M Sarki

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/78640758746/wittgensteins-nephew-by-thomas-bernhard

This is one of those Bernhard books that most devotees say they loved but speak little about why or how it happened. Those who do are predictable in their comments regarding Bernhard's plot, his friendships, judgments, and in general, death. Nothing wrong with either approach, but it just doesn't get the uninitiated where she needs to be. This particular Bernhard tale is quite unlike anything else he has written. Almost easier to stomach the vitriol and rants present in almost any other Bernhard offering. This one cuts you deep emotionally, and it is remarkable how lasting it feels. There isn't really much to laugh at. The typical Bernhard is so absurd in its level of vitriol that it often becomes funny in the face of its extremity. There are just not that many good examples of Bernhard's vitriolic absurdity in Wittgenstein's Nephew. The following quote will have to do.

…For let us not deceive ourselves: Most of the minds we associate with are housed in heads that have little more to offer than overgrown potatoes, stuck on top of whining and tastelessly clad bodies and eking out a pathetic existence that does not even merit our pity.

Indulge me just a bit and follow along with this next thread I might expose. Believe me that it most certainly has everything to do with this fine book. Please know that for some time now I have admired the way in which the quite adorable ex-Beatle Ringo Starr seemed to pretty much just sit up there and nonchalantly perform his job perched on that silly platform. He was unlike any other drummer I have known or ever seen perform. Seriously, I was once friends with a boy my own age named Giles Hofacer who was a pretty good stickman himself and he played professionally in a rock band after high school. Though nothing like The Beatles, and probably more like Todd Rundgren, they weren't half bad. I have always liked Giles Hofacer ever since the time back in elementary school when he invited me to his house about five miles outside of town on North US23 for his most-exciting and hospitable birthday party. Years later as teenagers we smiled a lot as we smoked marijuana together in a grove of trees fifty yards from the doors of our high school. For years other students used this same semi-private area as a place to smoke cigarettes instead of attending class so it was relatively easy to get away unawares with smoking our illegal substances. Giles and I remained on friendly terms until I moved far away from our mutual home town to begin a new life with a woman from The South who was not from up there where I had been had in northern Michigan. I read a couple years ago that Giles had contracted some form of hard-to-beat cancer, that there had been some effort to raise funds enough to help support his fight against this deadly disease. And then one day I noticed while reading the local paper from that same town that Giles Hofacer had actually died. I felt then the wish that I had gone to see him. It had probably been at least thirty years since we last had a beer or a joint together. He wasn't the first acquaintance that I have lost and had remorse over either. Truth is I have never been a very good friend to anybody. Reading this book again made me realize in a more poignant manner that the narrator Thomas Bernhard wasn't a very good friend to others either.

… He was only the shadow of a man, in a very real sense, and his shadow suddenly frightened him. I did not dare to go up and speak to him. I preferred to have a bad conscience rather than to meet him. As I watched him, I suppressed my conscience and refrained from approaching him, because I was suddenly afraid. We shun those who bear the mark of death, and this is a form of baseness to which even I succumbed.

The narrator of this book was ashamed of himself and it was clear there was no malice in his sin of omission. He was just afraid. He was driven by his fear. But it did take courage to admit this on the page and to also face the facts. Still, it never changed a thing for me except make me even more aware of my own shortcomings. And it is not as if I will ever do anything about these particular character defects of mine. But it was good to know I was not alone in my despicable and unbecoming behavior.