Loser is an irrational tale told by an irrational man about his irrational friend – a triumph of paranoia… Music… Music of spheres… Music of madness…
The so-called intellectual consumes himself in what he considers pathbreaking work and in the end has only succeeded in making himself ridiculous, whether heÂ’s called Schopenhauer or Nietzsche, it doesnÂ’t matter, even if he was Kleist or Voltaire we still see a pitiful being who has misused his head and finally driven himself into nonsense. WhoÂ’s been rolled over and passed over by history. WeÂ’ve locked up the great thinkers in our bookcases, from which they keep staring at us, sentenced to eternal ridicule.
Is madness cacophony? Or is it harmony? Does music ruin musicians? It had already destroyed so many...237 s Bill KerwinAuthor 3 books83.2k


In most of his fictions—including this novella—the Austrian Thomas Bernhard insults everything Austrian. In fact, Bernhard declared in his will that every one of his literary works in perpetuity must not be printed or presented within the state of Austria, or within the geographical boundaries of the present state of Austria, whatever that area may in the future be called. Yet he never made an attempt to emigrate; he lived in Austria all his life.

Bernhard was a man of contradictions, and his works--The Loser, for instance—are full of contradictions too. They are filled with solitary characters who spew forth spleen and invective, loathing the seediness of everyday life, and yet these solitaries are often bound together by some ideal which points beyond pettiness, some absolute which both inspires and degrades them. In Losers that ideal is music.

What plot there is, is simple. In 1953, the unnamed Narrator and the “loser” Wertheimer, both advanced students of piano, met at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, intending to study with Horowitz. There, one day, standing just outside a practice room, they heard Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations. Although the three become friends, the narrator and Wertheimer both knew perfection when they heard it, and from that moment their ambition to play serious piano began to die. Before the monologue that is The Loser begins, the narrator has learned that Wertheimer has committed suicide, and he begins to examine—in obsessive detail—the friendship of these three men: how both he and Wertheimer were not Gould, and how he himself is not Wertheimer.

If you the bleak humor of Beckett's novels or the rants of the later Ligotti (My Work is Not Yet Done comes to mind) you will probably this novella. But Bernhard brings a wealth of ironies all his own.

I'll end with the novella's first anti-Austrian rant, this one specifically about Salzburg:

...Salzburg, which at bottom is the sworn enemy of all art and culture, a cretinous provincial dump with stupid people and cold walls where everything without exception is eventually made cretinous....The town of Salzburg, which today is freshly painted in even its darkest corners and is even more disgusting than it was twenty-eight years ago was and is antagonistic to everything of value in a human being, and in time destroys it....The people of Salzburg have always been dreadful, their climate, and when I enter the town today not only is my judgment confirmed, everything is even more dreadful....Glenn was charmed by the magic of this town for three days, then he saw that its magic, as they to call it, was rotten, that basically its beauty is disgusting and that the people living in this disgusting beauty are vulgar. The climate of the lower Alps makes for emotionally disturbed people who fall victim to cretinism at a very early age and who in time become malevolent, I said.144 s °°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ????? ??????? ???????? ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ?·.·´¯`·.·? ?????? ???????? ??????? ????????? ??736 841

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??????? ?????????!best139 s William2783 3,312

Well, here we are again in the land of obsessive compulsive disorder, suicidal rage and death panic. It's Bernhard has one channel and one channel only: sturm und drang, but without the post-Enlightenment restraint. How did Richard Hugo put it: "hatred of the various grays / the mountain sends...." Bernhard's satirical narrators are against everything: especially mountains, in this case the Alps, nature, people, society, art, any and all institutions, the church, the state, you name it. No culture, usually Austrian, can have a single redemptive aspect in its favor. One might think: 'Oh, the mountain air is great! I love to hike. Might take in a movie later.' For Bernhard's characters, there can be no such trivial daily existence. If we do hear about it, it's acidly deprecated. Death is inevitable; birth was never asked for. One is simply hurled into the "existence machine" by one's parents, probably drunk at the time. How dare they subject one to life and death! They should be put up against a wall and shot! If there's humor in Bernhard, it's of the gallows variety. Whistling in the graveyard. Bernhard's novels are voice novels, not surprising for a playwright, his other literary stronghold. They are almost entirely interior monologues with little or no description. Almost always one ranting narrator, pent up, unloads as if from a stage. This can be entertaining, but the cumulative effect is gloom. You can't get intimate with Bernhard as you would, say, with Styron. That's how consuming his negativity is. a horrific spectacle from which one cannot avert one's eyes. Bernhard may be a complete original, I'm not sure, but take heed. His art is dark, blackened by madness, numbing opium.20-ce austria fiction ...more118 s Luís2,057 821

It is a question of a shipwreck in this fantastic novel by Thomas Bernhard, where a narrator monologues for nearly 200 pages. It is precisely the narrator, the only one still alive, in his fifties, of three men who met at the Salzburg Mozarteum to take piano lessons from a confident Horowitz (nothing less !). The narrator finds himself alone on the beach, abandoned by Wertheimer, suicidal, and Glenn Gould (nothing less!) dies suddenly of cerebral congestion. Their disappearance leads him to reflect on his destiny, past, music, and place in an uncomfortable and discouraging world. The author tells us that the castaway is Wertheimer, ironically called the sinking by Glenn Gould. But a shipwrecked man is, for me, a survivor. It is the one who has resisted (perhaps despite himself) the assaults of an implacable life. As Glenn Gould had sunk before him, Wertheimer fell, showing that genius does not protect from despair.e-5 german-literature music ...more101 s Steven Godin2,553 2,696


Did Thomas Bernhard ever get to say a good word about anyone? He could have been pulled from a car wreck by a fellow Austrian, only to turn to the hero in question and with resentment become oppressive. Regardless, I just love reading him, the structure of his work is different to say the least, one long paragraph, repeated sentences, treating his characters as frivolous morans who do nothing but complain. I take my hat of to him, he makes me laugh and wince at the same time!. The more I read of him, the more I want to read of him. I would have gladly bought him a beer, but still would have felt a bit on edge in his company whilst at the table.

