Un po' peso.

Compared to the subsequent works - and still taking into account that it is written by a 32-year-old Austrian, and this alone makes it a masterpiece - it is experimental and bitter.

The fragmented sentences, the adjectives not separated by commas, almost vomited out quickly, are very far from the airy blue sentences of B., written - as he had occasion to recall - only one number on each page, and redundant with the previous one.

The slow progress of B. - which usually forces a very rare 270° turn, and often reveals a Route 66 long in chapters, with slight smudges - is present here only in the plot setup.

The writing is decidedly more nervous and competitive, as if trying to make us understand that we are reading the book of a hasty person.

He is hasty; the book is essential.

The fullness and density of the author, in my opinion, can only be appreciated several years after this text.

I had great difficulty in finishing this book. Perhaps it was because I have a habit of reading in the morning, and I often didn't want this book to spoil my mood for the entire day. I reached a kind of reconciliation halfway through. I recognized that the writer is intelligent, but I simply couldn't accept his world view. However, the passage on pages 270 - 271 completely demolished that initial thought.

The thought of a glass of beer leads to the wildest overestimates and thoughts. The writer claims that the world is what he is! It begins where he begins and ends where he ends. It is as bad as him, as good as him. It can't be better because he is who he is. There is no question about it. He likes to drink, likes to eat. He doesn't know one percent, because he believes he himself doesn't know one percent either. Is he famous? Well, he says yes and no. If he were too famous, that would mean knowing more than him, and that wouldn't be good because that would imply he was sick, without an appetite. That's the world according to him: Confined to a head of cattle, confined to roast beef. A human, he believes, will never go beyond where he thinks the world will go.

Ouch.

I still want to read more of Bernhard's works. Also, I found that this book is much easier to read in large chunks. In small doses, it can seem repetitive and never-ending. There is movement and plot within the story, but it's extremely hard to discern if you just dip in and out. Generally speaking, I felt like I had a fever the whole time I was reading it.

Take the heart of darkness and replace the tropical heat with the Alpine frost, the jungle around the Congo River with a narrow and snowy valley, and Colonel Kurtz with the painter Strauch.

It is very, very darker than the heart of darkness.

The transformation from the sweltering tropics to the frigid Alps creates a stark contrast in the atmosphere. The dense jungle near the Congo River gives way to a desolate and snow-covered vale. Instead of Colonel Kurtz, who is often associated with mystery and moral ambiguity, we now have the painter Strauch.

This new setting and character substitution intensify the sense of darkness and mystery. The cold and isolation of the Alpine environment add an extra layer of bleakness. The identity and motives of the painter Strauch remain unknown, further deepening the enigma. Overall, this rewritten and expanded version emphasizes the even greater darkness and complexity that lies within this new scenario.

I too dislike everything.

It seems that there is a certain sense of weariness and dissatisfaction in my heart.

Maybe it's because of the continuous repetition of daily life, or the pressure and challenges that I face.

Sometimes, I feel that everything around me is so boring and uninteresting.

I look at the people and things around me, but I can't find any real meaning or value.

I wonder if this is just a passing mood, or if it's a deeper reflection of my inner state.

But no matter what, I know that I need to find a way to break free from this negative emotion and look for the beauty and joy in life.

Maybe I should try some new things, meet new people, or explore new places.

Only in this way can I hope to find a new perspective and a new way of life.

This is a very good book. I am a great friend of Thomas Bernhard and his unique language melody.

Sometimes, however, reading this book feels as if one is really being talked at by a crazy painter at -10 degrees.

Since I read the last 150 pages while consuming two generously poured glasses of wine, this part from the book sums up my experience quite well: "Often I read whole pages and don't know at all what I have read. Then I start all over again and discover that what I have read is beautiful. It is about people who are unhappy."

The book seems to take the reader on a journey through the minds and emotions of these unhappy people, using Bernhard's distinct writing style to create a vivid and almost palpable atmosphere.

It makes one think about the nature of unhappiness and how it can affect people's lives.

Despite the somewhat depressing subject matter, there is also a certain beauty and poignancy in the way Bernhard tells these stories.

Overall, it is a book that is well worth reading, especially for those who appreciate unique and thought-provoking literature.

So this was Thomas Bernhard's first novel.

It indeed serves as a prelude to what is yet to come. In this novel, there are visions of grotesques in the mountains of Austria. All these are told with a vague disgust that would ultimately develop into full-on revulsion.

