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A review by rbcp82
Concrete by Thomas Bernhard
5.0
This is the second novel by Bernhard that I read, and just like I did with Sebald's novels this summer, I think I'll read all of Bernhard's novels. (But Sebald had only 4; Bernhard has at least 10.)
As with all the great novels I wholeheartedly admire, it's difficult to pinpoint what attracts me so. There's just something that directly speaks to my heart.
As with his other novel that I read (Woodcutter), this novel is entirely composed of one paragraph. Again, a monologue ranting like Woodcutter, but more like a monologue lamenting this time.
Bernhard is wonderful at portraying human folly, the kind of folly that all of us acknowledge that we suffer from from time to time. We always make excuses, we are more often than not incapable. The binary opposites of which we might assign different meaning just get obliterated in his novels.
hypocritical nature of everyone...
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My notes:
How far gone I must have been to wire her! What I actually hoped for from her was help, not destruction. But it's always the same: I beg and beseech her to help me, and she ruins me! And knowing this, I wired her.
On the one hand we can't be alone, people like us; on the other we can't stand company. We can't stand male company, which bores us to death, or female company either.
We'll try anything in order to be able to start work on a study, absolutely anything, and we don't recoil from even the most terrible things if they'll make it possible for us to write such a study, even if they involve the greatest inhumanity, the greatest perversity, the gravest crime. (27)
But I've always had a sound instinct about what should be published and what should not, having always believed that publishing is senseless, if not an intellectual crime, or rather a capital offence against the intellect. We publish only to satisfy our craving for fame; there's no other motive except the even baser one of making money, which in my case, thank God, is ruled out by the circumstances of my birth. Had I published my essay on Schonberg I shouldn't care to be seen in the street any longer; the same would be true if I'd published my work on Nietzsche, although that was not a complete failure. To publish anything is folly and evidence of a certain defect of character. To publish the intellect is the most heinous of all crimes, and on a number of occasions I have not recoiled from committing this most heinous of crimes. It wasn't even done out of a crude urge to communicate, because I've never wanted to communicate my ideas to anybody. That has never attracted me. It was a craving for fame pure and simple. What a good thing I didn't publish my work on Nietzsche and Schonberg, not to speak of Reger! If I am nauseated by all the thousands and hundreds of thousands of publications by other people, I should be unutterably nauseated by my own. But we can't escape vanity and the craving for fame. If necessary, we are prepared to ield to it with our heads held high, even though we know that we are acting in an unpardonable and perverse manner. (34)
I haven't the least desire to amuse myself for weeks on end by giving to charity, nor have I the capacity to derive pleasure from newspaper accounts of my generosity and love of my neighbor, because I believe neither in generosity nor in love of one's neighbor. The world of do-gooders is steeped in hypocrisy, and anyone who proclaims the contrary, or even asserts it, is either a subtle exploiter of humanity or an unpardonable idiot. 90% of the time today we are up against subtle exploiters, 10% of the time against unpardonable idiots.
And isn't she right, perhaps, to say that my work on Mendelssohn Bartholdy is just a pretense to justify my absurd way of life, which is entirely without any justification unless it produces something written, something completed?
...and in which virtually the only people in power are blustering illiterates.
What things people write, without caring one jot about the facts! What are their qualifications for writing anyway?
But man is so constituted that he reserves his strongest curses for the very things that keep him together and keep him alive. (86)
I accuse my sister of going away for several weeks or for months and then perhaps turning up again a few hours later, and yet I'm no different - I intend to be away for ages, and two days later I'm back again.
But it is a basic error to say that only the weak-minded are exploited: everybody is exploited.
As with all the great novels I wholeheartedly admire, it's difficult to pinpoint what attracts me so. There's just something that directly speaks to my heart.
As with his other novel that I read (Woodcutter), this novel is entirely composed of one paragraph. Again, a monologue ranting like Woodcutter, but more like a monologue lamenting this time.
Bernhard is wonderful at portraying human folly, the kind of folly that all of us acknowledge that we suffer from from time to time. We always make excuses, we are more often than not incapable. The binary opposites of which we might assign different meaning just get obliterated in his novels.
hypocritical nature of everyone...
------------------------------------------------------
My notes:
How far gone I must have been to wire her! What I actually hoped for from her was help, not destruction. But it's always the same: I beg and beseech her to help me, and she ruins me! And knowing this, I wired her.
On the one hand we can't be alone, people like us; on the other we can't stand company. We can't stand male company, which bores us to death, or female company either.
We'll try anything in order to be able to start work on a study, absolutely anything, and we don't recoil from even the most terrible things if they'll make it possible for us to write such a study, even if they involve the greatest inhumanity, the greatest perversity, the gravest crime. (27)
But I've always had a sound instinct about what should be published and what should not, having always believed that publishing is senseless, if not an intellectual crime, or rather a capital offence against the intellect. We publish only to satisfy our craving for fame; there's no other motive except the even baser one of making money, which in my case, thank God, is ruled out by the circumstances of my birth. Had I published my essay on Schonberg I shouldn't care to be seen in the street any longer; the same would be true if I'd published my work on Nietzsche, although that was not a complete failure. To publish anything is folly and evidence of a certain defect of character. To publish the intellect is the most heinous of all crimes, and on a number of occasions I have not recoiled from committing this most heinous of crimes. It wasn't even done out of a crude urge to communicate, because I've never wanted to communicate my ideas to anybody. That has never attracted me. It was a craving for fame pure and simple. What a good thing I didn't publish my work on Nietzsche and Schonberg, not to speak of Reger! If I am nauseated by all the thousands and hundreds of thousands of publications by other people, I should be unutterably nauseated by my own. But we can't escape vanity and the craving for fame. If necessary, we are prepared to ield to it with our heads held high, even though we know that we are acting in an unpardonable and perverse manner. (34)
I haven't the least desire to amuse myself for weeks on end by giving to charity, nor have I the capacity to derive pleasure from newspaper accounts of my generosity and love of my neighbor, because I believe neither in generosity nor in love of one's neighbor. The world of do-gooders is steeped in hypocrisy, and anyone who proclaims the contrary, or even asserts it, is either a subtle exploiter of humanity or an unpardonable idiot. 90% of the time today we are up against subtle exploiters, 10% of the time against unpardonable idiots.
And isn't she right, perhaps, to say that my work on Mendelssohn Bartholdy is just a pretense to justify my absurd way of life, which is entirely without any justification unless it produces something written, something completed?
...and in which virtually the only people in power are blustering illiterates.
What things people write, without caring one jot about the facts! What are their qualifications for writing anyway?
But man is so constituted that he reserves his strongest curses for the very things that keep him together and keep him alive. (86)
I accuse my sister of going away for several weeks or for months and then perhaps turning up again a few hours later, and yet I'm no different - I intend to be away for ages, and two days later I'm back again.
But it is a basic error to say that only the weak-minded are exploited: everybody is exploited.