This is Thomas Bernhard's first novel, and at first it seems to be a rambling collection of grotesques in the manner of WINESBURG, OHIO. But then, after the insane industrialist and the boy in the cage, we reach the realm of the prince, and the novel takes off into the territory Bernhard explores in his later books -- that is, breathless, disjointed, almost-incoherent blocks of text. Note that I'm not suggesting this is a bad thing. Here it's wonderful. And although the prince's rant is quite exhausting, it's exhausting in a good way (I had to put the book down a few times during Molly's soliloquoy too, but that doesn't mean it's bad, just perhaps a bit demanding). An obvious choice for any Bernhard fan, and just possibly a good trick to play on someone, who will believe they're reading a naturalistic novel, until....

This book, Bernhard's autobiography, combines a series of five books published in German from 1976 to 1982.

The first chapter of this translation, on Bernhard's early childhood, was the last volume of the series. It shows the no-limits nature of Bernhard's childhood strivings and the criminal talent he had to separate his sense of joy from the desire of his mother and other caretakers that he should detest himself for not being there for them, for not praising them, and for not feeling shame and failure like they felt. It also shows how much he loved his grandfather.

The second chapter was the first volume. George Steiner wrote in 1985 that it's the best description of what it's like to be bombed in any language. Also, that it's untranslatable. It covers the 1943-46 period when Bernhard was btwn ages 12 and 15 in Salzburg, as Salzburg was being bombed by the Allies, and just after Austria's unconditional surrender. It expresses Bernhard's nightmarish state of mind then, and tells in journalistic style just what he saw.

The German version of these books is outrageously better than the English translation in this case --- even though in others such as Woodcutters, the same translator produced what I feel is as good a book in English or maybe better than the original. Maybe these autobiographical books really are untranslatable.

Still, this book is amazing. Not only is it true to the state of affairs. But it's also a classic fairy tale where Bernhard takes on the role of Luke Skywalker, his grandfather the role of Obi-Wan Kenobe, and the grocer who employs Bernhard a role of Yoda.

By unwittingly retelling the Star Wars story, this autobiography shows both the power of myth and one way the story of Nazism could become a useful cautionary myth, like one of Grimm's fairy tales, for the next millenium.

...

I have purchased several hundred dollars worth of books over the years for required reading in classes I have taken. I would have to say that this book is the "most for the money". It will be an excellent resource for me in the future. I plan to keep it as a reference in school-related matters. I only wish that I had had access to this material when I was first starting out as a teacher. The chapters are very well organized, and the visual aids (graphs, charts, pictures) were well selected and beneficial - the benchmark timelines helped to summarize several important events. The "Voices" sections in each chapter, featuring different viewpoints from real people on topics related to the chapter gave the somewhat lenthy, arduous chapters life and vitality. The inside cover of the book included educational issues included in the book. I found myself several times scanning through the list, thinking of my position on the matter. If there would be any fault of the book, I would have to say that the chapters could have been a little shorter. It seemed like a great deal of information to absorb. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in all aspects of education.

This textbook is a clear, straightforward, and practical look at the principals of teaching today. I would highly recommend this text for any undergraduate working toward a degree in education or any professor looking for a new text for their Introduction to Education course. This is an excellent starting point for those who wish to learn more about the history of teaching as well as more current issues such as parental involvement or diversity in education. The authors have presented this information in a reader-friendly style with many helpful Web site addresses and personal narratives from experienced teachers in the field. Attractive charts and graphs presented throughout each chapter are also quite helpful in relating difficult concepts. Overall, this is a high quality undergraduate textbook for anyone wishing to enter the field of teaching.

Foundations of Education - The Challenge of Professional Practice by Robert F. McNergney and Joanne M. Herbert is, in my opinion, a very well written text book to be used in an "Introduction to Education" class. The book is very easy to read, with each chapter following the same user friendly outline. The book makes excellent use of data presented in various chart and graph form. The "Voices" section in each chapter gives the reader personal glimpses of people in the teaching profession - presenting both present day and historical view points. The "Benchmark" pages at the end of each of the chapters help summarize the information from the chapter in chronological order, and even the chapter summaries help guide your study while reading the text. The "Online Activity" following each chapter serves as an excellent additional resource for the reader. The topics covered in the book are relevant to today's teaching profession, and give the reader an up-to-date view of what being a teacher involves. The book is definitely written for a person who does not have a prior educational background, who may be considering entering the field of teaching.

