austria (en algún momento hasta llega a decir que la ama), o el Estado como el origen de todos los males que todo lo cercena, y que deja al ciudadano en un estado crónico de boberia. Bernhard a mi me resulta una delicia porque leyendo entre líneas, veo más cosas, veo vulnerabilidad, inseguridad, veo un afán por querer acercarse y que se le tome en cuenta, aunque a priori quiera aparentar lo contrario,, y aunque suene desesperanzado, a mi siempre me parece leyéndole que conserva un pequeño resquicio de esperanza en el ser humano.
“Miento cuando digo que no me interesa la opinión pública, que no me interesan mis lectores, miento cuando digo que no quiero saber nada de lo que piensan sobre lo que escribo, en eso miento, en eso miento de una forma muy vulgar, dijo, porque me desvivo ininterrumpidamente por saber lo que dice la gente sobre lo que he escrito, quiero saberlo siempre y en todo momento, y diga lo que diga la gente sobre mis escritos, me afecta, esa es la verdad. �
De lo que llevo leído hasta ahora de TB tengo que decir que es la novela dónde menos trama he encontrado, aunque esto pueda ser una impresión engañosa, pero realmente no es tanto una novela en torno a un argumento sino que en mi opinión va más sobre poder comunicarse a través del lenguaje. Un largo párrafo de casi 200 páginas no es una sorpresa en este autor pero el monólogo en tono de comedia negra poniendo verde hasta al apuntador, tengo la impresión de que gira en torno exclusivamente al lenguaje. Reger, un filósofo musical, que escribe en el Times (sus obras maestras, según él mismo define sus artículos) pareciera el mismo Bernhard despreciando a los lectores pero al mismo tiempo muriéndose por una pequeña atención. Reger escribe para el Times pero en Austria no es leído, así que se puede decir que hay aquí un eterno tira y afloja entre el deseo por brillar y al mismo tiempo un desprecio por ese ninguneo. Reger lleva treinta años visitando día tras día el Museo de Historia de Arte y ocupando el mismo banco intentando desentrañar errores en las pinturas de los Maestros Antiguos, pero sobre todo en la Sala Bordone, frente al retrato de Tintoretto, "Retrato de un hombre de pelo blanco�. En ese banco, conoció a su esposa, que un buen día usurpó su banco frente al cuadro. Es Irrsigler, un vigilante del museo, quien día tras día se ha encargado de guardarle el banco, un banco donde reflexiona sobre lo mal que funciona todo, sobre lo horrorosa que es Austria, sobre lo mediocres que son la mayoría de los artistas y sobre todo, sobre la infelicidad de su vida desde la muerte de su esposa, una muerte de la que culpará también a todo el mundo.
“Realmente pienso que el Kunsthistorisches Museum es el único punto de fuga que me ha quedado, dijo Reger. Tengo que venir a ver a los Maestros Antiguos para poder seguir existiendo, precisamente a estos, asi llamados Maestros Antiguos, que al fin y al cabo aborrezco desde hace ya mucho tiempo y desde hace muchos decenios, porque en el fondo nada nada aborrezco más que estos llamados Maestros Antiguos, y sin embargo son ellos los que me mantienen vivo.�
En ese banco del Museo de Historia del Arte de Viena en el que se reúne Reger en una rutina de años, llegado un punto, esta rutina se ve interrumpida por una petición que Reger le hace a su amigo Atzbacher, así que desde que comienza la novela hasta el final no sabremos el motivo por el que Reger ha convocado a su amigo en ese banco a interrumpir precisamente su rutina. Frente al cuadro del hombre de la barba blanca Reger medita, insulta, se enfada, añora a su esposa, y añora una infancia entre la felicidad y el infierno…pero realmente toda la novela es una excusa, no solo para escarbar en los temas de siempre de TB sino en el concepto del arte para mantenerte vivo, porque aunque abjura de todo arte en esta novela también confesará que será el arte el que lo mantiene vivo...Se puede decir que lo que hace Reger día tras día buscando los defectos en cualquier obra de arte, será su forma de deconstruirlo, no solo para encontrar faltas sino sobre todo para darle un sentido a su vida. Y ahora que lo pienso esto me recuerda a la novela de Blake Butler que leí hace poco, Alice Knott, y que se puede decir que también era una deconstrucción y descomposición del arte en una excusa para mantenerse vivo.
“Mi infancia fue tanto una hermosa infancia como una infancia horrible y horrorosa, pienso, en la que, en casa de mis abuelos, podía ser un ser natural, mientras que en la escuela tenía que ser el ser estatal, en casa, con mis abuelos, era el natural, en la escuela era el estatal, medio día era el natural, medio día el estatal, medio día y, por consiguiente, por la tarde, era el natural y por ello el feliz, y medio día y, por consiguiente, por la mañana, era el estatal, y por ello el ser infeliz. Por la tarde era el más feliz, pero por la mañana el más infeliz que se pueda imaginar. Durante muchos años fui por la tarde e ser más feliz, por la mañana el más infeliz, pienso. Con mis abuelos en casa era un ser natural y feliz, en l escuela abajo, en la pequeña ciudad, era un ser antinatural e infeliz. Si bajaba a la pequeña ciudad, iba a la infelicidad (¡del Estado!), si iba a la montaña con mis abuelos a casa, iba a la felicidad.�
La trama de "Maestros Antiguos" tiene lugar exclusivamente en el Museo de Historia del Arte de Viene. Durante la primera parte de la novela será Atzbacher quien observa desde una sala contigua recordando la conversación que tuvo con Reger el día anterior, la recuerda como narrador. Luego se encuentra con él y hablan y finalmente Reger le hace la petición. Irrsiger, el vigilante será, la sombra, el tercer personaje revelador de esta novela: “De cuántas cosas hablamos con personas que no nos importan lo más mínimo, dijo, porque necesitamos oyentes. Necesitamos oyentes y un portavoz, dijo. Durante toda la vida deseamos un portavoz ideal, pero no lo encontramos, porque el portavoz ideal no existe.� Como dije al principio, y como suele suceder en la última etapa de la obra de TB, apenas hay narración, o acción, sino que es una especie de compendio de conversaciones entre Reger y Atzbacher, así que estas conversaciones fueron transcritas desde la perspectiva de Atzbacher por un tercer anónimo, una especie de juego que se trae entre manos TB, no sé bien si para jugar y probar al lector pero resulta casi siempre una experiencia absorbente para este último desentrañar al narrador, quién es realmente, si se está enterando bien o es que Bernhard al final ha conseguido engañarle y reírse de él...
“Siempre he aborrecido las aglomeraciones humanas, durante toda mi vida las he evitado, nunca he ido a ninguna asamblea, de la clase que fuera, a causa de mi aborrecimiento por las masas, como tampoco Reger, por cierto, nada aborrezco más profundamente que la masa, la multitud, la realidad es que creo continuamente que, incluso sin buscarla, seré aplastado por la masa o por la multitud
Ya de niño me apartaba de ella, de la masa, aborrecía la multitud, la aglomeración de gente, esa concentración, esa bajeza y aturdimiento y mentira. Tanto como tendríamos que amar a cada individuo, pienso, aborrecemos la masa.�
Un detalle que me llama la atención es que en ningún momento TB describe el cuadro del hombre de la barba blanca sino que juega con las impresiones que puede despertar en el lector y ya digo que aunque aparentemente no haya argumento y sea un largo monólogo y diatriba de Reger poniendo verde todo lo que le rodea, Bernhard sin embargo no puede esconderse eternamente ni ser un cascarrabias continuamente y hay varios momentos, flashbacks que surgen durante la novela y que destacan esa esperanza en el ser humano por ejemplo, cuando revela esa emoción tras la muerte de su esposa y confiesa que aunque queramos estar solos, realmente es una ilusión autoimpuesta, así que se puede decir que ante una ausencia, ante esa soledad obligada, Reger convierte el arte en un reemplazo. Imagino que también lo sería para Bernhard. “No debemos penetrar en una persona con la que tenemos una relación ideal más allá de lo que hemos penetrado ya, porque si no, destruiremos esa relación ideal, dijo Reger".