The Loser goes about in a humorous and absurd way of exploring the universal experience of encountering someone better than you in an activity that, prior to the encounter, you felt you were sitting at the head of the table as top dog. Some people walk away from such an experience somewhat chastened and then chalk it up as a normal part of life to simply brush under the carpet with the dust, dead spiders, and crumbs of food. In other words, they move on, forget it. Other people hang themselves from a tree outside their sisterÂ’s home. We have three aspiring concert pianists-Glenn Gould (drawn from real life), an Austrian pianist named Wertheimer (the notional protagonist) and the unnamed narrator-who become friends in 1953 in Salzburg while studying piano with the great Horowitz. Wertheimer and the narrator have dedicated their lives to becoming piano virtuosos, but one day they chance to overhear Gould playing Bach's Goldberg Variations and his genius destroys them. Gould gracelessly adds insult to injury by calling Wertheimer a loser, thus Wertheimer is the loser of the novel's title. It is this fact that these two cannot seem to reconcile, ?one quits the piano altogether, and the other just can't be bothered with existing.

Bernhard doesn't treat his characters that would have us believe these men are artists with a higher meaning and sensibility than we mere mortals?, he loves playing in anyway he sees fit to turn even the highbrows in bumbling fools. It's difficult to feel sympathetic with anyone, but that's the Bernhard way, you either love it, or you don't. With Bernhard there really isn't a middle ground to plonk your derrière down on. Above all he is ironic, and the reader can never be sure whether Bernhard means what he says or is larking around with us. His central characters generally contradict themselves, digress, fall into hyperbolic rants, obsess, trapped, as it were, in a logorrheic paralysis. For anyone looking for plot, forget it, in a ways nothing really happens for over a hundred pages, Bernhard emphasizes the narrator's act of thinking and not acting, it's all about the mind and not the physicalities.

It's important to recognize that Bernhard's texts are dense with a kind of rhetorical elaboration, that it is possible to analyze much of the text as a regurgitated string quartet playing away in such a way that a certain amount of material is made to vibrate and echo from sentence to sentence and page to page making one feel queasy. The novel is fueled by a peculiar intensity, and his unique prose style infused with a venomous extreme bitterness is something that simply seeps into one's consciousness with no intention of leaving any time soon. My second Bernhard in a couple of weeks. For me, this just wasn't quite as good as the other - Wittgenstein's Nephew.
But still, a solid 4/5.austria fiction98 s Javier217 189

