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/lit/ - Literature

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2203956 No.2203956 [Reply] [Original]

I'm seriously considering posting a daily Thomas Bernhard thread, him being the best post-war writer in Europe if not the world and all.

profess your love for the great Austrian grumpy man and art lover

>> No.2203973
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2203973

>if not the world and all.

nooooope

>> No.2203978

>touting a grumpy austrian
>not elfriede jelinek

>> No.2203982

>>2203973
pff, Vonnegut is frivolous and populist

>>2203978
Jelinek is inconsistent and lacks a strong autheurial voice. Tell me, who but Bernhard ever did away with plot and happening space in favor of pure brilliant writing?

>> No.2203987

>>2203982

>Jelinek is inconsistent and lacks a strong autheurial voice.

aaaaaaahahahahahaha of all the things to criticize her for, i'm laughing all the way to the politburo

anyhow what should i read by this bernhard bro

>> No.2203995

What are his best books, and what are the best translations??

>> No.2204000

>>2203987
Yes, I am implying her experimentation is dragging her writing down. In the Piano Teacher she discards it in favor of a good yarn which exposes her strengths.

For Bernhard, read his art trilogy - Woodcutters, Old Masters and The Loser. The first novel is the strongest.

>> No.2204010

>>2204000

wonderful wonderful times is a good yarn too, goddammit (also thanks!)

>> No.2204015

>>2203995
To be honest I've only ever read him in Slovenian. My German is not good enough, but there is a crucial simile between us and the Austrians - we shared the same political and cultural space for a thousand years, so I'm certain a good deal of the context translates, even if we are provincial and Vienna is metropolitan, and in spite of the major differences in lingustic morphology. The English excerpts I've read on the net are not as funny and insistent as the Slovenian translation, which, again, I have no way of comparing to the original. A small comfort is that Bernhard was an anglophile and lived in London for several years, even if his tastes are incorrigibly trapped in enlightenment philosophy, classical music with a grounding in Bach and terminating in Webern, and of course his overriding love/hate relationship with Austrian and Bavarian theatre productions. I'm no expert on these themes, which may be a significant factor in his appeal to me.

>> No.2204022

>>2204015
Wow you know a lot about the man. I'll probably try to read him in German someday.

>> No.2204029

>Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard has maybe the most shit-talking (percentage-wise) out of the books I have read or movies I have seen. The level of shit-talking in Woodcutters is perhaps equal to some Gmail chats or online message boards, I believe, but the sentences are longer and the shit-talking is done by a man in his 50’s (I think) and also it is sustained for around 200 pages within a concrete situation.

This is from a blog post somewhere. You can always write funny stuff about Bernhard, but I don't think I've ever read anyone that is as bitter and funny as him at the same time.

>> No.2204045

Since you read Slovenian, have any Slovenian literature recommendations?

>> No.2204059

>>2204045
Well this is an eccentric request for /lit/, and for anywhere else, since I believe Slovenian literature is impoverished and Austrian literature instead caters to the spiritual needs of the sensitive Slovene.

But! There are exceptions. I'd say Lojze Kovačič for post-war prose and Ivan Cankar for realism seguing into symbolism. Cankar is considered to be the greatest Slovenian literary figure and he died in 1918.

It is because of this that I have hopes for myself of becoming a significant writer in my cultural sphere. Devil take the neo-existentialist Carver wannabees. The only good thing to come out of this place in the last 50 years has been very much folksy prose and poetry.

>> No.2204062

>>2204059
*the poetry is very sophisticated but the prose is banal.

>> No.2204066

>>2204029
My sweet lord, this passage was written by none other than Tao Lin.

>> No.2204072

>>2204059
Have you read any of these books? And if so, what do you think of them/the authors?

www.dalkeyarchive.com/collections/slovenia/

>> No.2204079

>>2204072
Also: does this article do a good job of introducing Slovenian literature?

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?fa=customcontent&GCOI=15647100218840&extrasfile=41D48ADE-
1D09-67E0-43534AD9ABE49948.html

>> No.2204088

>>2204072
Right, forgot Jančar. I've read Galjot as mentioned on the page, it is a slightly postmodernist but history-obsessed depiction of 17th century Slovenia during a royal visit, brimming with religious heresy and dissent. The original is topically exciting, but I found the language to be too poetic and enthusiastic for the brute realities it conveys. It overflows with terms denoting physicality in a metaphysical rather than instrumental manner and contains traces of magical realism. Jančar certainly is capable of conveying action when he isn't extrapolating on abstract bodily excretions and exertions. No wonder he's on the right politically. Read this before anything else, since show is more important than remembrance to the outsider.

cont., posting for your continued attention

>> No.2204089

I was talking to a Slovene on omegle once and he said their best poet is France Preseren. Thoughts?

>> No.2204105

>>2204079
quite right, the national struggle is what Minuet for Guitar is declaratively about. Written by a Bohemian, the novel is a series of vignettes that alternate between occupied Slovenia in the 40s and tourist Spain in the 70s, always keeping an impish sexual vigour and keen egoism that makes up an interesting autheurial voice. This novel is also powered by great historical developments, so you can think of it as Hemingway meeting Miller.

I'm sorry for my conservatism concerning our literature, since I'm quite drunk atm.

Skip Blatnik, since he's the neo-Carverian I was talking about. I may be just mad at him for rejecting me at a poetry contest, but I sincerely feel an author who is primarily a cultural worker and what's more a cultural bureaucrat has no place in a literary canon.

Also read Lainšček and Bojetu, but there's no need for Pahor - he's another Holocaust survivor, and there are some more worldly Jews that are more valuable to a non-Slovenian regarding the topic.

>> No.2204114

Thanks for this thread, I've been rereading a copy of The Loser for a few years and have meant to get more of his stuff.

>> No.2204117

>>2204089
That's like saying Wordsworth is the best British poet. Prešeren may be important because of his role in legitimising the language, but I can think of none more important than Tomaž Šalamun as far as actual living poetry is concerned. He may be intensely hermetic, but he is also iconic, and foreigners, esp. some American poets and academics, have picked up on that. His poetry is neo-avantgarde and completely expressionist.

>> No.2204146

>>2204114
when you're done with the art trilogy, you might want to read his biographical trilogy - A Child, The Cold and Wittgenstein's Nephew. I haven't ventured beyond these, but they are a light accompaniment to his three literary coups.

>> No.2204175

Thanks for the thread. Threads like this make me glad I still come here