“La verdad es que la música me salva una y otra vez, el hecho de que la música siga viviendo, aun en mí y la verdad es que vive en mí como el primer día. Salvado cada día de nuevo por la música de todas las cosas atroces y repulsivas, dijo,, eso es convertirse otra vez por la música todas las mañanas en un ser que piensa y que siente, ¡comprende!, dijo.�
˫♫� ˫♫�
December 1, 2021
…da più di trent'anni, un giorno sì e un giorno no, il lunedì escluso, alla Pinacoteca del Kunsthistorisches Museum
Riaccostarsi a un libro di Bernhard dopo un lungo intervallo provoca ogni volta un principio di vertigine, almeno a me, disabituato al ritmo solenne, martellante, assoluto, aforistico e allo stesso tempo ipnotico e magnetico dell’autore austriaco, uno stile riconoscibile in poche righe, che alcuni detestano ma che non ha uguali in tutta la narrativa.
Nelle prime pagine “Antichi maestri� richiama alla memoria altre opere bernhardiane come “A colpi d’ascia�, dove ugualmente è presente una sorta di preambolo che fissa le coordinate di una scena quasi teatrale: un luogo preciso e circoscritto (qui la Sala Bordone del Kunsthistorisches Museum di Vienna), un personaggio (qui il narratore Atzbacher) che dalla soglia ne osserva silenziosamente un altro (il critico musicale Reger), il vero protagonista e voce del monologo che occuperà l’intero libro, intento alla prolungata contemplazione di un’opera d’arte (qui “L’uomo dalla barba bianca� del Tintoretto).
A questo incrocio Bernhard aggiunge un ulteriore sguardo esterno, come un guardiano della sacralità di un rituale, il silenzioso Irrsigler custode del Museo, a completare una molteplicità di punti di vista, definita da Sebald come una “tecnica narrativa periscopica�.
Stabilito questo scenario, che resterà immutato fino all’ultima pagina, può avviarsi il nucleo del testo che, dalla voce di Atzbacher che riferisce il pensiero di Reger, va ad assumere il tono e la forma più tipica della prosa di Bernarhd, vale a dire l’invettiva.
Ne scaturisce una critica durissima e senza reticenze da cui non si salva quasi niente e nessuno, a partire dai bersagli consueti dell’indignazione dell’autore, la Chiesa cattolica e l’istituzione scolastica e i loro rappresentanti che “…invece di far sì che la vita diventi per i giovani una fonte di ricchezza inesauribile che scaturisce dalla loro stessa natura, gliela spengono la vita.� Più avanti, con uno scivolamento graduale delle ossessive elucubrazioni di Reger, lo sdegno e il risentimento si estendono all’intera città di Vienna (“…il cattivo gusto e la monotonia dei viennesi mi hanno depresso per decenni�) a tutta l’Austria e inevitabilmente all’umanità (“tutto in questo mondo e in questa umanità è degenerato ai livelli più infimi di ottusità�).
Infine in un crescendo inarrestabile di collera, neppure l’arte si salva da questo massacro, da Beethoven a Goya, da Mahler a Klimt a Goethe, giacché “I pittori dipingono merda, i compositori compongono merda, gli scrittori scrivono merda. E la merda peggiore la producono gli scultori austriaci�.
Nel protagonista Reger l’apparente paradosso fra il disprezzo per l’opera artistica e le ore trascorse …da più di trent'anni, un giorno sì e un giorno no, il lunedì escluso, alla Pinacoteca del Kunsthistorisches Museum si risolve nella rivelazione che in effetti è proprio l’errore ciò che egli cerca di individuare in ogni capolavoro dell’arte, la scoperta di un errore che riveli in modo inequivocabile il fallimento dell’artista, la vana ricerca di un’irraggiungibile perfezione.
“Antichi Maestri� termina dunque come è cominciato, confermando l’acuto commento espresso da Claudio Magris su un’altra opera dello scrittore austriaco [Perturbamento], dove osserva che nei romanzi di Bernhard “tutto accade non nella realtà ma soltanto nel linguaggio�.
Riaccostarsi a un libro di Bernhard dopo un lungo intervallo provoca ogni volta un principio di vertigine, almeno a me, disabituato al ritmo solenne, martellante, assoluto, aforistico e allo stesso tempo ipnotico e magnetico dell’autore austriaco, uno stile riconoscibile in poche righe, che alcuni detestano ma che non ha uguali in tutta la narrativa.
Nelle prime pagine “Antichi maestri� richiama alla memoria altre opere bernhardiane come “A colpi d’ascia�, dove ugualmente è presente una sorta di preambolo che fissa le coordinate di una scena quasi teatrale: un luogo preciso e circoscritto (qui la Sala Bordone del Kunsthistorisches Museum di Vienna), un personaggio (qui il narratore Atzbacher) che dalla soglia ne osserva silenziosamente un altro (il critico musicale Reger), il vero protagonista e voce del monologo che occuperà l’intero libro, intento alla prolungata contemplazione di un’opera d’arte (qui “L’uomo dalla barba bianca� del Tintoretto).
A questo incrocio Bernhard aggiunge un ulteriore sguardo esterno, come un guardiano della sacralità di un rituale, il silenzioso Irrsigler custode del Museo, a completare una molteplicità di punti di vista, definita da Sebald come una “tecnica narrativa periscopica�.
Stabilito questo scenario, che resterà immutato fino all’ultima pagina, può avviarsi il nucleo del testo che, dalla voce di Atzbacher che riferisce il pensiero di Reger, va ad assumere il tono e la forma più tipica della prosa di Bernarhd, vale a dire l’invettiva.
Ne scaturisce una critica durissima e senza reticenze da cui non si salva quasi niente e nessuno, a partire dai bersagli consueti dell’indignazione dell’autore, la Chiesa cattolica e l’istituzione scolastica e i loro rappresentanti che “…invece di far sì che la vita diventi per i giovani una fonte di ricchezza inesauribile che scaturisce dalla loro stessa natura, gliela spengono la vita.� Più avanti, con uno scivolamento graduale delle ossessive elucubrazioni di Reger, lo sdegno e il risentimento si estendono all’intera città di Vienna (“…il cattivo gusto e la monotonia dei viennesi mi hanno depresso per decenni�) a tutta l’Austria e inevitabilmente all’umanità (“tutto in questo mondo e in questa umanità è degenerato ai livelli più infimi di ottusità�).
Infine in un crescendo inarrestabile di collera, neppure l’arte si salva da questo massacro, da Beethoven a Goya, da Mahler a Klimt a Goethe, giacché “I pittori dipingono merda, i compositori compongono merda, gli scrittori scrivono merda. E la merda peggiore la producono gli scultori austriaci�.
