{"title":"THOMAS BERNHARD","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThomas Bernhard\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Holland in 1931 and grew up in Austria. He studied music at the Akademie Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 1957 he began a second career, as a playwright, poet, and novelist. The winner of the three most distinguished and coveted literary prizes awarded in Germany, he has become one of the most widely translated and admired writers of his generation. He published nine novels, an autobiography, one volume of poetry, four collections of short stories, and six volumes of plays. Thomas Bernhard died in Austria in 1989.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"gargoyles","title":"Gargoyles","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe playwright and novelist Thomas Bernhard was one of the most widely translated and admired writers of his generation, winner of the three most coveted literary prizes in Germany. \u003ci\u003eGargoyles, \u003c\/i\u003eone of his earliest novels, is a singular, surreal study of the nature of humanity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne morning a doctor and his son set out on daily rounds through the grim mountainous Austrian countryside. They observe the colorful characters they encounter--from an innkeeper whose wife has been murdered to a crippled musical prodigy kept in a cage--coping with physical misery, madness, and the brutality of the austere landscape. The parade of human grotesques culminates in a hundred-page monologue by an eccentric, paranoid prince, a relentlessly flowing cascade of words that is classic Bernhard.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54403655827822,"sku":"9781400077557","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_7e56e464-dc58-47ea-a3d0-b0a4ef87c540.jpg?v=1785286659"},{"product_id":"concrete","title":"Concrete","description":"Instead of the book he's meant to write, Rudolph, a Viennese musicologist, produces this dark and grotesquely funny account of small woes writ large, of profound horrors detailed and rehearsed to the point of distraction. We learn of Rudolph's sister, whose help he invites, then reviles as malevolent meddling; his 'really marvelous' house, which he hates; the suspicious illness he carefully nurses; his ten-year-long attempt to write the perfect opening sentence; and, finally, his escape to the island of Majorca, which turns out to be the site of someone else's very real horror story. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA brilliant and haunting tale of procrastination, failure, and despair, \u003ci\u003eConcrete\u003c\/i\u003e is a perfect example of why Thomas Bernhard is remembered as \"one of the masters of contemporary European fiction\" (George Steiner).","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54403655860590,"sku":"9781400077571","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_3a90a1eb-935d-4fe0-b857-f50ccd990910.jpg?v=1785286659"},{"product_id":"extinction","title":"Extinction","description":"The last work of fiction by one of the twentieth century's greatest artists, \u003ci\u003eExtinction \u003c\/i\u003eis widely considered Thomas Bernhard's magnum opus. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFranz-Josef Murau--the intellectual black sheep of a powerful Austrian land-owning family--lives in Rome in self-imposed exile, surrounded by a coterie of artistic and intellectual friends. On returning from his sister's wedding on the family estate of Wolfsegg, having resolved never to go home again, Murau receives a telegram informing him of the death of his parents and brother in a car crash. Not only must he now go back, he must do so as the master of Wolfsegg. And he must decide its fate. Written in the seamless, mesmerizing style for which Bernhard was\u003cbr\u003efamous, \u003ci\u003eExtinction\u003c\/i\u003e is the ultimate proof of his extraordinary literary genius.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54403655893358,"sku":"9781400077618","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_8df7fdfc-3d46-4580-8646-7e89aceacd67.jpg?v=1785286662"},{"product_id":"frost","title":"Frost","description":"Thomas Bernhard combined a searing wit and an unwavering gaze into the human condition. His debut novel, \u003ci\u003eFrost, \u003c\/i\u003e marked the beginning of one of the century's most provocative literary careers. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eVisceral, raw, singular, and unforgettable, \u003ci\u003eFrost \u003c\/i\u003eis the story of a friendship between a young man beginning his medical career and a painter in his final days. The youth has accepted an unusual assignment, to travel to a miserable mining town in the middle of nowhere in order to clinically--and secretly--observe and report on his mentor's reclusive brother, the painter Strauch. Carefully disguising himself as a law student with a love of Henry James, he befriends the aging artist and attempts to carry out his mission, only to find himself caught up in his subject's apparent madness.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54403655926126,"sku":"9781400033515","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_274037da-ec7c-43ac-8d54-2d0889b85829.jpg?v=1785286662"},{"product_id":"woodcutters","title":"Woodcutters","description":"Fiercely observed, often hilarious, and \"reminiscent of Ibsen and Strindberg\" (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e), this exquisitely controversial novel was initially banned in its author's homeland. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA searing portrayal of Vienna's bourgeoisie, it begins with the arrival of an unnamed writer at an 'artistic dinner' hosted by a composer and his society wife--a couple he once admired and has come to loathe. The guest of honor, a distinguished actor from the Burgtheater, is late. As the other guests wait impatiently, they are seen through the critical eye of the writer, who narrates a silent but frenzied tirade against these former friends, most of whom have been brought together by Joana, a woman they buried earlier that day. Reflections on Joana's life and suicide are mixed with these denunciations until the famous actor arrives, bringing an explosive end to the evening that even the writer could not have seen coming.