Hay libros que te hacen pasar un buen rato, textos entretenidos y amables para leer tranquilamente, en la playa, y al finalizar, cerrarlos con una sonrisa en los labios y permanecer un rato en silencio, con el libro aún en las manos, saboreando el recuerdo de las páginas leídas. Sin duda, éste no es uno de ellos.
Bernhard es un autor difícil, muy exigente con el lector; sus obras requieren una disposición de ánimo especial y una gran atención. También se suele decir que es un autor de culto, un escritor para escritores, aunque no tengo nada claro si eso significa algo. Es distinto, denso, adictivo, profundo, no hace concesiones ni se detiene en términos medios. Es, perdón por el tópico, literatura en estado puro.
Es probable que Bernhard fuese alérgico a lo superfluo. Su prosa está completamente desprovista de adornos; sólo lo esencial encuentra sitio en sus páginas. Eso no implica que su estilo sea sencillo. Apenas emplea puntos y aparte (de los cuatro párrafos que tiene el libro, los tres primeros están en la página inicial; el cuatro abarca el resto del texto). Sus frases interminables, laberínticas, llenas de oraciones subordinadas, machacan continuamente una misma idea; un paso hacia adelante, uno hacia atrás. Se repiten casi idénticas, cambiando tan sólo unas pocas palabras, una y otra vez. La reiteración de palabras y expresiones hasta la saturación pueden llegar a exasperar al lector, pero imprimen un ritmo hipnótico al texto, una densidad y un vigor difíciles de imaginar. La prosa de Bernhard es música; una música extraña, reiterativa, obsesiva, contagiosa, pero música, al fin y al cabo.
Pero la gente no comprendió lo que quería decir, lo mismo que siempre que digo algo no comprende, porque lo que digo no quiere decir que haya dicho lo que he dicho, decía, pensé. Digo una cosa, decía, pensé, y digo algo totalmente distinto, por eso he tenido que pasarme toda la vida con malentendidos, nada más que malentendidos, decía, pensé. Para decirlo más exactamente, nacemos sólo en medio de malentendidos y, mientras existimos, no salimos ya de esos malentendidos, ya podemos esforzarnos lo que queramos, no sirve de nada. Esta observación, sin embargo, la hace todo el mundo, decía, pensé, porque todo el mundo dice algo ininterrumpidamente y es malentendido, en ese único punto se entienden sin embargo todos, decía, pensé. Un malentendido nos pone en el mundo de los malentendidos, que debemos soportar como compuesto sólo de puros malentendidos y que volvemos a dejar con un solo y gran malentendido, porque la muerte es el mayor de los malentendidos, según él, pensé.
Donde no encontraremos complicación es en la trama, ya que en realidad no es más que una excusa para encajar una digresión tras otra. El narrador viaja a una aldea suiza para acudir al entierro de su amigo Wertheimer, que se ha suicidado. Ambos estudiaron piano en el Mozarteum, en Salzburgo, junto a Glen Gould (un Glen Gould de ficción, aunque muy parecido al real). Pese a ser pianistas notables ambos, la comparación con el genio de Gould arruina sus carreras: el día en que lo escuchan interpretar las Variaciones Goldberg mueren sus aspiraciones y, desde entonces, cada uno de una manera diferente, viven a la sombra del virtuosismo de Gould. ¿Qué sentido tiene continuar después de vislumbrar en qué consiste el auténtico genio?
¿Y Gould? El virtuoso, el intérprete que maravilla al mundo, no corre mejor suerte: obsesionado con la idea de ser un mero vehículo entre Bach y el piano, su don le tortura tanto como a sus dos compañeros de estudios.
Glenn, durante toda su vida, quiso ser el Steinway mismo, odiaba la idea de estar entre Bach y Steinway sólo como mediador musical, y de ser triturado un día entre Bach y Steinway, un día, según él, quedaré triturado entre Bach, por un lado, y Steinway, por otro, decía, pensé. Toda mi vida he tenido miedo de quedar triturado entre Bach y Steinway, y me cuesta el mayor esfuerzo sustraerme a ese temor, decía. Lo ideal sería que yo fuera el Steinway, que no necesitara a Glenn Gould, decía, que pudiera, al ser el Steinway, hacer a Glenn Gould totalmente superfluo. Pero todavía no ha conseguido ningún pianista hacerse a sí mismo superfluo, siendo Steinway, según Glenn. Despertar un día y ser Steinway y Glenn en uno, decía, pensé, Glenn Steinway, Steinway Glenn, sólo para Bach.
El texto es, en realidad, un prolongado monólogo jalonado de digresiones, una reflexión espontánea y desordenada acerca de la creación artística y su inutilidad, las limitaciones del ser humano, la frustración, el fracaso y, en última instancia, la locura y la muerte. Sin ninguna estructura que guíe al lector, continuamente se abren paso distintas voces (Wertheimer, Gould), que se superponen a la del narrador, intercalándose entre sus propias reflexiones. A pesar de todo ello, El malogrado es una de las obras más accesibles del autor, quizá por ser una de las últimas.
Aunque Bernhard utiliza la repetición de expresiones de un modo rítmico en todas sus obras, en El malogrado este recurso cobra una dimensión especial; en cierto sentido está haciendo con la escritura lo mismo que hizo Bach con la música en las Variaciones Goldberg: toma un tema sencillo y lo repite una y otra vez cambiando algo en cada ocasión.
Bernhard fue un crítico implacable de la sociedad en la que le tocó vivir. Vehemente en todas sus opiniones, no podía soportar la estupidez, la ignorancia, la maldad que percibía a su alrededor, en todas partes. Todo eso se filtra en sus libros, en sus personajes. No hay nada de admirable en ellos, y tampoco se puede decir que sean unos perdedores; sencillamente se trata de seres tan limitados por sus miedos y sus obsesiones que su única alternativa es el desastre.
Pero no nos llamemos a engaño, Bernhard no es un escritor deprimente. Por el contrario, tiene un gran sentido del humor que muchos, que se toman su obra con demasiada literalidad, no han sabido ver. En palabras de Javier Marías, “lo que hay en él sobre todo es la desolación de la farsa, o si se prefiere, la farsa de la desolación.”
No, desde luego no es un libro para pasar un rato distraído. Es para esos días en que nos apetece esforzarnos para obtener algo a cambio; para abrir puertas que solemos mantener cerradas. Es un libro que nos obligará a plantearnos muchas preguntas, cuestiones que quizá no podamos contestar, pero que es sano hacerse a uno mismo de vez en cuando. Como ya dije, es difícil transmitir lo que representa leer a Bernhard, y tengo la sensación de que estas líneas no animan a intentar descubrir a este autor. En todo caso, este es un buen libro para comenzar.80 s Guille831 2,128

“El segundo es el primero de los perdedores” (Ayrton Senna) y aquel que puede llegar a vivir ese fracaso de la forma más cruel, añado yo. Este es el leitmotiv del libro, o uno de ellos, y recuerda mucho al conflicto Mozart-Salieri de la película Amadeus (aunque el libro es un año anterior a la película para mí es treinta años posterior).

Ello podía haberme influido negativamente: un tema que ya estaba bien tratado por la película, al que poco, pensaba, se podía añadir. Y si a eso le añadimos que es un drama en torno a un triángulo de personajes misántropos y elitistas, en el peor sentido de la palabra, y que nos llega por medio del discurso mental de un ser antipático que conforman una prosa incómoda, que por momentos me llegó a parecer torpe, la verdad, es que no parecía tener mucho futuro conmigo. Sin embargo he quedado fascinado y con ganas de más Bernhard, de mucho más.

El libro, junto a la película citada, me trajo a la mente otra novela que tenía olvidada -"La muerte del adversario", de Hans Keilson- que, de hecho, no me gustó demasiado, en buena parte porque me humilló en unas cuantas ocasiones en las que no entendí nada, pero que también reflexionaba en cierto modo acerca de esa felicidad que se extrae de la infelicidad y que es, en mi opinión, el tema fundamental de este libro. En su libro, Keilson intenta explicarnos el comportamiento, siempre muy chocante para mí, de los judíos ante la opresión nazi y venía a decir, o eso creo, algo así como que los seres humanos tenemos una necesidad perentoria de tener enemigos, bien para perseguirlos o bien para que nos persigan. Nuestro “malogrado” parecía necesitar a los dos.

