- Paperback: 108 pages
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press; New edition edition (1 Feb 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0226043924
- ISBN-13: 978-0226043920
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.5 x 0.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,655,447 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
It is 1967, in a Viennese hospital. In separate wards, 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. Beginning with his memory of the hospital, Bernhard traces the growth of an intense friendship between two eccentric, obsessive man who share a passion for music. A strange sense of humor, brutal honesty, and a disgust for bourgeois Vienna. Part fiction, part memoir, Bernhard's evocation of the fear and longing for intimacy he and his truest friend share in the face of death chronicles both the spiritual symmetry that bonds them for twelve years and the emotional betrayal that elicits Bernhard's eulogy.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful! Entropy throbs again.,
By susanernest@beeb.net (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Wittgenstein's Nephew: A Friendship (Phoenix Fiction) (Paperback)
Bernhard always grabs me into a trancelike state of reading. Something about those long sentences, the repetitive, rythmical commentary on a process of increasing decay, just seems to captivate me. In this particular book, he is unusually concise and to the point, if that is possible with Bernhard. For Bernhard is a whiner on the grand scale, like Celine, but without Celine's particular madness. Bernhard has of course his own. He also has great insight, both about himself and others; he is unusually honest and completely free of sentimentality. He can be poignant, but without schmalz. Bodil Malmsten, a Swedish poet held in high regard, once remarked in an interview, that she found Bernhard's writing to be a sexual turn-on. I've sometimes tried to imagine that but I haven't made up my mind yet. Perhaps that would demand more maturity on the behalf of the reader, or possibly less...
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A probing and compassionate book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Wittgenstein's Nephew: A Friendship (Phoenix Fiction) (Paperback)
Thomas Bernhard is no lover of humanity, but this is a very compassionate book. It is a sympathetic portrait of Paul Wittgenstein as well as of Bernhard himself. Bernhard comes across as rather crotchety, rather irritating, but quite stubborn in getting his point across. His ability to repeat himself - which intially leaves the reader wondering - is ultimately hilarious and endearing. This book is poignant, touching and eventually, sad.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A "European" book reflecting on self and others.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Wittgenstein's Nephew: A Friendship (Phoenix Fiction) (Paperback)
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.
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