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.
"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"
"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"
"[He is] one of the century's most gifted writers".--David Plott, "Philadelphia Inquirer"
"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"
About the Author
THOMAS BERNHARD 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. His novels published in English include Gargoyles, The Lime Works, Correction, Concrete, Woodcutters, and Wittgenstein's Nephew; a number of his plays have been produced off Broadway, at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, and at theaters in London and throughout Europe. The five segments of his memoir were published in one volume, Gathering Evidence, in 1985. Thomas Bernhard died in 1989.
Reviews
"A complex and unsettling novel . . . about genius and obsession . . . mirroring the thought process of a compulsive mind." --The New York Times Book Review"Bernhard writes like a sacred monster. . . . He is a remarkable literary performer: a man who goes to extremes in ways that vivify our sense of human possibilities, however destructive." -- The Wall Street Journal"Bernhard is one of the masters of contemporary European fiction . . . After Kafka's and Canetti's, his sensibility is one of the most acute, the most capable of exemplary images and gestures, in modern literature." -- George Steiner
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