En este sentido, contaba Keilson una leyenda que viene al pelo: El Zar recibe como regalo una manada de alces. Estos son llevados a un paraje ideal, que, para su protección, es declarado parque natural. En un primer momento todo va bien, los alces se adaptan estupendamente a su nuevo hogar, pero pasado un tiempo los alces empiezan a morir uno a uno. Muchos expertos intentan explicar el enigma sin conseguirlo. Como último recurso llaman a un experto residente en el lugar del que proceden los alces. Tras meses de observación llega a una conclusión: los alces se mueren porque les faltan los lobos.favorites73 s1 comment MichaelAuthor 2 books1,415

Bernhard is amazing, and this book perfectly captures his obsession with obsession. His narrator is a music student who realizes he's a failure when he, Glenn Gould, and another pianist study together, and nobody can hold a candle to Gould, the supreme genius. It's told in Bernhard's inimitable style, as one long rambling looping paragraph that takes ideas and beholds them from several angles, all the while maintaining a relentless energy that just takes my breath away.70 s Megha79 1,135


A single paragraph. One breathless monologue. Genius. Failure. Perfection. Obsession. Friendship. Death.

The Genius, the Philosopher, the Loser.

The musical genius of Glenn Gould, the pinnacle of art, is what serves as the reference defining all three of their lives. Werthemier - the titular Loser - finds himself woefully dwarfed by the perfection of Gould as a piano artist. The frustration of recognizing his worthlessness and knowing that he will never be able to reach the top leads him to give up his piano career. And this failure haunts him for the rest of his life. In his bitter obsession, he gradually advances on a path of self-destruction. The manner in which he commits suicide comes as a last-ditch effort to do something on his own terms, a desperate act of rebel against his life of failure.

The narrator - the philosopher - is similarly humiliated in his musical aspirations. Un Werthemier, he does manage to push the frustration to the back of his mind. But he never does come out of Gould's shadow. He never finds a new direction to his life and spends years writing an rewriting and essay on Gould.

Through this internal monologue, in a distraught and obsessive manner, the narrator attempts to come to terms with the deaths of both Gould and Werthemier. His whole life can only be defined in terms of the relationship of this trio and he realizes that their deaths automatically render his life void of any meaning. In the process, he also appears to decisively arrive at the conclusion that Werthemier's fate was sealed the moment Gould tagged him as the Loser. Clocks having been set in motion then, Werthemier's suicide was inevitable. And thus the narrator unburdens himself in knowing that there is nothing he could have done to avoid the suicide. We often find the narrator pointing out similar characteristics between himself and Gould (self-delusion?), which clearly set Werthemier apart from the two. While he admits to portraying Werthemier unfavorably, this portrayal also provides him with a way to assure himself that he was not headed down the same path as Werthemier. It really was Werthemier's own personality that he fell victim to.

The relationship that the three share begs the question - what if their paths hadn't crossed with Gould? Perhaps they would have still led a life of being nothing, Gould simply being the excuse they found. However, their lives are so heavily clouded by that of Gould, that it seems impossible to even begin to imagine Gould's absence. This relationship was rooted in their common idea and understanding of music, and it forged a lifelong bond between the three. The intellect of the two, the loser and the philosopher, was also responsible for their failure. Because it takes some acumen to even recognize a genius and be aware of one's own abilities and deficiencies. On the other hand, I cannot factor their wealth out of the equation either. These are two people who do not have to worry about earning a living and thus have the privilege to spend their lives fixated on just one idea. Had that not been the case, sooner or later, the basic necessities of life would have pulled their attention away and forced them to do something with their lives and perhaps lead a life of being good enough, but not the best.

The novel ends with an interesting afterword that throws some light on Bernhard's life and his writing. His later novels, including The Loser, contain characters which carry an image of the author in themselves. In the present case, Gould is meant to be doppelganger for Bernhard. Bernhard having studied music, his writing has been informed by music as well. The afterword compares his writing to Gould's music:
"Here it is Bach's Goldberg variations, played by Glenn Gould, that provides as it were the basso continuo for Bernhard's own deliberately droning repetitions and variations. With the monologistic, uninterrupted flow of its sentences, the novel conjures up the image of a singer fighting to sustain his breath to the end of an impossibly long, embellished aria."
Another well-known aspect of Bernhard's personality was his hatred for his country Austria. Not only did he face multiple controversies while alive, he delivered a parting blow in death as well:
"Whatever I have written, whether published by me during my lifetime or as part of my literary papers still existing after my death, shall not be performed, printed or even recited for the duration of legal copyright within the borders of Austria, however this state identifies itself." <...> This parting slap in the face of his native country thus came not only as a surprise; it came from the hand of a dead man, whose laughter rang out from the grave.
61 s Mª Carmen695

4,5?
Lo empecé sin estar convencida. Al final me ha gustado mucho y dejado con ganas de más.

Dice la sinopsis:
A raíz del suicidio de su mejor amigo, un hombre viaja hasta su antiguo hogar en Austria. Allí rememora la pasión que ambos compartían por el piano, y la turbia amistad que los unió, trastocada al conocer al virtuoso Glenn Gould.
Thomas Bernhard nos adentra en las motivaciones más complejas de la psicología humana, y nos lleva a reflexionar acerca de los ambiguos sentimientos de admiración, frustración y envidia, de la gradual erosión del carácter y de la pulsión nihilista que acompaña una ambición desmedida. Ambientada en una Europa central ya en decadencia, esta gran novela supone también un cuestionamiento de los valores de superación y excelencia tan característicos de nuestras sociedades.

Mis impresiones:

Llevo un buen rato dándole vueltas al porqué me ha gustado tanto este libro. Lo tenía todo en contra, la estructura narrativa, los personajes e incluso la historia en sí. Cuando llevaba unas veinte páginas estuve a punto de abandonarlo harta de tanto piano y de tanto "virtuosismo frustrado". No lo hice, seguí leyendo un poco más (es una novela corta), y ya no lo solté hasta acabarlo.

