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Thomas Bernhard
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Prose (Seagull World Literature) Hardcover – September 15, 2011

by Thomas Bernhard (Author), Martin Chalmers (Translator)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
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“His manner of speaking, like that of all the subordinated, excluded, was awkward, like a body full of wounds, into which at any time anyone can strew salt, yet so insistent, that it is painful to listen to him,” from The Carpenter

The Austrian playwright, novelist, and poet Thomas Bernhard (1931–89) is acknowledged as among the major writers of our time. The seven stories in this collection capture Bernhard’s distinct darkly comic voice and vision—often compared to Kafka and Musil—commenting on a corrupted world.

            First published in German in 1967, these stories were written at the same time as Bernhard’s early novels Frost, Gargoyles, and The Lime Works, and they display the same obsessions, restlessness, and disarming mastery of language. Martin Chalmer’s outstanding translation, which renders the work in English for the first time, captures the essential personality of the work. The narrators of these stories lack the strength to do anything but listen and then write, the reader in turn becoming a captive listener, deciphering the traps laid by memory—and the mere words, the neverending words with which we try to pin it down. Words that are always close to driving the narrator crazy, but yet, as Bernhard writes “not completely crazy.”

 “Bernhard's glorious talent for bleak existential monologues is second only to Beckett's, and seems to have sprung up fully mature in his mesmerizing debut.”—From Publishers Weekly, on Frost

 “The feeling grows that Thomas Bernhard is the most original, concentrated novelist writing in German. His connections . . . with the great constellation of Kafka, Musil, and Broch become ever clearer.” —George Steiner, Times Literary Supplement, on Gargoyles

Previous page
  1. Print length
    180 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Seagull Books
  4. Publication date
    September 15, 2011
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1906497567
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1906497569
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This newly translated collection of Thomas Bernhard’s prose, Prose, should be welcomed as a major event in contemporary letters. Most of these stories, in classic Bernhard fashion, take as their subject a failure who will not fail, a madman who will not go mad, an impossible suicide—a suicide always reverting back to what the 'I,' the voice which insists itself, can or would do—has, would have, or will have done. Translator Martin Chalmers renders Bernhard’s German with poetic precision, and without missing any earmarks of the latter’s dense and rich writing style: sentences which wind around themselves, and which constantly, in multiform ways, miss and re-encounter their subjects—which are always ending and beginning again, repeating or forgetting themselves. Each one of the seven stories in Prose shimmers with the shadow contained in—and containing—any one of Bernhard’s novels." -- Alec Niedenthal ― Faster Times

"Fortunately, for all of its easily identifiable Bernhardian preoccupations—its suicides and murderers, its haunted characters—the previously untranslated story collection Prose provides, in miniature, both an ideal introduction and a refresher to the work of one of the singular European writers of the twentieth century." -- Stephen Sparks ― Three Percent

“Thomas Bernhard is a god. . . . Prose is his first story collection, originally published in 1967 and, amazingly, not once translated into English until 2010. It was worth the wait. This is Bernhard being Bernhard (as he always was)–the endless paragraphs; the mordant, suicidal, probably insane narrators; the incredible mastery of language. . . . Certainly one of the best things I read this year.”

-- Scott Esposito ― Conversational Reading

“Prose is most interesting . . . as a marker of the evolution of Bernhard’s style and sensibility. In ‘The Carpenter,’ we encounter the line ‘The fault lies with the state,’ which would practically become Bernhard’s mantra; in ‘The Cap,’ there is the equally familiar narrator who feels ‘always close to going completely mad, but not completely mad.’”

-- Dale Peck ― New York Times Sunday Book Review

"The neuroticism and cruelty on display in these seven newly translated short stories leave you short of breath but entirely absorbed – or, more accurately, entrapped. The theme of imprisonment runs through the collection, and Thomas Bernhard forces us to confront his characters' sense of confinement with dizzying, claustrophobic whirls of syntax. . . . In theme and style, Prose, which was originally published in 1967, closely echoes Bernard novels such as Old Masters and Concrete. It provides an excellent introduction to his work, or a satisfying reading experience in itself for those who like angst in small doses." -- Mina Holland ― Observer

"[The] vision of the world's absurdity, futility, and evil is a constant in Bernhard's work. What varies is the mood or spirit in which the vision is enforced." ― New York Review of Books

About the Author

Thomas Bernhard grew up in Salzburg and Vienna, where he studied music. In 1957, he began a second career as a playwright, poet, and novelist. He went on to win many of the most prestigious literary awards of Europe. Martin Chalmers is a translator and editor whose translations include works by Hubert Fichte, Ernst Weiss, Herta Müller, Alexander Kluge, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, and Erich Hackl.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Seagull Books (September 15, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 180 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1906497567
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1906497569
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 11 ratings

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Thomas Bernhard

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
11 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

