Begley meets Bernhard

12th February 2009

Reading: Louis Begley
German: Johannes Terne

Asked to name his favorite German-language author, Louis Begley responded as follows: “Thomas Bernhard above all. Because of his style, his pitch-black worldview, and his astoundingly restless intelligence.” In 2004 in a special Bernhard supplement to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Begley wrote an hommage to the author. In this essay, he placed Bernhard in a class with Kafka (whose stories “Investigations of a Dog,” “The Burrow,” “Josephine the Singer or The Mouse Folk,” and “A Report to an Academy” he specifically mentioned), Gombrowicz and Céline. Begley grouped these three authors together as 20th-century writers whose works were of similarly outstanding quality. In Begley’s opinion, an analogous group, though one whose works were still rooted in the 19th century, was comprised of Marcel Proust, Henry James and Dostoevsky. Singling out “Old Masters: A Comedy” as his absolute favorite, Begley said that what he particularly liked about Bernhard’s work was “the author’s incredible attention to detail and the nuances of human behavior” as well as his “descriptive power, a combination of brutality and wit” that is especially evident in “The Lime Works.” And he stated that another quality Bernhard shared with Gombrowicz and Céline was the “furious joy they took in skewering their countrymen and unmasking the empty boasting of their countries.” But of paramount significance was the “storyteller’s language,” “a dazzling gift for narrative invention,” “Bernhard’s voice with its grandiose verve.” (Begley 2004).

Idea / Concept // Raimund Fellinger / Manfred Mittermayer
Organizers // The International Thomas Bernhard Society, StifterHaus, Linz09
Location // StifterHaus