La trama gira en torno a tres amigos, a cuál más desagradable. Se conocen como estudiantes de piano en el Mozarteum de Salzburgo. Los tres son buenos, pero uno de ellos brilla con luz propia, así que, incapaces de enfrentarse a la idea de no poder superarle, de no ser los mejores, los otros dos abandonan su carrera como pianistas. Con este tema de fondo Bernhard desgrana una serie de reflexiones sobre las motivaciones intrínsecas de cada uno, lo complejo de la psicología humana, la frustración, la envidia, el miedo a un fracaso entendido de forma sumamente estricta (solo triunfa el primero), la obsesión, el rechazo, el suicidio y la muerte.

"Wertheimer había puesto todas sus aspiraciones en la carrera de virtuoso pianístico, como tengo que decir, yo no había puesto ninguna aspiración en esa carrera de virtuoso, ésa era la diferencia. Por eso, él se sintió mortalmente afectado por los compases de Goldberg de Glenn, no yo. Ser el mejor o no ser nada había sido siempre para mí mi pretensión, en todos los aspectos. Por eso acabé finalmente también en la calle del Prado, en un anonimato total, ocupado en mi insensatez de escritor".

La novela se narra desde el punto de vista de uno de los tres virtuosos. Es una especie de torrente de recuerdos, no siempre lineal, aunque sí ordenado. El tono es oscuro, asfixiante, incómodo. La prosa a menudo da vueltas y más vueltas sobre una frase o sobre una idea, exactamente como lo haría una persona que no quiere contar una historia, sino que la rememora y la piensa para sí misma. Es una estructura nada fácil de la que pocos escritores salen airosos. Bernhard lo logra o al menos lo ha logrado conmigo. Creo que es una narración de tipo binario, sin término medio, o te atrapa o la abandonas.

Los personajes no son de los que caen simpáticos. Tres egoístas, egocéntricos y misántropos de libro, además de snobs de solemnidad y con su punto paranoico en más de una ocasión. Es notable como el autor en solo ciento cincuenta y dos páginas y contado desde el pensamiento de uno de ellos, consigue caracterizar a los tres.

Interesante el traje que le hace a Salzburgo (y a sus habitantes), como capital de los melómanos, a la enseñanza de la música y del arte en general e incluso a mitos aceptados como las pretendidas bondades de la vida en el campo.

En conclusión. Una novela de estructura complicada, con la idea del fracaso como eje central. A mí me ha gustado mucho, pero entiendo que no es para todo el mundo.50 s4 comments Lea123 627

“But of course the world consists only of absurd ideas.”

What a soul-piercing read... After I finished The Loser by Thomas Bernhard I thought: this is how you write a book! Or well, a long internal monologue that rambles on and on without any pauses. ItÂ’s simply amazing satire with a lot of absurdism, nihilism, and self-destructiveness narrated in one breath.

“All my tendencies are deadly ones, he once said to me, everything in me has a deadly tendency to it, it's in my genes, as Wertheimer said, I thought. He always read books that were obsessed with suicide, with disease and death, I thought while standing in the inn, books that described human misery, the hopeless, meaningless, senseless world in which everything is always devastating and deadly. That's why he especially loved Dostoevsky and all his disciples, Russian literature in general, because it actually is a deadly literature, but also the depressing French philosophers.”

But even that word view is mocked because itÂ’s a sign of social and economic privilege.

“She herself had never had enough money and never enough time and hadn’t even been unhappy once, in contrast to those she called refined gentlemen, who always had enough money and enough time and constantly talked about their unhappiness. ”

It touches on topics that really occupied me throughout life- art, obsession, the meaning of success and failure, narrow-mindedness of all social classes. There is a great charm in how Bernhard deals with subjects of giving up, loss of ambition, hatred of virtuosity, jealousy and also the painful realization that you donÂ’t want in life what you thought you wanted for a very long time.

“When we meet the very best, we have to give up.”
“He wanted to be an artist, an artist of life wasn't enough for him, although precisely this concept provides everything we need to be happy if we think about it.”

Three characters (one of them witty narrator of the story) were studying to be the piano virtuosos, but only one of them was really genius, so the other two gave up on their ambitions and dreams. I read somewhere that the three characters can be analyzed as an Ego (narrator), Id (Wertheimer) and Superego (Glenn), which is such an interesting approach, that I will have on mind when I come back to this novel and I would to analyze them in detail, there is so much material to be contemplated upon in this 180 pages long novel and I might write a longer review in the future.

I havenÂ’t d somebody writing this since Virginia Woolf and Dostoyevsky, truly superb. It is not even that I intellectually agree with everything Bernhard writes (nihilistic, pessimistic and fatalistic fellow readers definitely would enjoy his thinking on the highest level) but it somehow resonates with me and shakes my soul, a true piece of art that challenges you to see the world differently and wake up from your usual delusions.

“In theory we understand people, but in practice, we can't put up with them, I thought, deal with them for the most part reluctantly and always treat them from our point of view. We should observe and treat people not from our point of view but from all angles, I thought, associate with them in such a way that we can say we associate with them so to speak in a completely unbiased way, which however isn't possible, since we actually are always biased against everybody.”

I definitely think I will read so much more of his work, IÂ’m completely in awe. Highly recommend to everyone.favourites fiction literary-fiction ...more47 s Garima113 1,908

"everything is ridiculous if one thinks of death."

This is what Bernhard said as a part of his acceptance speech for the Austrian State Prize for Literature. So, Yeah! ThatÂ’s the kind of man he was.

Along with many other writers, I discovered Bernhard through Goodreads only. The next step is usually checking out the authorÂ’s profile, from where I found the following description:

Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian author, who ranges among the most distinguished German speaking writers of the second half of the 20th century.

It doesnÂ’t convey much with its minimalistic approach but I got some idea. His influences were:

Samuel Beckett, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Franz Kafka

Those are some good influences, Right!

Next I went through the average ratings of his books, and to my pleasant surprise majority of them have more than 4 point rating but again, the no. of ratings are not that great, i.e. not many readers on Goodreads read him that much and The Loser seems to be the most popular among all his books.