Nel protagonista Reger l’apparente paradosso fra il disprezzo per l’opera artistica e le ore trascorse …da più di trent'anni, un giorno sì e un giorno no, il lunedì escluso, alla Pinacoteca del Kunsthistorisches Museum si risolve nella rivelazione che in effetti è proprio l’errore ciò che egli cerca di individuare in ogni capolavoro dell’arte, la scoperta di un errore che riveli in modo inequivocabile il fallimento dell’artista, la vana ricerca di un’irraggiungibile perfezione.
“Antichi Maestri� termina dunque come è cominciato, confermando l’acuto commento espresso da Claudio Magris su un’altra opera dello scrittore austriaco [Perturbamento], dove osserva che nei romanzi di Bernhard “tutto accade non nella realtà ma soltanto nel linguaggio�.
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October 7, 2020A misguided, awful book
It doesn't seem to have occurred to Nicolas Mahler, the artist who drew this comic book version of Bernhard's novel, that Bernhard would have despised him.
There's a popular reception of Bernhard's "Old Masters" (the original) that sees it as a funny book, and it is, but it's important to ask what kind of humor is at stake. It is a "comedy" (Bernhard's word) in the way that Buechner's "Leonce and Lena" is a "comedy," not in the way that Sunday comics are comedies: "Old Masters" is venomous, despairing, and desperate. Real spirit is in short supply, someone says in "Leonce and Lena": "From now on, we will have to drink our spirits from liqueur glasses."
"Old Masters" is a parody of certain kinds of negative judgments, especially about visual art, but that does not mean the author is light-hearted. I think Bernhard would have hated this book with the same intensity he directed at contemporary theater (note the last line of this book!), contemporary music (he rejected even the canon of avant-garde composers, the ones Adorno triumphed, and prefered Josef Matthias Hauer's monotonous endless dissonances), writing (see his dismissal of Marianne Fritz, who was published by one of his own publishers, Suhrkamp), and painting. "Old Masters" rejects all of painting, except Goya and one painting by Tintoretto, and it does not do that as a joke. The idea that Bernhard's themes in "Old Masters" might be subjects for an afternoon read and a laugh would have made him even more dementedly angry than he aready was. This is a book written during a personal tragedy, and that should be enough of a clue that more was at stake than a diverting jab at bourgeois taste.
I'll take just one example. There's a double-page spread with the following text, taken from "Old Masters":
"We could have accepted so many great minds and so many old masters as companions, but they are not a replacement for people, so said Reger, in the end we are, by all these so-called great minds and these so-called old masters, left alone, and we see that we will be mocked by these great minds and old masters in the most vulgar ways." (pp. 124-25).
Bernhard struggled to compare himself to "great minds" like Wittgenstein, Goethe, and Gould, and took their lack of (imaginary) companionship very seriously. This was a person for whom most of human society was intolerable, and he hoped, repeatedly, that he could find some common ground with people he admired. So the sentiment in this passage is as serious as any could be for him: since people couldn't be companions, at least there could be solace in sitting silently in front of one of the few remaining acceptable works of art--until, that is, it became apparent that even the great "old masters" would have despised him.
And how does Mahler illustrate this? With a scene on the left-facing page of Reger, sitting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, his back to us, comically small on his museum bench, wearing a wide flat-brimmed Italian priest's hat. He stares out past a high cordon toward the lower parts of three large, dark, looming picture frames, too high above his eye height to see. On the right-facing page, Reger and his bench have shrunk down to the width of a couple coins on the blank page. The cordon has moved and now it surrounds him. The words "left alone" float in the air above him. Mahler's illustration is sentimental and whimsical at the same time: two more emotions Bernhard hated. "Old Masters" is acidic, as full of vitriol as a book can be, and its humor is pitch black. Anyone, like Mahler, who reads it as poignant or simply amusing is misunderstanding Bernhard's serious and hard-earned judgments against Austrian society: Mahler is exactly the kind of uncomprehending bourgeois whom Bernhard parodied in other novels, and in his prize acceptance speeches: a person who does not see the serious judgments behind the "comedy."
I'm sorry if this review seems too negative for an internet forum. As I read Mahler's book I could feel Bernhard writhing, and to be faithful to my sense of Bernhard's accomplishment I felt I had to respond, useless as it is to write into empty cyberspace. And--of course--it doesn't matter if Mahler misunderstood Bernhard, because he has produced a book of his own, with lots of easily digested light humor and toothless parody. It's a consistent and legible book, it's just not an interesting book.
It doesn't seem to have occurred to Nicolas Mahler, the artist who drew this comic book version of Bernhard's novel, that Bernhard would have despised him.
There's a popular reception of Bernhard's "Old Masters" (the original) that sees it as a funny book, and it is, but it's important to ask what kind of humor is at stake. It is a "comedy" (Bernhard's word) in the way that Buechner's "Leonce and Lena" is a "comedy," not in the way that Sunday comics are comedies: "Old Masters" is venomous, despairing, and desperate. Real spirit is in short supply, someone says in "Leonce and Lena": "From now on, we will have to drink our spirits from liqueur glasses."
"Old Masters" is a parody of certain kinds of negative judgments, especially about visual art, but that does not mean the author is light-hearted. I think Bernhard would have hated this book with the same intensity he directed at contemporary theater (note the last line of this book!), contemporary music (he rejected even the canon of avant-garde composers, the ones Adorno triumphed, and prefered Josef Matthias Hauer's monotonous endless dissonances), writing (see his dismissal of Marianne Fritz, who was published by one of his own publishers, Suhrkamp), and painting. "Old Masters" rejects all of painting, except Goya and one painting by Tintoretto, and it does not do that as a joke. The idea that Bernhard's themes in "Old Masters" might be subjects for an afternoon read and a laugh would have made him even more dementedly angry than he aready was. This is a book written during a personal tragedy, and that should be enough of a clue that more was at stake than a diverting jab at bourgeois taste.
I'll take just one example. There's a double-page spread with the following text, taken from "Old Masters":
"We could have accepted so many great minds and so many old masters as companions, but they are not a replacement for people, so said Reger, in the end we are, by all these so-called great minds and these so-called old masters, left alone, and we see that we will be mocked by these great minds and old masters in the most vulgar ways." (pp. 124-25).
Bernhard struggled to compare himself to "great minds" like Wittgenstein, Goethe, and Gould, and took their lack of (imaginary) companionship very seriously. This was a person for whom most of human society was intolerable, and he hoped, repeatedly, that he could find some common ground with people he admired. So the sentiment in this passage is as serious as any could be for him: since people couldn't be companions, at least there could be solace in sitting silently in front of one of the few remaining acceptable works of art--until, that is, it became apparent that even the great "old masters" would have despised him.
And how does Mahler illustrate this? With a scene on the left-facing page of Reger, sitting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, his back to us, comically small on his museum bench, wearing a wide flat-brimmed Italian priest's hat. He stares out past a high cordon toward the lower parts of three large, dark, looming picture frames, too high above his eye height to see. On the right-facing page, Reger and his bench have shrunk down to the width of a couple coins on the blank page. The cordon has moved and now it surrounds him. The words "left alone" float in the air above him. Mahler's illustration is sentimental and whimsical at the same time: two more emotions Bernhard hated. "Old Masters" is acidic, as full of vitriol as a book can be, and its humor is pitch black. Anyone, like Mahler, who reads it as poignant or simply amusing is misunderstanding Bernhard's serious and hard-earned judgments against Austrian society: Mahler is exactly the kind of uncomprehending bourgeois whom Bernhard parodied in other novels, and in his prize acceptance speeches: a person who does not see the serious judgments behind the "comedy."
