Welcome to Litsy!

A 170-page unbroken paragraph composed of a would-be piano virtuoso's obsessive, paranoid reflections on his former friends and fellow students - Wertheimer, now dead by suicide, and the great Glenn Gould, whose genius sent the others' lives into a tailspin (all three of whom are really different aspects of Bernhard himself). Venomous, funny, and formalistically daring, this was not an easy read by any means but well worth the effort.

After piano virtuoso Glenn Gould dies, the unscrupulous narrator (alter ego of the author) and their friend Wertheimer are free to blame him for the fact they haven‘t become piano geniuses themselves.
After Wertheimers suicide, Bernhard as usual doesn‘t hold back. Again he pours out tons of criticism about Austrian society, and he mocks and taunts both of his friends with demonic pleasure. It is a pleasure to follow his linguistic brain.

#WeeklyForecast 02/23

I am having the Persephone one, Harriet, in progress. Next will be another shortlisted book from the #ToB23 which I can use for #TarotTBR as well. When there‘s time I‘d like to start the tagged book by Thomas Bernhard. Not a light read probably but the man can write!

I‘m almost finished this book...but not before drinking a German beer while reading this novel by an Austrian novelist who wrote in German...and wondering what happened to my daughter who was in Germany this week. I guess she‘s having too much fun to write. Back to my book. It‘s really good...as is the beer! 😃

I am now about 3/4 if the way through this book. I am just amazed the way this author could keep repeating himself and still create a coherent, fascinating story with no paragraphs and no quotation marks! I will certainly look for more of his books in the future.

Yep. I was right! This book, although fairly thin, takes some work as it has no paragraphs nor any quotation marks!!

I decided to read this book for the #LibraryThing TIOLI challenge to read a work by or about a deceased #playwright. This is a new-to-me author. From the looks of this book, it might take a little work to get into this story. We‘ll see...

I seem to rate everything "pick" even if it's a book I'd recommend to almost nobody, but I can't give this anything else. My first Bernhard - 170 pages, one gigantic stream-of-consciousness, Kafkaesque paragraph from an unreliable narrator with more than a little Salieri in him as he is both inspired and tortured by the genius of the pianist Glenn Gould. Not an easy read, but I was gripped.