What Else? Yes! I analysed his profile picture and went to Google images to see some more of his photos. Now I donÂ’t know why, but I convinced myself that he had the perfect face to feature in a Gangster Hollywood Movie, you know, Public Enemies, in a negative role or along the same lines, but anything but positive.

And at the end I read one of his quotes: “Instead of committing suicide, people go to work.”

I la—u—gghh- hahaha.. crazy.. *Voices in my head*: “Stop this nonsense and start the bloody Review.”

With this novel Thomas Bernhard appears hell bent to annoy his readers and therefore one needs to be an equally determined reader to get on with this book which, with a little effort can be easily achieved but cherish? IÂ’m not sure about that. Whenever I pick up a book, I try not to have any pre-conceived notions about it and assume that IÂ’ll have a good time reading it coz I wonÂ’t deliberately waste my time on some rubbish. So with The Loser also, I hardly had any idea what IÂ’m getting myself into. I came across this description which I found baffling but couldnÂ’t help agree with it more after finishing this book:

“Reading Bernhard feels the children's superstition of holding one's breath in a car while passing a cemetery. He allows his reader no time to breathe, driving home the moments of intense disappointment and disgust. “

The loser is one long monologue without any paragraph breaks which seems to be a sadist move from BernhardÂ’s side because such breaks are a kind of breather a reader relish but you really donÂ’t have a chance while reading this book so all one can do is to satisfy oneself with little time breaks. TRY NOT TO READ THIS BOOK IN ONE GO.

This book gave me maximum déjà-vu moments per page and for at least 1st ten pages I was , wait! haven’t I read this before! but soon realised this is how the whole text going to be carried on, two steps forward, one step back and at times, several steps sideways also. So basically no adherence to the conventions of writing as such and well, that’s what Bernhard is known for.

The author wonÂ’t let you bother your senses too much on story front. ItÂ’s pretty simple and is stated in clear words at the starting only. You see that description given with the novel The Loser centers on a fictional relationship between piano virtuoso Glenn Gould and two of his fellow students who feel compelled to renounce their musical ambitions in the face of Gould's incomparable genius.Â….it actually sums it all up perfectly.

So, you really donÂ’t need to be worried about WhatÂ’s going on? But rather Why is it going on and why am I reading this and why oh why Bernhard wrote something of this sorts? I really donÂ’t have an answer to any of those questions but all I know is somehow I enjoyed the discomfort this book caused. I came across a graffiti pic today that said ,"Art, should comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable" and immediately my first thought was Bernhard.

One really takes pleasure in knowing the ascension of a Genius, but what about those Losers who were born as a result of the existence of such Genius. A painter painting somewhere thought about Picasso and quit his art, a writer writing his debut novel thought about Dostoevsky and quit his writing, (I, thinking right now of Ian GrayeÂ’s and Naaah! IÂ’m shameless, I wonÂ’t quit), and Wertheimer, on hearing Glenn Gould playing Goldberg Variations (which are pretty awesome, BTW) gave up his musical ambitions of becoming a Piano Virtuoso, despite of being really good, but not the best, Alas.

The Loser is one long, disoriented, languid musings by an unnamed narrator, who was a fellow student with Gould and Wertheimer at a class taught by Vladimir Horowitz. He recalls in a schizophrenic fashion (he used I Thought, I said I thought and I said to myself n no. of times so thatÂ’s schizophrenic for me) about the relationships of 3 of them and how the Genius of Gould affected both of them after they heard him playing Piano. If piano playing was a metaphorical place of Worship, then Gould became a kind of God for them from that day on and everything he did henceforth had catastrophic consequences especially for Wertheimer.

"My dear loser, Glenn greeted Wertheimer, with his Canadian-American cold-bloodedness he always called him the loser, he called me quite dryly the philosopher, which didn’t bother me..”

And Wertheimer became the ultimate loser, because Gould confirmed his fears about the same and couldn’t shun that image until his suicide, which became the only thing he did without any external influence, with a feeling that “at least I can decide how I’m gonna die.” Why Suicide? Because Glenn died a natural death and for once Wertheimer didn’t have to die in the same fashion. He became loser in front of Gould’s Genius and couldn’t do anything else because being a Piano Virtuoso is all he wanted, he was a failure at everything else, even at his relationship with his sister (which is one of the high points for me in this novel, it’s really disgusting) and on top of that he was filthy rich so he didn’t have to bother about economic aspect of life.

Our narrator was also a Loser, but of lesser degree, he was not suicidal and survived to ponder upon the deaths and lives of two of his friends. He was the Philosopher who philosophized everything Glenn and Wertheimer did to get over his loss:

I hated Glenn every moment, loved him at the same time with the utmost consistency. For thereÂ’s nothing more terrible than to see a person so magnificent that his magnificence destroys us and we must observe this process and put up with it and finally and ultimately also accept it, whereas we actually donÂ’t believe such a process is happening, far from it, until it becomes an irrefutable fact, I thought, when itÂ’s too late.

All three characters, according to the wonderful afterword by Mark M. Anderson, also the translator of this book under the pseudonym, Jack Dawson, are reflections of Thomas Bernhard himself. He took the idea of Gould of being a genius and a rebel, the unnamed character possibly reflected BernhardÂ’s own insecurities and failures. Wertheimer, however is possibly modeled after Ludwig Wittgenstein. And Boy! he really did hate his native country

"...hadn't been able to even imagine returning to Vienna in these three years and hadn't thought about it either, never again to Vienna, that profoundly despised city, to Austria, that profoundly despised country."