The style is noticeably different here, but it is clearly in a pupate form. One can observe how it would reach its climax in his masterpieces of the 1980s.

While it should definitely not be the first Bernhard work that one reads - it is advisable to start with Woodcutters, The Loser, or Extinction - it is an absolute must for the fans of his work.

It offers a unique glimpse into the early stages of Bernhard's creative evolution and helps to better understand the development of his distinct literary style and themes.

Thomas Bernhard is a name that means nothing to most people, but he is one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century. He started writing poetry at a very young age and then moved on to novels. "Frost" is his debut novel, published in German in 1963. For a long time, it was almost impossible to find in Italy, sold second-hand for about 150 euros in the old Einaudi edition of 1983 or in the more recent one of 2008. Fortunately, Adelphi decided to republish it this year and add it to the already rich catalog it had of the same author. It is a book that I had been waiting to read for a long time, just like a child waits for Christmas from the end of summer, or like the protagonist of "Frost" waits for death: "I'm waiting for the end, you know? Just like you're waiting for your end. Like everyone is waiting for their end. Only you don't know what you're waiting for, what I've always been waiting for: the end!"

To approach a book by Thomas Bernhard, one must forget everything one has read so far and shake off traditional narrative. His prose is obsessive and pounding - adjectives that, by the way, appear everywhere in reviews of his books - and the plot is sometimes so meager that it would take little more than the back cover to describe it. But Bernhard is truly unique and inimitable, a voice so original in the global literary landscape that it is impossible to even attempt to pigeonhole it into a literary current or a pre-existing style.

"Frost", although it is his first narrative attempt, already contains in embryo all the elements of his subsequent prose, even if in many points, especially at the beginning, it is characterized by a less elaborate syntax and shorter sentences, mostly connected in a paratactic way. And in fact, I warn Bernhard's lovers that they will not immediately recognize his pen from the first pages, as happens instead in his mature novels; on the other hand, there are here and there flashes of pure poetry that bring "Frost" closer to his previous poetic production and that we find less frequently in his other prose works.

The undisputed protagonist of the novel - as in all his novels - is a single, eccentric, unusual character, who here is the painter Straush. In the narrative fiction, the narrator is a medical student who has received the task from his assistant to supervise and observe the behavior of his brother, the painter, who seems crazy to everyone and who has withdrawn into a kind of hermitic life in Weng, a lost place in Austria, in an inn on the edge of the forest, far from everything and everyone, inhabited by shady figures: first of all the innkeeper's wife, then the taxidermist, her lover. The inn and especially the forest will often return in other works by Bernhard and will become a leitmotif of his settings, impregnated with the torments of the protagonist, together with the secondary characters who move among the dense lines of his soliloquies like grotesque and sinister figures poorly cut out on a dark background.

The extreme originality of all of Bernhard's novels is that the pages flow one after the other like a very long monologue: here, however, there are twenty-five chapters, which correspond to the days that the young man spends next to the painter. As the medical student delves into the painter's obsessions, his prose - which in the narrative fiction are his notes - also changes slightly, in fact it becomes more and more complex, more convoluted, more obsessive.

Death is the fixed point, the pivot around which all of Straush's reflections and thoughts revolve: "Here are the dogs, here is the barking, here is death, death in all its barbarity, death in all its infirmities, death in its stench of habitual delinquent, death, this painful remedy for every despair, death, this carrier of bacteria of the immense eternity, death of History, death of indigence, death, listen, this crazy beating of all the soft parts of memory on the cement, on the cement of sublime human folly…"

Straush speaks and the narrator faithfully reports his crazy and nourishing sentences on the page. In "Frost" - and much less in the subsequent novels - a characteristic is the technique by which direct speech is cleverly alternated with indirect speech: at times, however, both merge as if to form a single voice, making us understand that the listener, the boy who is supposed to observe the painter's behavior, receives the ideas, the distorted thoughts and, at first only unconsciously, makes them his own, before realizing it: "I had the feeling that the painter, that Straush, that that man had already taken me in his power […] I just continued to think that the painter had taken possession of me, that he had forced me to enter his world of images". And Bernhard, with his prose, forces us to enter his world. Straush's words are lucid ravings, calculated and sparking deliriums that in some points explode in a frenzy of anguish and despair that many times made me think of a kind of "Scream" by Munch:

"You will continue to hear the scream, even though the instrument that emitted it is dead, long broken, torn, cut. The vocal cord has already been butchered but the scream remains! […] Even when all the vocal cords will be broken and cut, when all the vocal cords of the world will be dead, all the vocal cords of all the worlds and all the possibilities of imagining them, all the vocal cords of all existences, there will still be the scream, the scream will continue to exist, the scream cannot be torn, cannot be cut, the scream is the only eternal thing, the infinite scream, the only indestructible thing, the only eternal thing".

