Thomas Bernhard
Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and polemicist, and the most reliable insulter of his own country in postwar German literature. His books are typically single unbroken paragraphs, narrated by men circling an obsession: a failed career, an inheritance, a lost friend, the state of Austrian culture. Music, illness and suicide recur, as does a comic exaggeration that readers often miss on a first attempt. His plays provoked genuine scandal at home, and his will tried to prohibit publication and performance of his work in Austria altogether.
Movies (1)
Books (6)
Where to start with Thomas Bernhard
Start with Woodcutters, a whole novel spent in a chair at a Viennese dinner party while the narrator shreds everyone present, himself included. Frost is the debut and already sounds like nobody else. Correction and Extinction are the heavyweights, both worth it, both exhausting. Heldenplatz is the play that had Austrian politicians denouncing him before the curtain went up.