So Yes! ItÂ’s a pseudo auto-biographical account of BernhardÂ’s own life and general reflections of what it is to be A Genius, A Loser, A Philosopher, or a Human Being in the God forsaken circumstances. Read it at your own risk, I wonÂ’t really recommend it, especially during festive season but it seems a perfect candidate of being a 5 starrer or a one starrer. For me, it's a 3.5 star.

my-2-cents testing-patience-1-2-346 s ??????? ??????????? 69 49

???????????????? ???????????!
??? ???? ?? ?? ????????????, ??? ??????? ??? ?? ??????? ????? ?????? ? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ?? ?????????? ??? ???? ???? ???? ??? ???????;;; ??????? ???? ??? ????? ??????????? ???? ????? ??? ?? ???????? ??? ??? ????????? ????????.

? ?????????? ???? ???????? ?????? ??? ????? ????????? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ?? ??????? ???? ????? ??? ?????????, ??? ???? ??? ??????? ??? ??? ????? ????????? ???? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ???? ??????· ??? ??? ???? ???? ? ? ???????? ??? ??????? ???????? ????? ???????, ??? ?????????, ??? ???????? ??? ??????? ?? ????????? ???? ??? ??????????? ??? ????? ?? ??? ??? ????? ???!
???? ?? ???? ??? ???????? ??? ????? ??????????? ??? ?????? ??? ?? ?????? ??? ???????? ??? ??? ???????? ?? ??? ???????? ??? ????? ??????? ? ? ?????????? ?? ???? ???????? ???????? 215 ??????? ??? ?????????? ??? ?????????? ???? ?? ???????? ??? ?? ??????????? ?? ??? ????????. ???????????? ????????????????? (??? ????????? ???? ??? ??? ?????) ??? ??? ??? ???????? ??? ????...

? ?????? ???? ??? ???????? ?? ?? ???????? ? ? ????? ??????????????, ????? ??? 160 ??????? ? ????? ???????????? ?????? ??? ??????? ???? ??????????? (!!!) ??????????? ?? ?? ???????? ??? ??? ??????? ??? (? ????? "...????, ????????" ??????? ??? ?????? ?? ??? ???????) ??? ??? ????????? ??? ??? ??????? ???? ?? ????????????? ??? ????????, ??? ? ???????? ?? ?? ?????????, ??? ?????????? ??? ???? ?? ???. ? ???????? ????????? ???????? ?? ??? ????????? ??? ?????????, ??????????? ???????????? ???? ???, ???? ???? ?????? ??? ???? ????? ??? ???????????????? ????? ?? ????? ???????? ???? ??????? ??? ????? ???????, ???????????? ??? ???? ? ?????? ???????? ??? ????????????? ??? ??????? ?????? ???? ?????????? ??? ??????? ???? ??????????.

"?? ??????? ? ?????, ??? ????????????? ?????? ???? ??????, ??? ???????? ???, ??? ?????????? ?? ?? ???? ??? ????. ??? ?? ??? ????? ??? ??? ??? ???? ?? ??? ??? ?? ??? ?? ??? (??? ?? ??????) ??? ??? ???? ????? ??? ?????????? ?? ????. ??????? ?? ??? ?????????? (???????? ???!) ???? ????? ?? ???????? ???, ?? ?????? ???, ????????, ?? ??? ?????? ?????? ??????, ?????? ???????, ???????? ?????, ?? ??????????, ?????????? ??? ???????? ??? ??? ?? ??? ?????????????, ????????. ???????????????? ?? ????????? ??? ?? ????????????? ????? ??????????? ??????? ??? ??? ?? ????????, ??? ?? ?????????? ????? ??????????? ??? ????? ???, ?? ??? ??? ?????? ?? ?? ???? ????????????? ?????????, ?????????? ???????????· ??????????? ????? ??? ???????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ?????, ????????. ?? ?????????? ????? ???? ???????, ?? ?????????????? ??? ????????? ??? ????????? ?????, ????????. ?????????? ????????? ???????? ????? ??? ???? ????, ????????. ?????????? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ???????? ???????? ??? ??? ?? ??????????? ?? ???? ???, ????????, ???? ????? ? ???????."
??????????-??????????44 s zumurruddu129 128

A differenza dei precedenti Bernahrd finora letti, il personaggio centrale del romanzo (se romanzo lo possiamo chiamare) non è l’io narrante, ma una persona altra (Wertheimer) osservata e descritta dall’io narrante e utilizzata per ritrarre in negativo l’uomo geniale, rappresentato dal virtuoso di pianoforte Glenn Gould.
Questo sdoppiamento di prospettiva concede un poÂ’ dÂ’aria a una scrittura e a temi che tendono allÂ’asfittico.

Glenn Gould è tutto ciò che Wertheimer non è, e Wertheimer è un soccombente, un uomo da vicolo cieco, un uomo destinato al fallimento e all’infelicità. Perché è nato soccombente. Perché non può comprendere che ogni essere umano ha la sua unicità, e questa è la sola sua ancora di salvezza.

[“Wertheimer non era capace di vedere se stesso come un essere unico al mondo, mentre in effetti è così che ciascuno di noi può e deve concedersi di vedere se stesso se non vuole cadere in balìa della disperazione [...]. Non necessariamente dobbiamo essere dei genii per poter essere e per poterci riconoscere come unici al mondo, pensai”.]

Perché si incaponisce a essere ciò che non può essere. Perché non può vivere né solo né in compagnia. Perché dispensa negatività e annienta tutti quelli che lo circondano e potrebbero fornirgli aiuto. Perché si compiace del disprezzo che prova per se stesso.

[“Wertheimer si era innamorato, o addirittura era stato ammaliato dal proprio fallimento, pensai, e in questo fallimento si era incaponito fino alla fine [...] della propria infelicità è stato consapevole in ogni momento e di essa si è potuto rallegrare. [...] più che a ogni altra cosa si era abituato in maniera micidiale alla propria infelicità”]

Perché è un uomo divorato dall’invidia.