I'm sorry if this review seems too negative for an internet forum. As I read Mahler's book I could feel Bernhard writhing, and to be faithful to my sense of Bernhard's accomplishment I felt I had to respond, useless as it is to write into empty cyberspace. And--of course--it doesn't matter if Mahler misunderstood Bernhard, because he has produced a book of his own, with lots of easily digested light humor and toothless parody. It's a consistent and legible book, it's just not an interesting book.
March 29, 2017
Bernhard uses, as usual, mostly a monologue to rant on everything under the sun, from art and politics to lavatories. He does not give a good image of Austria and Austrians (in some brilliant thoughts one might also apply to Portugal and the Portuguese) with his critical approach which, written in 1985 (the year I was born), is valid still today. The result is an excellent and sarcastic novel with a melancholic touch.
June 12, 2023
"Pazite se da ne ulazite dublje u neko umetničko delo, sve ćete upropastiti i svako, čak i ono koje vam je najomiljenije. Ne gledajte neku sliku dugo, ne čitajte knjigu pažljivo, ne slušajte muzički komad s prevelikim intenzitetom, sve ćete ruinirati, i ono što je najlepše i najkorisnije na svetu. Čitajte ono što volite, ali ne ulazite totalno u to, slušajte ono što volite, ali ne slušajte totalno, gledajte ono što volite, ali ne gledajte totalno. Pošto sam uvek sve gledao totalno, uvek sve slušao totalno, uvek sve čitao totalno ili, barem, uvek pokušavao da gledam i slušam i čitam totalno, konačno sam i definitivno sve pokvario, tako sam pokvario čitavu likovnu umetnost i čitavu muziku i čitavu književnost, rekao je on juče."
April 23, 2017
In which we get the rambling thoughts of Reger, an 82-year-old music critic, whose irascibility is only matched by his erudition, as he sits in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum before Tintoretto's 'Portrait of a White Bearded Man'. Reger hates almost everything but reserves great passion for those things he loves. The prose - in a single paragraph, a la Garcia Marquez - is hypnotic.
"...I am basically always unhappy, I am sure you understand, Reger said then. Even though this is nonsense, Reger said then..."
The narrative voice hugely reminded me of one of my favourite writers, Max Sebald. So I looked it up and found that, yes, Bernhard was a great influence on Sebald. I read the novel in the beautifully designed Penguin Central European Classics version - a pleasure in itself. The music critic as hero - this book was bound to appeal to me, then. I shall definitely be seeking out another Bernhard novel to read.
"...I am basically always unhappy, I am sure you understand, Reger said then. Even though this is nonsense, Reger said then..."
The narrative voice hugely reminded me of one of my favourite writers, Max Sebald. So I looked it up and found that, yes, Bernhard was a great influence on Sebald. I read the novel in the beautifully designed Penguin Central European Classics version - a pleasure in itself. The music critic as hero - this book was bound to appeal to me, then. I shall definitely be seeking out another Bernhard novel to read.
April 8, 2021
Whether it’s the German love for subordination, or the translator’s love for redundant accuracy, this is a rocky road for reading. I have read forty pages in six mornings, the slowest I’ve ever progressed in purported English. For instance, the writer and the translator repeat Kunsthistorisches Museum four times in as many lines, or no paragraph separations—one long paragraph, 156 pp—or get this very first sentence, with the fishhook at the end:
“Although I had arranged to meet Reger at the Kunsthistorisches Museum at half-past eleven, I arrived at the agreed spot at half-past ten in order, as I had for some time decided to do, to observe him, for once, from the most ideal angle possible and undisturbed, Atzbacher writes.�
Hmm. The translator Osers tries to replicate, because this translation needs translation. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of better English, “I had read Stifter in my youth, and my memory of him had been based on these reading experiences�(34). Surely, those reading experiences.
Being a translator myself should help me read, but� Besides German and Czech (where he was born) Osers from the BBC also translated Silesian, Macedonian, and Slovak poetry. His literalness produces such replicative plenitude:
“This contrast of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Ambassador is what my thinking needs more than anything else, exposure on the one side and shelter on the other, the atmosphere of the Kunsthistorisches Museum on the one side and the atmosphere of the Ambassador on the other, exposure on the one side and shelter on the other, my dear Atzbacher…�(11)
Some of this redundancy can be fun, like the mirroring of Reger’s obsessions,
“The art historians are the real wreckers of art. The art historians twaddle so long about art until they have killed it with their twaddle…we should not allow art to be wrecked by the art historians who are the real wreckers of art. Listening to an art historian we feel sick…with the twaddle of the art historian art shrivels and is ruined�(15). This amused my wife, the artist Susan Mohl Powers (wikipedia), because art history classes in college, the darkened slide shows, put her to sleep. Maybe she didn’t realize she was listening to twaddle.
Also amusing, Reger reflects on the over-rated Bruckner in music (and R is an international music critic) and Stifter in literature, who was appointed to the School Board in Linz after the Revolution of 1848. “Stifter writes in a terrible style…and Bruckner hs similarly slipped the reins with his chaotically wild…religiously pubertal intoxication of sounds�(34).
We learn little about Atzbacher except he wears a wonderfully fitted Polish-Russian border sheepskin coat, and he is a philosophical writer who does not publish, and…he is a great listener, pretends not to have heard before what Reger has said before.
For instance, Reger has told him where he met his wife, by chance, and Reger has criticized the poor clothes of the Viennese, especially the young with their ready-made bright colors.
But all Reger’s self-contradictory criticism can be amusing, can even elicit
rousing approval from another old crank, this reader. I have been urging that poetry readings be given from memory*, to shorten and improve them; my new recent book of verse honoring my brilliant fellow student of Archibald MacLeish features parodies of a couple dozen poets. Imagine my huzzah at this,
“There is nothing more distasteful than a so-called poet’s reading, Reger said, there is hardly anything I detest more, but none of these people see anything wrong in reading their rubbish everywhere�(111).
On the other hand, many Reger’s criticisms I oppose, such as, “And everywhere that nauseating twaddle of democracy!�(106).
*Most recently, the lengthy, unmemorable poetry at Biden's inauguration, the poet chosen by an Ed.D., always a question of learning there...Mrs. Biden.
“Although I had arranged to meet Reger at the Kunsthistorisches Museum at half-past eleven, I arrived at the agreed spot at half-past ten in order, as I had for some time decided to do, to observe him, for once, from the most ideal angle possible and undisturbed, Atzbacher writes.�
Hmm. The translator Osers tries to replicate, because this translation needs translation. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of better English, “I had read Stifter in my youth, and my memory of him had been based on these reading experiences�(34). Surely, those reading experiences.
Being a translator myself should help me read, but� Besides German and Czech (where he was born) Osers from the BBC also translated Silesian, Macedonian, and Slovak poetry. His literalness produces such replicative plenitude:
“This contrast of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Ambassador is what my thinking needs more than anything else, exposure on the one side and shelter on the other, the atmosphere of the Kunsthistorisches Museum on the one side and the atmosphere of the Ambassador on the other, exposure on the one side and shelter on the other, my dear Atzbacher…�(11)
Some of this redundancy can be fun, like the mirroring of Reger’s obsessions,
“The art historians are the real wreckers of art. The art historians twaddle so long about art until they have killed it with their twaddle…we should not allow art to be wrecked by the art historians who are the real wreckers of art. Listening to an art historian we feel sick…with the twaddle of the art historian art shrivels and is ruined�(15). This amused my wife, the artist Susan Mohl Powers (wikipedia), because art history classes in college, the darkened slide shows, put her to sleep. Maybe she didn’t realize she was listening to twaddle.
