They say that the great artist has the ability to take the personal and, through the allure of their craft, present it as the universal. Indeed, the torment called life that plagues the Painter Strauch in Bernhard's first published novel, Frost, will strike a chord with certain readers at certain moments. For me, there was so much about Strauch's predicament that hit home with a stunning impact that I felt exhausted by the time I finished its 342 ragged, caustic, and beautiful pages.

The novel is, in essence, the rage poetry of Bernhard translated into prose. It slices, bites, and gouges at the reader through the medium of the story, narrated by an unnamed young medical intern from the Austrian city of Schwarzach. Sent to make contact with the troubled painter Strauch, the estranged brother of the intern's superior at the hospital, he travels to the desolate village of Weng. Assuming the role of a law student, he takes a room at the same inn where Strauch is staying and quickly initiates contact. Over the next twenty-seven days, he becomes a walking sounding board for the increasingly unhinged rants, confessions, and shadow philosophy of the tortured artist, while secretly composing letters to his superior detailing Strauch's precarious mental state.

Using the bitter cold and frost-flecked air as a prism, Bernhard refracts a rainbow that depicts the afflictions of the artist. From a neglected and abusive childhood to his struggles as a student and his banal and hated stints of employment, Strauch's potential as a painter was terminated by a fracturing despair that drove him to destroy all of his paintings. Despair seeps into the pages of the book as Strauch, pursued by fear and visions, haunted by dream-sight and the shrill shrieks of death, cannot transfer the truth he grasps in his mind onto the canvas. Everything he paints fails to meet his own standards, cannot depict the ice-limned clarity frozen in his consciousness, and so it must be burned.

In the village of Weng, the sallow citizens are actors portraying the mundane travails of everyday life, with no time or inclination to pursue anything beyond their immediate gratifications and needs. In contrast, the painter, with the intern as his Boswell, is helpless to stop the madcap torrent of words that flow as he tries to paint a portrait for his quiet companion of the terror and misery that his untethered mind and cracked-mirror soul have endured. Eventually, the young intern begins to show signs of being infected by Strauch's nausea and bleak belief in the meaninglessness of everything. It dawns on him that Strauch, who may have been born for suicide if he can summon the courage, may have been using his companion as fuel for that resolve.

This novel will not appeal to everyone. Bernhard can be very abstruse and impenetrable, and Strauch's outbursts and tirades can be difficult to understand. Yet the writing sings, soars, and wrenches your attention to the mordant words of the painter's savage solipsisms. For all of its hopelessness, it offers support to those who have, in some way or form, walked the broken paths of the same dark and painful solitudes where the ravaged Strauch was imprisoned.

The Dog Barking

The painter spoke with a sense of despair.

"I could say it's the living end," he said. "But it's the end of life, constantly fluctuating, low and then high, all around. The dog smashes its head against the snow blanket, crashes against the awful iron in the air. That iron in the air, where it gets shredded and we have to breathe it in through our ears until we go crazy. The noise shreds us, our earlobes smash brain and muzzle with the limitless naiveté of destructiveness. Listen to that yapping! It's impossible to eradicate. We can only push it back with our brains, but then it comes up worse, crushing flesh and soul. It's like maggots in space, everywhere, in the shattering fat of history, in the quarterstaves of the insoluble diluvia. It makes no sense to try and hide in the dog barking. It will find you out and even your fear will be chewed up."

He continued, "Yes, I'm frightened. Everywhere I hear fear. This ghostly trauma of fear will ruin me, drive me mad. It's not just my illness, but also this trauma of fear. Listen to how the barking organizes itself, makes space for itself. It's like the cracking of canine whips, canine hyperdexterity, canine hyperdespair, a hellish serfdom taking revenge on its devisers, on me, on you, on all limitless apparitions, on human organs, which are the organs of heaven and hell. Listen to these tragedians, the stubborn deafmute breed of snakes' tongues, the monstrously unappetizing republic of all-powerful idiocy, the unsolicited shameless parliament of hypocrites."