[“Wertheimeir ha invidiato a Glenn Gould perfino la morte”]

Quello che è doloroso, è riconoscersi in certi atteggiamenti e modi di essere del soccombente. Come al solito Bernhard affonda il coltello senza timore di esagerare. Ma è proprio questa sua esagerazione che, spingendo le sue affermazioni fino all’antinomia e raggiungendo effetti grotteschi, riesce a salvarlo e salva il lettore, con più di un sorriso o risata liberatoria.
Lo stile è il solito di Bernhard: ossessivo, martellante, ripetitivo, esagerato, come il monologo di un folle. Uno stile unico in cui, a ogni lettura di questo autore, è piacevole e doloroso immergersi.mitteleuropa45 s3 comments Seemita181 1,662

Grey – The color that most of the characters created during large part of twentieth century and whole of twenty-first century till date, are painted in. Cruelly banishing the evergreen Black and all-star White to secondary positions, Grey has risen in ranks to be the heroic hue of all ‘famous’ characters. The modern reader in me haughtily merges this contemporary thought into her conversations and discusses the ‘grey’ shades of the latest literary protagonist she has encountered. But the conventional reader in me? Oh, she curses! Throws slang, moans hoarse. To all those authors who wiped the clear, unambiguous White (read good) and Black (read bad) from her book world, she casts a teary eye and howls a simple question: Why?

The premise of The Loser is an intriguing one. Three youngsters join a renowned music academy to learn piano. Glenn, a born genius, simply uses the school to sharpen his existing incredible musical teeth. Wertheimer is a truck load of talent too, enough to prevail over most of the piano-playing community around him but nowhere near Glenn's magnificence. The third student, who is also our unnamed narrator, is in the same lustrous league as Wertheimer and at the same subjacent stand to Glenn. Fast forward twenty-eight years: Glenn and Wertheimer are dead and our unnamed narrator, having attended the latterÂ’s funeral, is on his way to the latterÂ’s last abode in search of some aphorism notes. And some base choreography of his only friends' life trances.

The story began well, concisely drawing an unshapely circle around its characters as if a hand was either shivering or consciously teasing during the entwining exercise. Then, a solid tangent was drawn from a vantage point in the book, where all the characters had rushed in to create the richest pool of their natural shades - a point where Glenn had donned the recluse's garb, Wertheimer had submerged in pools of pungent losses and our narrator had mastered the oscillations between insipid and not-so-insipid days. On this tangential thought, I rejoiced and braced myself for a ride of a lifetime.

Well, the ride controller had other plans.

The characters depicted the darker, gloomier sides of human mind with panache and incisive depth. Their dilemmas, their failures, their disdains, all found evocative voices of the finest baritone. But what about those occasional sunny streaks? Agreed, Bernhard felt they held no merit in his work but does not the sheer veracity of a diary, chronicling a lifetime of three men, demand few positive scribblings as footnotes? Fleeting thoughts that infused some fragrance into the ailing minds that managed to live beyond fifty years each? While I had empathy for all the three as they possessed no massive blemishes on their hearts, I could not warm upto them for they bordered on the sunshine but never bothered to usher it in, even through the doors of unhappiness and dry humor. They basked in unhappiness way too much and I felt rashes on my skin, unexpectedly.

The Loser is a tag Glenn gives Wertheimer on the first day of their meeting. But I could not help but wonder why Wertheimer was a loser in his suicide and Glenn was not, in his exile? Or for that matter, our narrator, in his directionless transit?

With The Loser, Bernhard presents his fellowship in Advanced Grey-mmar. The characters appeared all ‘grey’ to me, meaning I could sit in a theatre, watch them act, clap in applause and not leave before the final scene but also not reward them with a standing ovation and take them home after the act is over. It was a fabulous soprano, which reached its crescendo during the first half and all I did afterwards, was search its mellifluous vibrations in the rest of the piece.
I have never admired anything but have marvelled at many things during my life and I, can say, have marvelled the most in my life. I did marvel at Bernhard though. Written entirely in one single paragraph, unfolding mostly within the troubled walls of the narratorÂ’s mind, the reading pattern alone was a striking experience. Repetitive yet fresh, discoloured yet brilliant, his style was the strong ribs of his unusual plot. As if a person was sitting across me and narrating his lifeÂ’s mistakes and while I wanted to chide him for his stupidities, I ended up ordering a few more cups of coffees in the greed of pushing him to a point where he might mend, something.

Bernhard once said on his writing: “To shake people up, that’s my real pleasure.”

He succeeded.41 s Annetius329 105

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«??? ?????????? ?? ???????? ??? ???????? ????, ??? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ?? ????????, ???? ? ???????? ????, ??? ??? ??????? ??????, ???? ??????? ????????, ???? ???????????? ?????? ???? ?????????????. ? ???????? ????? ? ????????, ????? ???????, ????????, ???? ? ?????? ??????????? ?? ????????. ? ??????? ????? ????????, ?????, ???, ??? ?????, ??????????? ????? ?? ????????, ???? ? ??????? ??? ????????. ???? ???? ?? ???????? ??? ??????? ???? ?????????????, ? ???????? ??? ????? ? ?????????? ??? ?? ???????? ?? ??????? ????????????, ???? ??? ??? ????????? ????? ??? ????????? ???????? ?? ??????? ????????????, ????, ????????.»39 s Lee Klein 831 915

Funnier and nastier and less full of shit than anything I've ever read. More laughs per ten pages than Sedaris etc, but with WAY MORE suicide! Awesome Austrian lit. Glenn Gould, the one true piano genius. One paragraph for 155 pages! Zero pretension. Few sentences extended over the course of the book in fugue state. Sort of lame-ass literary fiction if you removed every standard literary convention (plot, dialogue, setting, scenes) and just freakin' mainlined the narrator's consciousness: I remember Marilynne Robinson (a Bach lover, same as Wertheimer, same
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