Also amusing, Reger reflects on the over-rated Bruckner in music (and R is an international music critic) and Stifter in literature, who was appointed to the School Board in Linz after the Revolution of 1848. “Stifter writes in a terrible style…and Bruckner hs similarly slipped the reins with his chaotically wild…religiously pubertal intoxication of sounds�(34).
We learn little about Atzbacher except he wears a wonderfully fitted Polish-Russian border sheepskin coat, and he is a philosophical writer who does not publish, and…he is a great listener, pretends not to have heard before what Reger has said before.
For instance, Reger has told him where he met his wife, by chance, and Reger has criticized the poor clothes of the Viennese, especially the young with their ready-made bright colors.
But all Reger’s self-contradictory criticism can be amusing, can even elicit
rousing approval from another old crank, this reader. I have been urging that poetry readings be given from memory*, to shorten and improve them; my new recent book of verse honoring my brilliant fellow student of Archibald MacLeish features parodies of a couple dozen poets. Imagine my huzzah at this,
“There is nothing more distasteful than a so-called poet’s reading, Reger said, there is hardly anything I detest more, but none of these people see anything wrong in reading their rubbish everywhere�(111).
On the other hand, many Reger’s criticisms I oppose, such as, “And everywhere that nauseating twaddle of democracy!�(106).
*Most recently, the lengthy, unmemorable poetry at Biden's inauguration, the poet chosen by an Ed.D., always a question of learning there...Mrs. Biden.
July 31, 2022
Die Handlung ist sehr kurz. Der Musikkritiker Reger geht seit 30 Jahren jeden zweiten Tag ins Wiener Kulturhistorische Museum und setzt sich auf eine Bank vor den Weißbärtigen Mann von Tintoretto, vor das einzige Bild, das seiner Kritik stand gehalten hat. Häufig trifft er sich dort mit dem Erzähler Atzbacher, den er plötzlich für den darauffolgenden Tag wiederbestellt. Atzbacher, der geschätzt wird, weil er immer pünktlich ist, steht schon lange vor der verabredeten Zeit im Nebensaal, beobachtet Reger und erinnert sich an Sätze und Gedankengänge des Kritikers, der sich in giftigen Tiraden über die „Alten Meister� in Malerei, Musik und Literatur auslässt, sich über Politiker, Lehrer, Volk, Staat, Reisegruppen und selbst die Wiener Toiletten aufregt. Der Zusatz zum Titel: „Komödie� gilt für diesen Teil des Buches, etwas bis über die Hälfte, in dem eine bitterböse Satire zu lesen ist.
Eine Nebenrolle spielt der Museumswärter, der aus einer einfachen Familie nach Wien kam und in dem Reger einen weiteren willkommenen Zuhörer fand, mit dem er sich darüber hinaus auch schon privat traf, dem er aber ebenso überheblich wie zugewandt begegnet.
Mit der vereinbarten Zeit und dem Treffen Atzbacher � Reger verwandelt sich die Komödie allmählich in eine Tragödie. Nein, es passiert nichts Tragisches, eigentlich passiert überhaupt nichts, es wird jedoch klar, dass hinter allen Tiraden, aller Unzufriedenheit, aller Verachtung, der Tod der geliebten Frau steht. Plötzlich lässt sich an jedem Gemälde, in jedem Buch, in jedem Musikstück ein Fehler, eine Unzulänglichkeit finden. Die ganze Sinnlosigkeit des einsamen Lebens spiegelt sich in den Alten Meistern wie in der Zwölf-Zimmer-Wohnung Regers. Auf seine Art beklagt er den Tod seiner Frau, singt ihr auf seine Weise sein Klagelied.
Es ist großartig, wie Bernhard Zeitkritik mit persönlichen Befindlichkeiten verbindet. Die ausgefeilte Sprache, die mit vielen geschickt eingesetzten Redundanzen und plötzlichen Wendungen des Gesprächs spielt und konsequent von Atzbacher wiedergegeben wird, auch wenn Reger von Gesprächen anderer („sagte meine Frau, sagte Reger�) erzählt, war herausragend. Ich weiß nicht, ob es mir nach mehreren Büchern gleichen Stils noch genauso gut gefiele, aber bei meinem ersten Buch von Bernhard war ich begeistert.
Eine Nebenrolle spielt der Museumswärter, der aus einer einfachen Familie nach Wien kam und in dem Reger einen weiteren willkommenen Zuhörer fand, mit dem er sich darüber hinaus auch schon privat traf, dem er aber ebenso überheblich wie zugewandt begegnet.
Mit der vereinbarten Zeit und dem Treffen Atzbacher � Reger verwandelt sich die Komödie allmählich in eine Tragödie. Nein, es passiert nichts Tragisches, eigentlich passiert überhaupt nichts, es wird jedoch klar, dass hinter allen Tiraden, aller Unzufriedenheit, aller Verachtung, der Tod der geliebten Frau steht. Plötzlich lässt sich an jedem Gemälde, in jedem Buch, in jedem Musikstück ein Fehler, eine Unzulänglichkeit finden. Die ganze Sinnlosigkeit des einsamen Lebens spiegelt sich in den Alten Meistern wie in der Zwölf-Zimmer-Wohnung Regers. Auf seine Art beklagt er den Tod seiner Frau, singt ihr auf seine Weise sein Klagelied.
Es ist großartig, wie Bernhard Zeitkritik mit persönlichen Befindlichkeiten verbindet. Die ausgefeilte Sprache, die mit vielen geschickt eingesetzten Redundanzen und plötzlichen Wendungen des Gesprächs spielt und konsequent von Atzbacher wiedergegeben wird, auch wenn Reger von Gesprächen anderer („sagte meine Frau, sagte Reger�) erzählt, war herausragend. Ich weiß nicht, ob es mir nach mehreren Büchern gleichen Stils noch genauso gut gefiele, aber bei meinem ersten Buch von Bernhard war ich begeistert.
December 29, 2018
*30 yıl boyunca Viyana Sanat Tarihi Müzesi'ne (Kunsthistorisches Museum) gidip, Tintoretto'nun BEYAZ SAKALLI ADAM resmini izleyerek düşünen ve sanat üzerine Times için yazılar yazan bir Avusturyalının yorumları.
-DAHİ ve Avusturya sözcükleri birbirleriyle uyuşmaz, Avusturya'da söz söyleyebilmen ve ciddiye alınman için ORTA KARAR OLMAK zorundasın, yeteneksizliğin ve taşra kalleşliğinin adamı olman gerekir, kesinlikle küçük devlet kafasına sahip biri olman gerekir. Bir dahi ya da olağanüstü bir beyin bile burada şerefsiz biçimde er geç KATLEDİLİR.
-Bu Katolik Devletin en ufak bir KARŞITLIĞA dayanası yok ve öğretmenler öğrencilerine hiçbir şey, hele KENDİLERİNE HAS hiçbir şey bırakmıyorlar. Bu öğrencilerin içi yalnızca DEVLET ÇÖPÜ ile doldurulur, başka bir şeyle değil, kazların içinin mısırla doldurulduğu gibi ve devlet çöpü bu kafalar boğulana kadar kafalara doldurulur. Devlet, ÇOCUKLAR DEVLETİN ÇOCUKLARIDIR diye düşünüyor ve buna göre davranıyor ve yüzyıllardan bu yana yıkıcı etkisini yapıyor.