Thomas Bernhard is an author to read and discover. For those who have never read anything by him, I definitely recommend starting with "Frost". Other essential titles of his are surely "Extinction" and "Perturbation", among the most famous, but I was also impressed by other less well-known ones, such as "Yes" (published by Guanda) and "Cement" (SE Editrice), both unfortunately out of print and to be found, for now, only among second-hand books.

When reading "Frost", I had an absurd fantasy in my head, I liked to imagine this: the narrator of all the subsequent novels is nothing but the same narrator of "Frost", remaining "trapped" in Straush's psyche and forced, for all his life, to write not a report on the painter anymore, addressed to the assistant, but rather obliged to write novels where the settings have remained "frozen" in the frost of Weng and where the monologues of all the characters are always all variations of the long monologues of Straush. And in fact, "Frost" is only the first piece of a very long series of novels, short and long, that all revolve around the obsessions of a protagonist. In his books, we often find the same concepts, sometimes even similar sentences, but Thomas Bernhard manages to be always original in each one, even if repetitive. Each novel is a unique gem and the whole body of his works, an immense masterpiece.

**Title: Couldn't Finish for the Second Time**

I had a task at hand that I was determined to complete. However, for some reason, I couldn't finish it for the second time. The first time, there were unforeseen circumstances that disrupted my progress. But this time, I thought I was better prepared.

I had planned my approach carefully, allocated sufficient time, and gathered all the necessary resources. Yet, as I delved deeper into the task, I encountered new challenges that I hadn't anticipated. These challenges seemed to be insurmountable, and despite my best efforts, I found myself unable to overcome them.

I started to feel frustrated and disappointed in myself. I questioned whether I had what it takes to complete this task. But then, I realized that setbacks are a part of life, and just because I couldn't finish for the second time doesn't mean I should give up. I decided to take a step back, reassess the situation, and come up with a new plan of action. I believe that with perseverance and determination, I will eventually be able to complete this task.

"Nothing is jocund" - indeed!

Life often presents us with various challenges and difficulties that can make it seem as if there is no room for joy. We may face setbacks in our careers, relationship problems, or personal hardships that weigh us down and make us feel despondent.

"The greatness of human beings consists in their ability to know their wretchedness." - Pascal. This profound statement by Pascal highlights the unique capacity of humans to recognize and understand their own shortcomings and misfortunes. It is through this self-awareness that we can begin to grow and develop as individuals. By acknowledging our wretchedness, we can strive to improve ourselves and find ways to overcome the obstacles that stand in our way.

Although life may not always be filled with joy, it is important to remember that there are still moments of beauty and happiness to be found. We can choose to focus on the positive aspects of our lives and look for the good in every situation. By doing so, we can cultivate a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the things that truly matter.

The inn described in the book was of a certain type where one would only stay for a single night if absolutely necessary. It wasn't the amenities that attracted him, but rather the shortcomings. He was just a collection of scraps of words and dislocated phrases. The idea that the incomprehensible is the miraculous and the un-understood world is full of wonders, while the understood one has no wonder, is quite profound. Women were compared to rivers, with their unreachable banks and the night often filled with the cries of the drowned. The study of sickness was considered the most poetic of the sciences.

It took me three months to read this book, which is a long time considering I was determined to finish it. Reading it was anything but easy. I have read everything by Thomas Bernhard translated into English except for Extinction, which I plan to read soon, depending on how I recover from reading this one. Frost was first published in German in 1963 and was Bernhard's first novel. It's strange to read the first one almost last, but it's equally strange that it took forty-three years for this book to be translated and published in English.