"There are the dogs, their yap, and death in all its wild profusion, with its frailty and the stink of quotidian crime. Death is the last recourse of despair, the bacillus of monstrous unendingness, the death of history and impoverishment. I don't want this death, no one does. It's the unlawful drowning of reason, the refusal to give evidence of all supposition, the spastic smack of soft brain on concrete. Listen to my views on the yap. I want to plumb the thinking of the infernal tempest, the confusion of eras. I'm going into the yap, smashing their fangs, yelling at it with the thunder of my unreasonableness, scrambling its processes and mendacious propaganda. Listen to the sweating stupid slavering dogs' tongues, listen to the dogs."

If you, too, have been going through your childhood years, which are far away, always with the meaningless world and life, read this book; you will constantly repeat to yourself: Yes, this is it. This is the correct expression of the thought that I have always had in my mind. Even if you are from the group that has never considered the meaning of life, still read this book; Bernhard will hit the truth in its pure form like a hailstone of ice and snow against your face with his sentences. Perhaps the best representation for confronting this book is one of the representations in the book itself. The narrator intends to go on a journey with the painter Ascherach. On the way, the painter, with his stick, hits the pool of water and snow that is covered with snow, and he himself falls into the pool. It is so cold that if they stay for one more moment, their feet will freeze to death. The story of this book with its reader is the same. The young narrator has taken the painter Ascherach, who has been burned by humans and everything else in the human world, into consideration in a cold and remote place. The painter has spent his whole life thinking about death and suicide and has postponed it for every reason, but this thought of suicide of his is not a pathological sign resulting from madness or depression but rather due to his excessive sensitivity and his confrontation with the truth of life. Ascherach, the painter, embodies the cold truth that everyone distances themselves from, but they cannot bear this distance and return to it. He sometimes complains about the heaviness and bigness of his head, which is due to excessive thinking, and sometimes he becomes sad about the freezing and stopping of his thinking. He knows that the way to approach the ice in these icy regions is to keep moving and not stop. And through the young narrator and during these movements and insecure steps, we get to know these two in this cold and icy corner of the world, if we get to know them.

This painter Ascherach, who says in one place, "The world turns into a mess in my heart," will remain in my mind forever. For me, this book is not just a philosophical story, like the book of the wisdom of death, darkness, and the icy regions.

The cold is eating into the center of my brain.

It feels as if an icy hand is reaching deep within, numbing my thoughts and senses. The frigid air seeps through every pore, sending shivers down my spine. I can almost feel the frost crystals forming around my neurons, inhibiting their normal function.

My head throbs with a dull ache, as if protesting against the encroaching cold. The world around me seems to have lost its color and vitality, replaced by a bleak and desolate landscape.

I huddle closer to myself, trying to conserve what little warmth I have left. But the cold is relentless, it continues to penetrate my defenses, leaving me feeling vulnerable and exposed.

I long for the warmth of the sun, for a cozy blanket, or a steaming cup of coffee. Something, anything, to drive away this unforgiving cold that is eating into the very core of my being.

Nomen omen

They say that the cold seeps into the bones like madness.

I say.
From the cold, one defends oneself by bundling up well or by getting into a hot tub as soon as possible. But from the heatwave, there is no way to defend oneself, and the best option, the claustrophobic false coolness with its attendant killer bacteria, overheats the outside air. And the man of the heatwave envies the man of the cold.
From madness? Well, it's not simple because “The concept of madness is not clear to me, it is only familiar to me”, writes (and I endorse) the trainee doctor to the assistant who has sent him to Weng, a narrow, gloomy, and inhospitable mountain village to spy on and report to him about his painter brother who has chosen it to isolate himself from the world.

After the preface and the summary, I don't know what to write. Would it be interesting to note that I read it at night in strict penumbra – which didn't help – or that I didn't worry about the bookmark, since proceeding at a crab's pace didn't compromise its (in)comprehension?

Give stars? And who am I to give a thumbs up to such an author, of whom the only book I have managed to read – in the etymological sense of the term: to gather – is “The Subsiding”?
It would be like giving a little star to myself, but with the hypertrophic self I find myself with, I can't manage to press the button.

Nowhere near as formally dazzling as his later novels, this work is truly a hard slog. The built-in theme of incoherence and at times what seems like a parody of continental philosophy and "language and logic" philosophy make it a challenging read.