-En korkunç olanı da HÜKÜMETİN her geçen gün daha da yalancı ve sahtekar ve hain ve alçak oluşunu BAYGIN DURUMDA SEYRETMEK zorunda oluşumuz. ...Ama yalnız hükümet değil yalancı ve sahtekar ve hain ve alçak olan, PARLAMENTO da öyle, bazen bana öyle geliyor ki parlamento hükümetten daha da sahtekar ve yalancı ve nihayet bu ülkedeki HUKUK ve bu ülkedeki BASIN ve nihayet bu ülkedeki KÜLTÜR ve nihayet bu ülkedeki HER ŞEY ne kadar yalancı ve hain.
...Ama her halk ve HER TOPLUM sahip olduğu devleti HAK EDİYOR.
Avusturya'da bizim işimiz, artık yalnız tamamen çökmüş ve ŞEYTANSI bir DEVLETLE değil, aynı zamanda da tamamen çökmüş ve ŞEYTANSI bir HUKUKLA. ...bugünkü hukuk POLİTİK BİR HUKUK, BAĞIMSIZ DEĞİL.
-Doğuştan ÇIKARCI olan Avusturyalılar SİNSİDİR ve ÖRTBAS ETME ve UNUTMA ile yaşarlar. En büyük siyasal iğrençliği bir hafta olmadan unuturlar. ...dahiyane bir ALDATICIDIR, en dahiyane tiyatrocudur gerçekten, GERÇEĞİN İÇİNE ASLA GİRMEDEN HER ŞEYİ OYNAR, onun en karakteristik yanı budur.
...YİRMİ şilin çalan biri mahkemelerce izlenir ve tutuklanır, milyonlar ve MİLYARLAR çalan BAKANLAR, EN İYİ AYLIKLA emekliye sevkedilir olsa olsa ve hemen unutulur.
...O, deyim yerindeyse, vur patlasın çal oynasın bir yaşam sürüyor emekli bir bakan olarak ve bir gün öldüğünde bir de DEVLET TÖRENİYLE GÖMÜLECEK ve merkez kabristanında, kendisinden önce ölen, tıpkı onun gibi suçlu olan bakan arkadaşlarının yanında şerefli bir mezara sahip olacak.
...Ben İYİ KARAKTERden RÜŞVET KABUL ETMEYEN bir karakteri anlarım.
-Çağımız bir BÜTÜN olarak çok uzun zamandan beri dayanılır değil, bir tek PARÇALARI gördüğümüz yer bizim için dayanılabilirdir. Bütün ve tamamlanmış olan, bizim için dayanılmazdır.
...FELSEFEYİ ve tüm düşünce bilimlerini sırf kesinlikle ÇARESİZ oldukları için severiz. Gerçekte biz yalnızca, bir BÜTÜN OLMAYAN, KARMAŞIK ve ÇARESİZ kitapları severiz. ...bir İNSANA da sırf o çaresiz olduğu ve bütünlenmiş olmadığı, karmaşık ve tamamlanmamış olduğu için özellikle bağlanırız. ...İnsan kafası İNSANLIK HATALARINI ARADIĞI zaman gerçekten bir İNSAN KAFASIDIR. ...İYİ bir kafa, insanlık hatalarını ARAYAN kafadır ve OLAĞANÜSTÜ bir kafa bu insanlık hatalarını BULAN kafadır ve DAHİYANE kafa da bulduğu bu hataları onları bulduktan sonra GÖSTEREN ve elindeki tüm olanaklarla bu hatalara İŞARET EDEN kafadır. Bu anlamda da, kafasızca söylenmiş olan ARAYAN BULUR deyiminin doğruluğu ortaya çıkar.
-HAYRANLIK KÖR EDER, hayranlık duyanı budalalaştırır. İnsanların çoğu bir kez hayranlığa kapıldılar mı artık hayranlıktan kurtulamaz ve böylece budalalaşır. İnsanların çoğu sırf bu yüzden budaladır ömür boyu, hayranlık duydukları için. Hayranlık duyulacak HİÇBİR ŞEY yoktur. İnsanlar için SAYGI DUYMAK ve DEĞER VERMEK çok güç olduğu için hayranlık duyarlar, bu daha kolaydır onlar için. ...AKILLI hayranlık duymaz, saygı duyar, değer verir, ANLAR, böyledir. Ama saygı duymak ve değer vermek ve anlamak için DÜŞÜNCE gerekir. ...Hayranlık durumu düşünce zayıflığı durumudur.
-...HEM AKIL HEM DUYGU İNSANI OLAN BİRİ İÇİN dünya ve insanlık yakında dayanılır olmaktan çıkacak. Ben bu dünyada ve bu insanların arasında artık benim için DEĞERLİ olan hiçbir şey bulamıyorum. ...bu dünyada her şey dar kafalı. ...bu dünyadaki ve bu insanlıktaki her şey en alttaki basamağa kadar indi. ...her şey öylesine TOPLUMA ZARALI bir seviyeye ve ALÇAK BİR ŞİDDETE ulaştı ki, ...bu kadar alçak bir dar kafalılığı tarihteki en ileri görüşlü düşünürler bile olanaklı görmediler. ...Bugünkü her şey HAİNLİK ve KÖTÜLÜK dolu, YALAN ve İHANET dolu, ...bu kadar UTANMAZ ve DÜZENBAZ olmamıştı insanlık hiçbir zaman.
-Korkunç bu, yarım yüzyıl boyunca hep bu BUNALTICI ORTA KARARLILIK.
...Yaşlıların SÖYLEYECEK ŞEYLERİ YOK ama gençlerin söyleyecek şeyleri DAHA AZ, bugünkü durum bu.
...Bugünkü zamanlar tamamen vahşi zamanlar.
-İnsanlar MÜZEYE, kültürlü bir insanın orayı ziyaret etmesi gerektiği onlara söylendiği için gidiyorlar, ilgilendikleri için değil, İNSANLARIN SANATA İLGİSİ YOK, insanların hiç değilse yüzde doksan dokuzunun sanata ilgisi yok.
-ESKİ SANATA gelince, bu, çoktan aşılmış ve eritilmiş ve çoktan bitirilmiştir ve uzun zamandır artık DİKKATİMİZİ ÇEKMEYİ HAK ETMEZ.
...ÇAĞDAŞ SANAT ise, hep söylenegeldiği gibi, BEŞ PARA ETMEZ.
...Onyıllardır sanatçılar tarafından yalnızca KİTSCH PİSLİK üretilir.
...Ressamlar pislik resmediyorlar, besteciler pislik besteliyorlar, yazarlar pislik yazıyorlar, yontucular en büyük pisliği yapıyorlar ve buna karşın en BÜYÜK BEĞENİYİ topluyorlar.
..İçinde yaşadığımız bu BUDALA ZAMANA ÖZGÜ bir durum.
...Yazarların hiçbiri SÖYLEYECEK BİR ŞEYE SAHİP DEĞİL ve söyleyecek şeyleri olmamasını yazamıyorlar.
...Üç aşağı beş yukarı hepsi iğrenç devlet eyyamcısı olan bu yazarların bütün kitapları KOPYA EDİLMİŞ kitaplardan başka bir şey değil.