Nothing written by Bernhard is easy to read, so I won't argue about which of his novels is more accessible. If you like Bernhard, you'll like this book. It is a bit fragmented, but that made it easier for me to take breaks. I could stop between paragraphs instead of chapters and read as much or as little as I wanted. I could even skip a week of reading to walk on a beach in Florida. The book didn't force me to do anything I didn't want to do, which makes it a relatively safe read. However, it does deal with topics like suicide and hate, which might cause discomfort. Much of the book is about the underlying brotherly love or lack thereof between two siblings. The day-to-day lives described make you not want to visit the people or places in the book. It's very cold there, which is probably why it's called Frost. There is sex between the undesirables, murders, poaching, fire, and gross mutilations. There's not much to laugh at, but perhaps that's what makes the book "funny" and clever. The painter Strauch and the spy sent by his brother take up a lot of our time, and Strauch's philosophy is directed at us, the readers. This is not a book you'd want to start over, but it could be one you'd read again. It's that good and that clever.

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/5747513...

Moments of great beauty often occur when I am drawing the portrait of a member of society. In the stories of ordinary people, which have no clear beginning and lead nowhere, there are just snippets of life written by the narrator. The painter's monologues, with each chapter becoming increasingly hazy, senseless, and leading nowhere, were, however, too much for me. It was a heavy and tiring book, and I assume it was in accordance with the author's intention.

This work seems to be a profound exploration of the human condition. The lack of a definite narrative arc might be a deliberate choice to mirror the chaos and randomness of real life. The painter's monologues, although perhaps confusing at times, could offer insights into his inner world and his perception of the people and events around him.

While it was a challenging read, it also made me think deeply about the nature of storytelling and the different ways in which we can represent reality. Maybe this book is not for everyone, but for those who are willing to engage with its complexity, it could offer a unique and rewarding experience.

It's possible that this has been said once before. One of the most common reasons for postponing suicide might be the desire to simply add a few more words before making the fatal decision. Taking Bernhard's typical premise for any of his novels, it almost seems as if the reason he wrote at all was to thoroughly explain his dissatisfaction with the world around him before that final decision. Of course, Bernhard died of natural causes, but it even seems possible that death caught him off guard. This is mostly based on conjecture, as Frost is not only Bernhard's first novel, not to mention, the first novel that I've read of his.

Another question arises: is the painter Strauch's rant merely an autobiographical extension of Bernhard's own crippling misery? It's possible, but I think there is a bit more to this particular novel. Frost's premise is simple enough. A medical student travels to the Austrian countryside on assignment from one of the medical assistants who works for the institute at which he is studying, to observe the habits of the medical assistant Strauch's brother, the painter Strauch. Neither his school nor his name is given, in a fashion that is reminiscent of the sort of Kafkaesque, intentional vagueness that Bernhard seems to be praised for. The medical student (let's call him MS for clarity) takes his assignment with casual enthusiasm. Thus begins his relationship with a misanthropic painter, whose mind is deteriorating at the same rate as his body.

The setting of the inn is simple enough. It functions as a somewhat removed environment for MS to listen to a cycle of rants given by the painter Strauch, which he does at length. The nature of his rants entails a long list of complaints about the vulgarity of country life. Strauch paints a picture of grotesque sinners that exist in a vision of hell on earth that seems to rival Hieronymus Bosch's rather graphic depictions of the same. The townsfolk are mutated drunkards, all very sick people, aggressively engaging in the act of living as if it were merely an excuse for futile, self-destruction.

A majority of the novel consists of Strauch ranting to the student. Also, this rant is contained within an environment that is as cold and narrow as the "protagonist's" point of view. It's this significant additional perspective that essentially justifies Bernhard's musings on the hopelessness of day-to-day human existence. Strauch is at the end of his life, a seemingly significant theme for a man who wants to include his "last word" in spite of his contempt for humanity. MS's perspective mirrors Strauch's own in a way that I found more emotionally poignant. It's the perspective of a man on the brink of just beginning to live, whose recent assignment has evoked the question of whether or not all of this living, or professionalism, is at all worthwhile. In the end, I found MS's perspective unavoidably influenced by the painter's rather profound acceptance of his own impending death. Suicide and the inescapable cold prevail as themes here, and Bernhard ends up doing a nonetheless remarkable job of establishing himself in the canon of misanthropic modernism that wins its place in the heart of anyone who truly cares about abysmal self-analysis. What more can one say? Reading Frost is analogous to staring into the abyss, and Strauch himself would typically question just what the significance of said abyss is.