Perhaps it just doesn't translate well. The translator, a poet by trade, has a difficult task ahead, but in the end, the work defeats him. As it did me. No one escapes Bernhard's hooks easily, and there are plenty of them, though they attach in unpleasant and awkward ways.

This is Thomas Bernhard's first novel. Thematically, everything we expect is already present. However, while the later Bernhards build the incessant misery with cunning, wit, and poetic structure, culminating in a comedic outburst of joy, here the comedic and formal intensity is not as successful.

Still, when the focus shifts away from the intense central figure and his struggle with the failure of "idealized" selfhood, and Bernhard turns his attention to the descriptions of the minor but pivotal characters in Weng, the narrative hypnotically draws you into the psyche of the town. The implicit entropy that engulfs a mountain town in post-WWII Austria is palpable.

Jesus, did any writer describe the violence inherent in every possible social interaction better than Bernhard?

Bazı kitapları okumak için belli bir seviyeye gelmek gerekiyor belki de. Aslında epey sevilen ve etrafta olumlu yorumlar duyduğum Thomas Bernhard'ın ilk romanı Don, belki bana zorlayıcı gelen çevirisinden, belki de tasvirin dibine çok vurup aşırı soyutlaşmasından ötürü, bir türlü bağlanabildiğim bir kitap olmadı.

Ve uzun süre bitiremediğim gibi, son sayfalarda buhran geçirmeme sebep oldu. Belki bu kitaptan evvel bazı dünya klasiklerini elden geçirmeliydim. Ancak, bilemedim ve çok da sevemedim.

Belki de benim okuma seviyem henüz o kitaba uygun değildi. Ya da çeviri hatalarıyla uğraşmak zorunda kaldığım için keyif alamadım. Neyse ki, her kitap farklı bir deneyim sunuyor ve belki de daha sonra tekrar Don'u okuyacağım ve farklı bir bakış açısıyla değerlendireceğim.

Most humans lose themselves in the sexual at 30 or so. And thereafter they just eat.

This statement seems rather one-sided and simplistic. While it is true that sexual desires and experiences can play an important role in a person's life, it is inaccurate to claim that most people "lose themselves" in it at a specific age.

Human beings are complex creatures with a wide range of interests, goals, and pursuits. After the age of 30, people may continue to explore and develop various aspects of their lives, such as their careers, relationships, hobbies, and personal growth.

Eating is also a fundamental part of life, but it is not the only thing that people focus on. People may have diverse dietary needs and preferences, and they may also engage in activities related to food, such as cooking, dining out, and sharing meals with others.

In conclusion, while sexual and dietary aspects are important in human life, it is essential to view people as multi-faceted individuals with a broad range of interests and activities.

It feels like glacial music to me, the prose with its slow-creeping angularity. The onset of frost. Rhythm punctuated by the cacophonous barking of the dogs and then silence—the empty aching silence of the larch wood—the dark valley, the frigidity of the rock face looming above a forest floor that never sees more than a grey shadow of sunlight.

The painter Strauch and the young medical intern sutured to him, at first out of obligation, with later viral growth into an unavoidable necessity. Their voices mingle, much like those of Roithamer and his unnamed friend in Bernhard's later novel Correction, the one man coming under the spell of the other man's words. The way Strauch talks, so cryptic in its allure...

Strauch's love-hate of the landscape, imbued with death, as he himself is consumed with death, his entire life seen as \\"a passion of suicide.\\" His obsessions with the petty goings-on around him, the everyday life of the inn, the landlady and her philandering ways, the engineer and his hungering ego, the ubiquity of the knacker. The incessant walks—to the station, through the larch wood, into the ravine, to the church, the cemetery, the poorhouse—movement as necessity to keep from freezing, quoting his Pascal: \\"Our nature is motion, complete stasis is death.\\"

He grows irritated with his companion, the intern, who, in a rare moment of disagreement, objects to his \\"death mask ball\\" idea. \\"You young people don't believe,\\" he said. \\"The whole world is nothing but a death-mask ball.\\" Strauch wonders if for his entire life he had really been someone else altogether, and had thus been denied \\"admission to myself.\\" Out of desperation then, he must write or tell about what preoccupies him, at all times. Death, truth, society's insipid nature, the destruction of greatness by jealousy and apathy, the complex role of the artist (\\"the great emetic agents of the time\\"), the monstrous horror of life itself.