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54403655958894,"sku":"9781400077595","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_80096650-fb6f-47b9-93a7-d3ca0068a9f4.jpg?v=1785286663"},{"product_id":"wittgensteins-nephew","title":"Wittgenstein's Nephew","description":"It is 1967. In separate wings of a Viennese hospital, two men lie bedridden. The narrator, named Thomas Bernhard, is stricken with a lung ailment; his friend Paul, nephew of the celebrated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, is suffering from one of his periodic bouts of madness. As their once-casual friendship quickens, these two eccentric men begin to discover in each other a possible antidote to their feelings of hopelessness and mortality--a spiritual symmetry forged by their shared passion for music, strange sense of humor, disgust for bourgeois Vienna, and great fear in the face of death. Part memoir, part fiction, \u003ci\u003eWittgenstein's Nephew\u003c\/i\u003e is both a meditation on the artist's struggle to maintain a solid foothold in a world gone incomprehensibly askew, and a stunning--if not haunting--eulogy to a real-life friendship.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54403655991662,"sku":"9781400077564","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_8307adc6-7279-43d7-9918-893e3728736a.jpg?v=1785286663"},{"product_id":"correction","title":"Correction","description":"The scientist Roithamer has dedicated the last six years of his life to \"the Cone,\" an edifice of mathematically exact construction that he has erected in the center of his family's estate in honor of his beloved sister. Not long after its completion, he takes his own life. As an unnamed friend pieces together--literally, from thousands of slips of papers and one troubling manuscript--the puzzle of Rotheimer's breakdown, what emerges is the story of a genius ceaselessly compelled to correct and refine his perceptions until the only logical conclusion is the negation of his own soul. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eConsidered by many critics to be Thomas Bernhard's masterpiece, \u003ci\u003eCorrection\u003c\/i\u003e is a cunningly crafted and unforgettable meditation on the tension between the desire for perfection and the knowledge that it is unattainable.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54403656024430,"sku":"9781400077601","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_7fc64347-4f73-4a06-b4d3-4b83e983d50e.jpg?v=1785286664"},{"product_id":"the-lime-works","title":"The Lime Works","description":"For five years, Konrad has imprisoned himself and his crippled wife in an abandoned lime works where he's conducted odd auditory experiments and prepared to write his masterwork, \u003ci\u003eThe Sense of Hearing\u003c\/i\u003e. As the story begins, he's just blown the head off his wife with the Mannlicher carbine she kept strapped to her wheelchair. The murder and the bizarre life that led to it are the subject of a mass of hearsay related by an unnamed life-insurance salesman in a narrative as mazy, byzantine, and mysterious as the lime works--Konrad's sanctuary and tomb.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54403656057198,"sku":"9781400077588","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_09271612-8a3e-4b88-b296-1ff8ebaa6d19.jpg?v=1785286665"},{"product_id":"the-loser","title":"The Loser","description":"\"The Loser\" is a brilliant fictional account of an imaginary relationship among three men--the late piano virtuoso Glenn Gould, the unnamed narrator, and a fictional pianist, Wertheimer--who meet in 1953 to study with Vladimir Horowitz. In the face of Gould's incomparable genius, Wertheimer and the narrator renounce their musical ambition, but in very different ways. While the latter sets out to write a book about Gould, Wertheimer sinks deep into despair and self-destruction.\u003cp\u003e\"Like Swift, Bernhard writes like a sacred monster. . . . A remarkable literary performer: [he] goes to extremes in ways that vivify our sense of human possibilities, however destructive\".--Richard Locke, \"Wall Street Journal\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The excellence of Bernhard--and it is a kind virtuosity, ably maintained in this American translation--is to make his monotonous loathing not only sting but also, like Gould at the piano, sing\".--Paul Griffiths, \"Times Literary Supplement\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"[He is] one of the century's most gifted writers\".--David Plott, \"Philadelphia Inquirer\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"America has been sadly immune to the charm and challenge of Bernhard's work and the American public has deprived itself of the deep and serious pleasure of reading one of the great writers of this century. . . . One of the great works of world literature. Its arrival on these shores is a significant literary event\".--Thomas McGonigle, \"New York Newsday\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54403656089966,"sku":"9781400077540","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_20ea4b11-b580-44f8-891b-5143c66fbf0d.jpg?v=1785286666"},{"product_id":"gathering-evidence-my-prizes","title":"Gathering Evidence\/My Prizes","description":"Written with a dark pain and drama that recalls the novels of Dickens, \u003ci\u003eGathering Evidence\u003c\/i\u003e is a powerful and compelling memoir of youth by one of the twentieth century's most gifted writers. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBorn in 1931, the illegitimate child of an abandoned mother, Thomas Bernhard was brought up by an eccentric grandmother and an adored grandfather in right-wing, Catholic Austria. He ran away from home at age fifteen. Three years later, he contracted pneumonia and was placed in a hospital ward for the old and terminally ill, where he observed first-hand--and with unflinching acuity--the cruel nature of protracted suffering and death. From the age of twenty-one, everything he wrote was shaped by the urgency of a dying man's testament--and where this account of his life ends, his art begins. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIncluded in this edition is \u003ci\u003eMy Prizes\u003c\/i\u003e, a collection of Bernhard's viciously funny and revelatory essays on his later literary life. Here is a portrait of the artist as a prize-winner: laconic, sardonic, shaking his head with biting amusement at the world and at himself.","brand":"Knopf Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54403656122734,"sku":"9781400077625","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_5a306c2c-98f8-4950-8ca9-d4c72dce229d.jpg?v=1785286666"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/collections\/2c305c5ce2.jpg?v=1785286924","url":"https:\/\/tenderbuttonsbooks.com\/collections\/thomas-bernhard.oembed","provider":"Tender Buttons Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}