„...sagte er, dachte ich“ liest man hunderte Male in diesem Buch. Dabei ist „Er“ der Untergeher, ein alter Freund des erzählenden "Ich". Wie man nach einiger Zeit feststellt, hat sich dieser Freund vor kurzem das Leben genommen. Beide, der Untergeher und der Erzähler waren einst Kommilitonen am Mozarteum in Salzburg, wo sie gemeinsam mit Glenn Gould, dem genialen Pianisten (oder, wie es bei Bernhard heißt: "Klavierspieler") bei Horowitz studierten. Historisch ist da vieles falsch - es geht um die Idee des genialen Kommilitonen, an dessen Leistungen und Fähigkeiten man niemals herankommen kann.
Gemessen am schwermütigen Inhalt ist der Text erstaunlich gefällig zu lesen, zumindest wenn man sich einmal an das immer wiederkehrende „sagte er, dachte ich“ und die Einbettung von Gesprächsfetzen in den Gedankengang des Erzählers gewöhnt hat. Ein extremes Lesebeispiel ist: „Aber die Leute haben nicht verstanden, was ich meinte, wie immer, wenn ich etwas sage, verstehen sie nicht, denn was ich sage, heißt ja nicht, dass ich das, was ich gesagt habe, gesagt habe, sagte er, dachte ich“ (S. 65).
Trotz aller negativen Gedanken, trotz des Schlechtredens, des Niedermachens, des immerzu halbleeren Glases mochte ich dieses Buch. Am Ende ist es so etwas wie eine Verneigung vor dem wirklich schweren und unsicheren Leben der einfachen Leute: hier in den Personen der alleinstehenden Wirtin und des alten, vor der Entlassung stehenden Hausmeisters. Deren Schicksal erfährt man erst im letzten Drittel, nach seitenlangem Lamentieren über Unzulänglichkeit der eigenen Kunst im ansonsten sorglosen Leben der Klavierspieler. Man fragt sich, warum ein Mensch, der einen Steinway-Flügel großmütig verschenken kann, dessen Talent und Bildung es erlauben, sein Leben ganz der Kunst zu widmen, so unbeschreiblich unglücklich sein kann. Eine Antwort erhält man als über den Untergeher gesagt wird: „Er wollte Künstler sein, Lebenskünstler genügte ihm nicht, obwohl doch gerade dieser Begriff alles ist, das uns glücklich macht, wenn wir hellsichtig sind, dachte ich“ (S. 97). ( )

You'd think this novel would be unreadable, consisting as it does of one, yes one, insanely long and largely redundant paragraph. But its combination of humor and desperation works. I was agreeably jaws-agape. Here is an author to explore; next stop, his inaugural novel, Frost. ( )

2.1

Overall more impressive in style than in substance, however, in retrospect I enjoyed this work quite a lot. imo critics who emphasize his needling of 'Austria' have already lost themselves in cheap allegory. Some impromptu thoughts:

Insane notion, the opposite of composition. The author has concluded the scene (about disposal of the Steinway) and then immediately repeated it with less art, as if the scene has been bunched up on top of itself…. And yet there is something to this so-called rumpled-fabric narration… This cyclic form, with its repetition of mantra (e.g. “Glenn was the genius”) models the verbal thought process, which repeats itself in tidbits of semantic meaning, and only through repetition of these sense-phrases (nonsense) is able to penetrate the subject matter (to reveal more nonsense)

Three characters is too many. The obvious homology between Wertheimer and the author will surely flatten itself.

“If we look at things squarely the only thing left from the greatest philosophical enterprises is a pitiful aphoristic aftertaste, he said, no matter what the philosophy, no matter what the philosopher, everything falls to bits when we set to work with all our faculties and that means with all our mental instruments, he said, I thought.”
The narrator's musings become more and more off-base. Everything in this quotation contradicts the previous narrative. Never in all the ‘he said, I thought’ does Wertheimer use the term ‘peculiar’. And these additional characters are neglected from the monistic narrative (how is it that, after 20 years of solitude, one has dozens of such acquiantances?) Of course this is bernhard's intention, otherwise he has let slip quite the tidbit --> “These artists, she said, were peculiar types, the word peculiar wasn’t hers either, she got it from Wertheimer who was fond of the word peculiar, as I thought. For a long time people like Wertheimer (and me!) put up with their isolation, I thought, then they have to have company, for twenty years Wertheimer held out without company, then he filled his house with all sorts of people.” In fact, the narrator has incidentally been ruined by his monologue. Rendered an incompetent driveler who cannot even relate an the answer to a simple request. (when asked about W.’s funeral, he instead parades his tawdry opinions about the city of Vienna, so tawdry in fact that they reveal the root of the very ‘cretinism’ he criticizes in the ‘volk’ and which directly colludes with the rise of H. in Austria. And Wertheimer/Witt himself is Jewish.) Such 'slips' of narration are winks at the reader. He's coy. Anyone who takes Bernhard's diatribe verbatim is one such 'cretin'.

Finally, some specific phrases which pleased me when i first read them. The latter two are particularly representative of his style and which I hope to remember forever:

“Monk’s Mountain, which is also called Suicide Mountain, since it is especially suited for suicide”

“We’re so arrogant that we think we’re studying music whereas we’re not even capable of living,”

“Wertheimer had put all his eggs in his piano virtuoso career, as I have to call it, I hadn’t put any eggs in such a piano virtuoso career, that was the difference.”

“he said, I thought.”

“I had thought then, I thought.” ( )

Reclamado por el suicidio de su mejor amigo, un hombre viaja hasta su antiguo hogar y rememora su común pasión por el piano. Da cuenta de la turbia amistad que les unió, trastocada tras conocer al virtuoso Glenn Goould. A través de sus pensamientos se irá deshilando un discurso en torno a la infelicidad, la existencia y la pulsión nihilista que acompaña una ambición desmedida.