On sunny afternoon towards the end of June 96 I met a famous Austrian-American psychoanalyst in a bookstore near St Stephan's Dome in Vieanna. I am almost a fan of this analyst/author,after introducing myself (a psychiatrist attending an international conference where he was lecturing),he asked me what I was reading from Austrian authors and I mentioned the only name I knew -Arthur Schnitzler, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud. He said it was OK but had I heard about Thomas Bernhard ? That was the beginning of my relationship with T.B.. The only English title from T.B.'s works was "On the Mountain"; I bought a copy and as soon as I started reading I was in touch with a conglomerate of emotions- anger,"boredom", pain, sorrow, "emptiness" and a very skillfull reflection of probing the realm of self and others in terms of various levels of self representations. As for W.'s Nephew, I should admit it is rather an easy reading title amongst T.B.'s works. Here we have the extremes; body and psyche, mental "disorder" vs medical disease, living upto all or none... W.'s Nephew tries to undo wrongs by helping paupers to the extent of becoming peniless himself (which leads to another episode of "institutionalization" with his relatives' more than willing consent) or is able to mark an opera work with his applause (or silence) as fabulous (or kill it) at the end of a premier. While W.'s Nephew might be perceived as pure emotionality the protagonist represents the "rational mind". Their relationship is based on a very true friendship and conveyed on a stage of Vieennese cafes (Sacher, Havelka..), suburbs and hospitals. I recommenf this book for those who are interested in reading about human relations in a cotext of self and others during post modernity.

Upon doing some background research on William Gaddis, while reading his Recognitions, I came across a number of sources describing Willy's appreciation for the work of Thomas Bernhard. Thus I decided to reacquaint myself with this Austrian writer after more than a decade.

Just like Borges and Natsume, Thomas Bernhard was a taste that I acquired due to Glenn Gould mania. Still in Holland Cornelis Hofman, then head of the Glenn Gould Society, offered Bernhard's Untergeher, the Loser, to the fans of the "oracle of Toronto". Hooked on Bernhard from page one, I next read alte Meister and Holzfallen, old masters and woodcutters, resp.

Thomas Bernhard was a person who often came close to the level of misanthropy. Yet, this writer followed in a line of the likes of Shopenhauer, Strindberg and Celine, who led the readers into the darkest recesses of the tunnel never to forget the pay off by the light at their metaphorical ends. Bernhard will always be defined for me by one short moment in a rare television interview. Bored by the interviewer he walked over to his record player and started a recording of Bach's 2nd Brandenburg Concerto. After the music had played for a while he asked his interviewing victim "Do you know what is happening here?" The victim remained mute, invoking a look from Bernhard that was a mixture of disbelief and disgust to the nth degree. After some more music, while shaking his head answered himself with "everything".

Wittgenstein's Nephew is an archetypical Bernhard novella, both in content and style. The book contains a detailed analysis of the relationship between the writer and his best (and only true friend) Paul Wittgenstein, nephew of the famed philosopher. The first part of the book focuses on Paul and the friendship, while Bernhard uses these ingredients in the final part of the book as a "mirror" for self reflection/analysis. The book begins when both Bernhard and Paul are treated, for cancer and depression resp., at separate but close institutions. At the climax of this part, the writer who was so much looking forward to meeting Paul, finally meets what is left of his friend, and is devastated. Next, Bernhard looks back at the history of their friendship and pays special attention to the support Paul gave him on the occasion of receiving two literary prices and the premiere of one of his plays. In the end, Thomas, gives a brutally honest description of him avoiding Paul around the end of the latter's life and not attending the funeral of the very person who was so important for Bernhard to overcome a longtime suicidal depression. In the act, Bernhard leaves a wide array of casualties: the charlatans of the medical profession, the Austrian press/government/writers/actors and last but not least himself.

