"His manner of speaking, like that of all the subordinated,
excluded, was awkward, like a body full of wounds, into which at
any time anyone can strew salt, yet so insistent, that it is
painful to listen to him," from The Carpenter The Austrian
playwright, novelist, and poet Thomas Bernhard (1931-89) is
acknowledged as among the major writers of our time. The seven
stories in this collection capture Bernhard's distinct darkly comic
voice and vision--often compared to Kafka and Musil--commenting on
a corrupted world. First published in German in 1967, these stories
were written at the same time as Bernhard's early novels Frost,
Gargoyles, and The Lime Works, and they display the same
obsessions, restlessness, and disarming mastery of language. Martin
Chalmer's outstanding translation, which renders the work in
English for the first time, captures the essential personality of
the work. The narrators of these stories lack the strength to do
anything but listen and then write, the reader in turn becoming a
captive listener, deciphering the traps laid by memory--and the
mere words, the neverending words with which we try to pin it down.
Words that are always close to driving the narrator crazy, but yet,
as Bernhard writes "not completely crazy." "Bernhard's glorious
talent for bleak existential monologues is second only to
Beckett's, and seems to have sprung up fully mature in his
mesmerizing debut."--From Publishers Weekly, on Frost "The feeling
grows that Thomas Bernhard is the most original, concentrated
novelist writing in German. His connections . . . with the great
constellation of Kafka, Musil, and Broch become ever clearer."
--George Steiner, Times Literary Supplement, on Gargoyles
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(1)