W. Wilson
5.0 out of 5 stars Good News for People Who Like Bad News
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2010
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During the second week of July, having arrived home from a short vacation in Boston, I was surprised to see a package on my doorstep. I was further surprised to find inside Thomas Bernhard's 'Prose', a book which I had ordered and which had had an expected released date of August 15. I was not at all in a frame of mind for reading, or even leafing through, Thomas Bernhard's 'Prose,' but there it was, having arrived anyway like an unexpected guest on my doorstep, ahead of schedule. Normally, I wouldn't mind that an item arrive ahead of schedule, but I was not at all prepared for even the most cursory glance through the one hundred and sixty or so pages that make up 'Prose.' I set the book aside for several days and finally, in a moment of calm, unwrapped the cellophane from it. I do not recall ever having bought a book that was wrapped in cellophane. I immediately noticed that the book's cover was much more colorful than the image I had seen online. I noticed, too, after removing the book's sleeve, that its binding was a deep red. Altogether my impression was that this book has to be the most colorful presentation of Bernhard's work to date, his other books having fairly drab covers. That was about it for the first day. I did not bother to leaf through the contents yet, because I knew how intense Bernhard's work can be. Another day passed and I was braced to read the book's contents, and so I began. Before reading a single word, however, I could not help but check the details on the copyright page. I noticed that the book was printed in India. The printing job seemed fine, but I was struck that whoever put the book together had decided to use the same materials for the end-papers as for the book's binding. The pages are thick and opaque, I thought as I, again, did not begin reading immediately but leafed through the book in my hands. Again, I came back to the end-papers, wondering why the manufacturer decided not to use a different color for the end-papers. Why not use a charcoal color, I thought, as I began the first of what would ultimately be seven short stories by Thomas Bernhard, who died in 1989 and whose work had become increasingly popular over the years in the United States. But before reading a word I noticed that the book's paper gave off a scent not unlike that of a church missal, which made me wonder if the paper the book was printed on was normally used for the printing of sacred texts and not the work of Thomas Bernhard, who, while not ever mentioning God once in his work does not not mention God. I could not lay the book flat. But none of this bothered me when I began, finally, to read the short stories, some of them better than others, some of them suggesting possibilities that would further be fleshed out in later works, others that made me feel a little embarrassed for the young writer, stories that simply fizzled. (But still better than ninety-nine percent of the so-called fiction out there!) Typical Bernhardian subject matter: madness, anxiety, depression, inner angst. Characters thinking about giving up, but not giving up, going forward without thinking about going forward. Bernhard loved music and so valued a great beginning and end. I have found these here, I think, as I thought I might but was not quite ready to when the book arrived unexpectedly two weeks ago.
28 people found this helpful
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Edward Eagan
5.0 out of 5 stars Early Bernhardt
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2020
Verified Purchase
Early Bernhardt very entertaining and curious somewhat less trenchantly obsessive.
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Copper Torch
4.0 out of 5 stars Smart guys in trouble
Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2011
Translated from the German by Martin Chalmers

It's really tough to be brilliant. In fact, for the men in these seven short stories, their unimaginable intelligence seems to cause them more confusion than triumph. While successful in their fields, they barely manage to exist in the real world. This leads to all sorts of issues: mostly amusing, often strange, but quite atypical to what one would expect from a genius.

With these stories, Bernhard exposes a part of human nature that goes beyond intelligence. The confusion that comes from being set apart as different, the difficulties of doing something new when everyone else thinks you already know the drill, and what to do when things don't make sense. It's subtle but it's apparent that these guys are almost defective because of their genius. They seem unable to understand sarcasm or even affection.

Much of their time is spent dealing with insomnia (apparently sleep can seem impossible with all those big thoughts spinning around), pacing miles of streets each day, and second-guessing their every action as they try to fit into the world.

The stories are at times heartbreaking or alternatively, riotously funny. One man finds a hat, a trivial piece of nothing, and makes it the course of every waking moment to find the owner, in a small town where everyone owns that same damn hat. Yet to him, it must have value because it exists. Another story finds two men, both deformed from birth and subject to the hatred of their families, who try to develop an existence that is normal; yet when you meet their family, you truly begin to wonder who actually is deformed. The emotionally deformed parent who abuses their helpless child, or the scorned child himself?

This is not a downer book-the stories are short and the play on words is unique. The humor is dry, and the situations reveal the confusion that can happen in an ordinary interaction when one person prejudges the other. Additionally, the book has achieved major buzz in literary circles already by the concise story lines and unexpected details.

Special thanks to Seagull Books of London for the Review Copy
5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Old Jake
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully presented.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 19, 2011
Verified Purchase
This interesting collection of short pieces by the inimitable Mr Bernhard is a beautiful book made in India. The stories are, as usual, slightly depressing for the most part. People struggle with their mundane and unsatisfactory lives as is usual in Bernhard books.
Like all top class writers Mr Bernhard can say a lot without saying too much.
The volume itself is delightful; very classy binding etc if you like that sort of thing. Me, I do.
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