The prose is of the vintage Bernhard style that is easily identifiable after the very first sentence. Especially at the start, there is the favorite technique of providing a statement that is cut to the "philosophical bone" to later become the vehicle of a spiral thought of "evolution". Later on the style becomes more linear, without losing any of its poignancy.
While I read the original version, get it at the German Amazon site, I did compare it with this translated version. I would give the translator a 7 on a scale of 10. David McLintock has chosen textual accuracy over a translation that puts more emphasis on delivering the same type of "punch" as the original. You could say he prefers the letter to the spirit of the law. While the resulting translation is precise and careful, it is definitely "Bernhard Lite". Thinking in musical terms, you get Weber instead of the original Wagner.

As a novice to Bernhard reading this review, you may wonder whether the late Thomas would really be your cup of tea. All his anger, gloom, doom and hatred. Yet, Bernhard's dark vitriolic virtuosity gives the short intermittent moments of happiness a striking serene beauty, not unlike like the little flower in Picasso's Guernica.

It has been said that Gaddis' Recognitions is a more mature version of Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Extending this metaphor, this as many of Bernhard's books represents a version of Holden, who while severely doubting the sense of the act, still hasn't given up on catching all together.

I am once again reading _Wittgenstein's Nephew,_ after having read it ten or so years ago. Now, years later, this slim book offers an even richer experience. I started it tonight and regret that I didn't begin it earlier in the day. It's short enough to be read in a rainy afternoon, yet its brevity belies writing that is simply astounding and straightforward in its honesty and beauty. (By "honesty," I don't mean the cesspool of lurid detail that many of today's writers wallow in and which I find totally repugnant. Bernhard had too much class for that.)

Truth be told, the reader has to like Bernhard's style to get far with him. Bernhard's rephrasing of mundane thoughts and incidents may seem tedious at first to the uninitiated, but he turns the same phrases over and over as if assessing their content and structure. Is it better to write the thought *this* way? That way? Both? Neither? All? How many writers do *that*!?

Bernhard had a genuine love of words (which I share), phrases, sentences and the way they all form an imposing BLOCK that fills the pages (no paragraph breaks). It doesn't seem to matter much that his topics are mundane: I sense he knew that, despite the adventures most of us have, a large part of life is spent alone with our thoughts. Who was it that said, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Bernhard expands upon this bleak thought and comes up with art of very high order, indeed.

I have read all of Bernhard's work that has been translated into English, and I can recommend them all with 5 stars. I think this book (or perhaps _Concrete_) is the best starting point for those unfamiliar with this author. I especially love this book because the topic - friendship - is so touching and sensitively handled. Not a word seems wasted.

i find it funny that a reviewer below has an affection for wittgenstein but a dislike for bernhard, claiming bernhard is more difficult. that gives you some idea of how bernhard is; his difficulty is that of a philosophical treatise, and not as of tiny little aphorisms. but both writers, thinkers, deserve the same amount of intense thinking and mulling over. this book is something you cannot read for hours on end, if simply because looking at no paragraph breaks hurts the eyes. but if one has read philosophical treatises before then this work should be easy to handle. orther than that, namely, considering the content of the work it is masterful. not only that, bernhard presents his unique ideas in a masterful way. when i first read this book i found it annoying and difficult, much the same way i thought of ulysses when i first read it, but after reading bernhard's other works i was free to consider it a masterpeice. something that deserves work and is rewarding. one of my all time favorites.

Bernhard's novel "Correction" tells us the story of two friends. The main character, Roithamer, commit suicide (as we know from the first page of the book) and his friend (the person who tells the story) take charge of his legacy: A huge mass of calculations and thinkings about the construction of a Cone (in the center of a forest called Kobernauss) for the "supreme happiness" of Roithamer' sister (who is expected to dwell in it). Following this main idea Bernhard writes a superb novel dealing with the loneliness of an exceptional man in a stupid, brutal and destructive society that consider mad to those people with true artistic and intellectual interests. Strong thoughts and strong beauty are the main virtues of this book. I have read almost all the works by Thomas Bernhard and this one, I think, is the kernel of all his production. It is, maybe, his greatest masterpiece (in narrative) besides his five-volume autobiography. We encounter, here, for example, that wild irony and humour of his plays for the scene and all his personal universe and obsessions.
I will say nothing of Mdme.Wilkins translation as I think that there is no alternative for reading this novel in English. Translating Bernhard is very difficult. Long sentences, with periodic and obsessive motives which repeat and repeat producing an amazing and incredible effect. Bernhard is a master of rhythm and precision and his style is a musical one.