-EDEBİYATIN felsefesiz ve tersine de, FELSEFENİN müziksiz ve edebiyatın MÜZİKSİZ ve tersine olmasının düşünülemeyeceği açıktır.
...günümüzün kuşağı nedense müziğe artık, on beş yirmi yıl önce gösterilen DİKKATİ göstermiyor. Bu, müzik dinlemenin teknik aracılığıyla BAYAĞI bir OLAĞANLIK durumuna düşmesinden kaynaklanıyor. Müzik dinlemek artık sıradışı bir şey değil, bugün her yerde müzik dinliyorsunuz, nerede olursanız olun MÜZİK DUYMA ZORUNDA kalıyorsunuz,
...müzikten kurtulamazsınız, ondan kaçmak istesiniz, ama ondan kaçamazsınız, bu çağın FON MÜZİĞİ oldu müzik, felaket işte burada, çağımızda TOTAL MÜZİK belirdi.
...İnsanlar gün be gün müzikle öylesine dolduruluyorlar ki, artık çoktan müzik için HER TÜRLÜ DUYGUYU kaybediyorlar.
...Bugünün insanları, artık BAŞKA BİR ŞEYLERİ KALMADIĞI İÇİN, hastalıklı bir müzik tüketimine yakalanmışlar.
...Müzik endüstrisi tarafından önce insanların İŞİTME organları mahvediliyor, sonra da bunun mantıksal sonucu olarak insanların KENDİLERİ.
-SAKLANACAK BİR YER YOK ARTIK, korkunç olan da bu, her şey tamamen SAYDAM ve dolayısıyla da KORUNMASIZ oldu; bu, bugün artık HİÇBİR KAÇIŞ YOLUNUN OLANAĞININ OLMAMASI demek.
...Bu endişe verici dünyayla yetinmek zorundasınız, isteseniz de istemeseniz de, TEPEDEN TIRNAĞA BU ENDİŞE VERİCİ DÜNYAYA TESLİMSİNİZ.
...Sanatın tümü de zaten YAŞAMDA KALMA SANATIndan başka bir şey değildir, bu gerçeği yabana atamayız, nihayet hiç durmadan, AKLI BİLE DUYGULANDIRACAK BİÇİMDE, bu dünya ve onun İĞRENÇLİKLERİYLE BAŞA ÇIKMA deneyidir.
-...birden bu umutsuzluktan çıkarsınız, AYAĞA KALKARSINIZ ve bu ölümcül umutsuzluktan çıkarsınız, hala en derin umutsuzluktan DIŞARIYA ÇIKMA GÜCÜNÜZ VARDIR.
...birden ayağa kalktım, ...KENT MERKEZİNE gittim, İNSANLARIN ARASINA, şu insanların arasına girdim ve sonunda kendimi kurtardım. ...Çünkü yalnızca İNSANLARLA ve ONLARIN ARASINDA şansımız vardır YAŞAMI SÜRDÜRMEK ve ÇILDIRMAMAK İÇİN.
...İnsansız en ufak bir yaşama şansımız yoktur, ne kadar büyük beyinler ve ne kadar ESKİ USTALAR almış olsak da yanımıza yoldaş olarak, HİÇBİRİ İNSANIN YERİNİ TUTMAZ.
-DAHİ ve Avusturya sözcükleri birbirleriyle uyuşmaz, Avusturya'da söz söyleyebilmen ve ciddiye alınman için ORTA KARAR OLMAK zorundasın, yeteneksizliğin ve taşra kalleşliğinin adamı olman gerekir, kesinlikle küçük devlet kafasına sahip biri olman gerekir. Bir dahi ya da olağanüstü bir beyin bile burada şerefsiz biçimde er geç KATLEDİLİR.
-Bu Katolik Devletin en ufak bir KARŞITLIĞA dayanası yok ve öğretmenler öğrencilerine hiçbir şey, hele KENDİLERİNE HAS hiçbir şey bırakmıyorlar. Bu öğrencilerin içi yalnızca DEVLET ÇÖPÜ ile doldurulur, başka bir şeyle değil, kazların içinin mısırla doldurulduğu gibi ve devlet çöpü bu kafalar boğulana kadar kafalara doldurulur. Devlet, ÇOCUKLAR DEVLETİN ÇOCUKLARIDIR diye düşünüyor ve buna göre davranıyor ve yüzyıllardan bu yana yıkıcı etkisini yapıyor.
-En korkunç olanı da HÜKÜMETİN her geçen gün daha da yalancı ve sahtekar ve hain ve alçak oluşunu BAYGIN DURUMDA SEYRETMEK zorunda oluşumuz. ...Ama yalnız hükümet değil yalancı ve sahtekar ve hain ve alçak olan, PARLAMENTO da öyle, bazen bana öyle geliyor ki parlamento hükümetten daha da sahtekar ve yalancı ve nihayet bu ülkedeki HUKUK ve bu ülkedeki BASIN ve nihayet bu ülkedeki KÜLTÜR ve nihayet bu ülkedeki HER ŞEY ne kadar yalancı ve hain.
...Ama her halk ve HER TOPLUM sahip olduğu devleti HAK EDİYOR.
Avusturya'da bizim işimiz, artık yalnız tamamen çökmüş ve ŞEYTANSI bir DEVLETLE değil, aynı zamanda da tamamen çökmüş ve ŞEYTANSI bir HUKUKLA. ...bugünkü hukuk POLİTİK BİR HUKUK, BAĞIMSIZ DEĞİL.
-Doğuştan ÇIKARCI olan Avusturyalılar SİNSİDİR ve ÖRTBAS ETME ve UNUTMA ile yaşarlar. En büyük siyasal iğrençliği bir hafta olmadan unuturlar. ...dahiyane bir ALDATICIDIR, en dahiyane tiyatrocudur gerçekten, GERÇEĞİN İÇİNE ASLA GİRMEDEN HER ŞEYİ OYNAR, onun en karakteristik yanı budur.
...YİRMİ şilin çalan biri mahkemelerce izlenir ve tutuklanır, milyonlar ve MİLYARLAR çalan BAKANLAR, EN İYİ AYLIKLA emekliye sevkedilir olsa olsa ve hemen unutulur.
...O, deyim yerindeyse, vur patlasın çal oynasın bir yaşam sürüyor emekli bir bakan olarak ve bir gün öldüğünde bir de DEVLET TÖRENİYLE GÖMÜLECEK ve merkez kabristanında, kendisinden önce ölen, tıpkı onun gibi suçlu olan bakan arkadaşlarının yanında şerefli bir mezara sahip olacak.
...Ben İYİ KARAKTERden RÜŞVET KABUL ETMEYEN bir karakteri anlarım.
-Çağımız bir BÜTÜN olarak çok uzun zamandan beri dayanılır değil, bir tek PARÇALARI gördüğümüz yer bizim için dayanılabilirdir. Bütün ve tamamlanmış olan, bizim için dayanılmazdır.