The familiar Bernhardian preoccupations are all in evidence, sprouting up in their infancy, tiny seedlings that will grow into thick gnarled vines over the next twenty fierce years of writing. Here there is less of his later repetition, and with section breaks perhaps allowing for easier digestion than the monolithic text blocks that mark his successive novels, but the prose and themes are recognizable. The book can be read as one massive smothering metaphor for Bernhard's own feelings about his homeland. If you wanted to simplify it, that is. Strauch would likely draw your attention back to the dogs...

\\"Listen, the dogs! Listen to that barking.\\" And he got up and walked out and went up to his room. When I followed him out into the entrance hall and stopped, I could hear through the half-iced-up open front door the long-drawn-out howling of dogs, and sometimes their barking. The endlessly drawn out howling, and the sound of barking biting into it. In front of me I heard the barking and howling, and behind me the laughing and vomiting and smacking of playing cards. Ahead of me the dogs, behind me the customers at the bar. I won't be able to sleep tonight.

The prose in this work is truly captivating. It weaves a tale that is both mysterious and profound, drawing the reader into a world of Strauch's obsessions and inner turmoil. The descriptions of the landscape and the characters are vivid and detailed, creating a palpable atmosphere of coldness and desolation. The relationship between Strauch and the intern adds an interesting dynamic, as their different perspectives and beliefs clash and interact.

The themes explored in the book are universal and timeless. The idea of death and its omnipresence in our lives is a powerful one, as is the search for truth and the role of the artist in society. Bernhard's writing style, with its unique rhythm and cadence, adds to the overall impact of the work. It is a challenging read, but one that rewards careful consideration and reflection.

In conclusion, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in literature, philosophy, or the human condition. It offers a deep and thought-provoking exploration of some of the most fundamental questions of life, presented in a beautifully crafted and engaging prose. Whether you are a fan of Bernhard's work or new to his writing, this book is sure to leave a lasting impression.

A debut novel that is a far cry away from the genius that would thus follow.

This initial work often serves as a humble beginning, a stepping stone towards greater literary achievements. It may lack the polish and sophistication that will later emerge, but it holds within it the seeds of potential.

The author, in their first foray into the world of fiction, is still finding their voice, experimenting with different styles and techniques.

While it may not immediately capture the hearts and minds of readers in the same way as their later masterpieces, it is an important part of their creative journey.

It is through this early work that they learn and grow, honing their skills and developing their unique perspective.

And although it may be overshadowed by the brilliance that is to come, it should not be dismissed or overlooked.

For it is in these humble beginnings that the true essence of the author's talent lies, waiting to be discovered and nurtured.

Thomas Bernhard is - for me - one of the very greatest.

His works are a profound exploration of the human condition, filled with sharp insights and a unique style.

Bernhard's writing is often characterized by its intensity and its unflinching look at the darker aspects of life.

He delves into themes such as illness, death, and the meaninglessness of existence, yet manages to find beauty and truth within the chaos.

His characters are complex and flawed, and through their stories, we are able to see the many facets of the human experience.

Reading Bernhard's work is like taking a journey into the deepest recesses of the human psyche, and it is an experience that is both challenging and rewarding.

For me, he is a master of the written word, and his works will continue to inspire and influence generations of readers to come.

Imagine if Beckett and Celine tagteamed a rewrite of the Magic Mountain.

What a fascinating and potentially chaotic collaboration that would be.

In this reimagined scenario, the war is over, and the once-grand high-class sanatorium on a mountaintop has now transformed into a dilapidated inn in a festering valley.

The contrast between the former elegance and the current decay is palpable.

The characters who once sought health and rejuvenation in the pristine mountain air now find themselves in a place of squalor and despair.

Beckett's dark and minimalist style, combined with Celine's raw and cynical approach, would surely create a unique and unforgettable narrative.

We can only wonder how they would explore the themes of illness, death, and the human condition in this new setting.

Perhaps the characters would be even more lost and hopeless than in the original, their dreams and aspirations shattered by the war and the degradation of their surroundings.

It would be a literary experiment like no other, and one that would surely leave a lasting impression on readers.