This novel is essentially about a man (two men, really, in sequence although at times it feels like the narrator is of one piece) in a little dark room who cannot turn his brain off and has an incessant need to share it with you (the reader). I found the passage about the stuffing of the big black bird to be incredibly hilarious. People who aspire to be well-read must put Thomas Bernhard on the top of their reading list. Adjectives like obsession and neurotic don't do this particular book justice. I've read most of Bernhard's books (as translated in English) and this is certainly one of his strongest. I recommend this book to everyone -- graduate students, widows, orphans, the mentally ill, little children. Five stars absolutely.

Thomas Bernhard is a wonderfully engaging author, although at first glance, a depressive. He is (or was - he died in 1989) Austrian, and this unusual autobiography is written in one long go - there are no chapters or even paragraphs! It is hard going at first, until you suddenly click into Bernhard's point of view, which is a grim, often tragic take, and some readers might consider his remarks on life, death, marriage, education (especially in Austria!) to be offensive. But since he is a master of irony, his life's sad and terrible situations do become very funny. At the age of 18, he was hospitalised with pneumonia, and since the doctors thought he was going to die, he was put in a ward amongst the old and chronically ill, what he called the 'death' ward. Upon his recovery, he wasn't moved to another ward - the doctors, he said, seemed affronted that he hadn't 'gone under' as expected! On the daily round, he recounts how they grew progressively ruder, as his health improved. To Bernhard, doctors are marginally more criminal than teachers, but the greatest crime is that of parents who thoughtlessly "bring new human beings into the world," and then try to bring them up, in even more thoughtless ways. He went to a Catholic boarding-school until 1938,the year of the Anschluss, when of course it became a National Socialist school overnight - the great thing he writes is that there was no discernible difference - the brutally cruel school routine went on just the same, except there were different uniforms, beliefs, songs & decor!! Later, trapped in a sanatorium with TB, he discovers books, and they "became my best and most intimate friends," thus the act of reading became a decisive factor in his life, for he saw that literature could be applied to life, "as a form of higher mathematics." (not entirely sure that makes sense out of context - he's immensely quotable, but in chunks rather than odd lines). It's a very good translation, but as already said, it's not an easy read - apparently, in Austrian German, it reads as a marvellously-poetic prose; even so, for English readers, it's well worth persevering with the life-story of this saturnine character. I found a second-hand copy of this book, which is out of print, and was so impressed I've bought two more (new, from Amazon!)by Bernhard, "Wittgenstein's Nephew" and "The Voice Imitators."

The version I read was in three parts and each part was like a whole so there was a fair bit of repetition. If that wasn't the case the book would get 5 stars as the man is clearly an inspired writer with an almost perfectly free intellect (much to the horror of Germans, Austrians, organised religions and the medical profession amongst others). Like JG Ballard he opens one's mind up to ideas that one would never have dared to dream of. Best of all, despite it all (his life was quite depressing due to growing up in Nazi Germany and contracting TB) he's very funny. Makes you feel that with humour you're safe from everything.

The book itself is like the lime works in which the reader finds him/herself lost, the walls constructed of bits of hearsay and rumor collected and disseminated by various neighbors and acquaintances of the strange old man currently living in the lime works with his invalid wife of whom he takes cursory care and on whom he conducts strange experiments (of the auditory type) because he is gathering information for the book he is writing, the book he has been writing for quite some time, well, actually the book that he has been preparing to write for years but which he has not actually started because he is afraid that he might get it wrong and he knows that it must be a brilliant work -- for his research is of the most brilliant nature -- and he is simply driving himself mad with it, though he seems not to notice anything unusual except for his exceptionally keen sense of hearing and the most amazing thing about the book, not the book in the book, but the actual book by Thomas Bernhard, is that it is about writing the book that the reader is reading and it is difficult to put the book down even for a moment, not just because the book is intriguing and complex and disturbing, but also because the book is composed (to resemble the workings of a madman's mind) of several hundred pages of run-on sentences