...FELSEFEYİ ve tüm düşünce bilimlerini sırf kesinlikle ÇARESİZ oldukları için severiz. Gerçekte biz yalnızca, bir BÜTÜN OLMAYAN, KARMAŞIK ve ÇARESİZ kitapları severiz. ...bir İNSANA da sırf o çaresiz olduğu ve bütünlenmiş olmadığı, karmaşık ve tamamlanmamış olduğu için özellikle bağlanırız. ...İnsan kafası İNSANLIK HATALARINI ARADIĞI zaman gerçekten bir İNSAN KAFASIDIR. ...İYİ bir kafa, insanlık hatalarını ARAYAN kafadır ve OLAĞANÜSTÜ bir kafa bu insanlık hatalarını BULAN kafadır ve DAHİYANE kafa da bulduğu bu hataları onları bulduktan sonra GÖSTEREN ve elindeki tüm olanaklarla bu hatalara İŞARET EDEN kafadır. Bu anlamda da, kafasızca söylenmiş olan ARAYAN BULUR deyiminin doğruluğu ortaya çıkar.
-HAYRANLIK KÖR EDER, hayranlık duyanı budalalaştırır. İnsanların çoğu bir kez hayranlığa kapıldılar mı artık hayranlıktan kurtulamaz ve böylece budalalaşır. İnsanların çoğu sırf bu yüzden budaladır ömür boyu, hayranlık duydukları için. Hayranlık duyulacak HİÇBİR ŞEY yoktur. İnsanlar için SAYGI DUYMAK ve DEĞER VERMEK çok güç olduğu için hayranlık duyarlar, bu daha kolaydır onlar için. ...AKILLI hayranlık duymaz, saygı duyar, değer verir, ANLAR, böyledir. Ama saygı duymak ve değer vermek ve anlamak için DÜŞÜNCE gerekir. ...Hayranlık durumu düşünce zayıflığı durumudur.
-...HEM AKIL HEM DUYGU İNSANI OLAN BİRİ İÇİN dünya ve insanlık yakında dayanılır olmaktan çıkacak. Ben bu dünyada ve bu insanların arasında artık benim için DEĞERLİ olan hiçbir şey bulamıyorum. ...bu dünyada her şey dar kafalı. ...bu dünyadaki ve bu insanlıktaki her şey en alttaki basamağa kadar indi. ...her şey öylesine TOPLUMA ZARALI bir seviyeye ve ALÇAK BİR ŞİDDETE ulaştı ki, ...bu kadar alçak bir dar kafalılığı tarihteki en ileri görüşlü düşünürler bile olanaklı görmediler. ...Bugünkü her şey HAİNLİK ve KÖTÜLÜK dolu, YALAN ve İHANET dolu, ...bu kadar UTANMAZ ve DÜZENBAZ olmamıştı insanlık hiçbir zaman.
-Korkunç bu, yarım yüzyıl boyunca hep bu BUNALTICI ORTA KARARLILIK.
...Yaşlıların SÖYLEYECEK ŞEYLERİ YOK ama gençlerin söyleyecek şeyleri DAHA AZ, bugünkü durum bu.
...Bugünkü zamanlar tamamen vahşi zamanlar.
-İnsanlar MÜZEYE, kültürlü bir insanın orayı ziyaret etmesi gerektiği onlara söylendiği için gidiyorlar, ilgilendikleri için değil, İNSANLARIN SANATA İLGİSİ YOK, insanların hiç değilse yüzde doksan dokuzunun sanata ilgisi yok.
-ESKİ SANATA gelince, bu, çoktan aşılmış ve eritilmiş ve çoktan bitirilmiştir ve uzun zamandır artık DİKKATİMİZİ ÇEKMEYİ HAK ETMEZ.
...ÇAĞDAŞ SANAT ise, hep söylenegeldiği gibi, BEŞ PARA ETMEZ.
...Onyıllardır sanatçılar tarafından yalnızca KİTSCH PİSLİK üretilir.
...Ressamlar pislik resmediyorlar, besteciler pislik besteliyorlar, yazarlar pislik yazıyorlar, yontucular en büyük pisliği yapıyorlar ve buna karşın en BÜYÜK BEĞENİYİ topluyorlar.
..İçinde yaşadığımız bu BUDALA ZAMANA ÖZGÜ bir durum.
...Yazarların hiçbiri SÖYLEYECEK BİR ŞEYE SAHİP DEĞİL ve söyleyecek şeyleri olmamasını yazamıyorlar.
...Üç aşağı beş yukarı hepsi iğrenç devlet eyyamcısı olan bu yazarların bütün kitapları KOPYA EDİLMİŞ kitaplardan başka bir şey değil.
-EDEBİYATIN felsefesiz ve tersine de, FELSEFENİN müziksiz ve edebiyatın MÜZİKSİZ ve tersine olmasının düşünülemeyeceği açıktır.
...günümüzün kuşağı nedense müziğe artık, on beş yirmi yıl önce gösterilen DİKKATİ göstermiyor. Bu, müzik dinlemenin teknik aracılığıyla BAYAĞI bir OLAĞANLIK durumuna düşmesinden kaynaklanıyor. Müzik dinlemek artık sıradışı bir şey değil, bugün her yerde müzik dinliyorsunuz, nerede olursanız olun MÜZİK DUYMA ZORUNDA kalıyorsunuz,
...müzikten kurtulamazsınız, ondan kaçmak istesiniz, ama ondan kaçamazsınız, bu çağın FON MÜZİĞİ oldu müzik, felaket işte burada, çağımızda TOTAL MÜZİK belirdi.
...İnsanlar gün be gün müzikle öylesine dolduruluyorlar ki, artık çoktan müzik için HER TÜRLÜ DUYGUYU kaybediyorlar.
...Bugünün insanları, artık BAŞKA BİR ŞEYLERİ KALMADIĞI İÇİN, hastalıklı bir müzik tüketimine yakalanmışlar.
...Müzik endüstrisi tarafından önce insanların İŞİTME organları mahvediliyor, sonra da bunun mantıksal sonucu olarak insanların KENDİLERİ.
-SAKLANACAK BİR YER YOK ARTIK, korkunç olan da bu, her şey tamamen SAYDAM ve dolayısıyla da KORUNMASIZ oldu; bu, bugün artık HİÇBİR KAÇIŞ YOLUNUN OLANAĞININ OLMAMASI demek.
...Bu endişe verici dünyayla yetinmek zorundasınız, isteseniz de istemeseniz de, TEPEDEN TIRNAĞA BU ENDİŞE VERİCİ DÜNYAYA TESLİMSİNİZ.
...Sanatın tümü de zaten YAŞAMDA KALMA SANATIndan başka bir şey değildir, bu gerçeği yabana atamayız, nihayet hiç durmadan, AKLI BİLE DUYGULANDIRACAK BİÇİMDE, bu dünya ve onun İĞRENÇLİKLERİYLE BAŞA ÇIKMA deneyidir.
-...birden bu umutsuzluktan çıkarsınız, AYAĞA KALKARSINIZ ve bu ölümcül umutsuzluktan çıkarsınız, hala en derin umutsuzluktan DIŞARIYA ÇIKMA GÜCÜNÜZ VARDIR.
...birden ayağa kalktım, ...KENT MERKEZİNE gittim, İNSANLARIN ARASINA, şu insanların arasına girdim ve sonunda kendimi kurtardım. ...Çünkü yalnızca İNSANLARLA ve ONLARIN ARASINDA şansımız vardır YAŞAMI SÜRDÜRMEK ve ÇILDIRMAMAK İÇİN.
...İnsansız en ufak bir yaşama şansımız yoktur, ne kadar büyük beyinler ve ne kadar ESKİ USTALAR almış olsak da yanımıza yoldaş olarak, HİÇBİRİ İNSANIN YERİNİ TUTMAZ.
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