He thought,

"Thomas Bernhard is regarded as the most significant post-war writer in German. He is credited with the ownership of a particular style and is frequently referred to."

He thought,

"I shall read Bernhard's novels, commencing with his first."

He thought,

"Bloody hell."

The cover blurb proclaims Frost to be "A blast of raw feeling." It is indeed a blast of something. The 350-page book mostly consists of a continuous rant of complaints and invective. Here, its admirers - mind you - describe it with words like "impenetrable" and "increasingly incomprehensible," which makes me wonder,

"Do you people desire something entirely different from what I seek in literature?"

There is not so much a plot as a vague gesture in that direction. A medical internist is dispatched by his superior to observe the doctor's brother for a month. The text does not have exchanges of dialogue but rather a few lines of this brother's directly spoken rants alternating with the internist's summary of the next few lines of the man's rants, and so on. It is hard to envision a better recipe for boredom if this is not executed well.

Sometimes you can sort of chuckle at the rants. Regarding his fellow villagers:

"The children had lice, the grown-ups had gonorrhea, or the syphilis that finally overwhelmed their nervous systems... Almost all of them have cankered lung lobes, pneumothorax and pneumoperitoneum are endemic. They have tuberculosis of the lungs, the head, the arms and legs."

On rural folk:

"That whole simple, pitiless world of thought, where simplicity and low-mindedness get hitched and ruin everything! Nothing comes from country people! Villages, morons in short sleeves! The country is no source anymore, only a trove of brutality and idiocy, of squalor and megalomania, of perjury and battery, of systematic extinction!"

On the nature of humankind:

"Where there is putrescence, I find I cannot breathe deeply enough. I always want to breathe in the odor of humanity, you understand."

For me, the human imagination is an aspect of "God created man in his own image." The imagination and creative impulse acts that bring us closer to God. But it is seen rather differently here:

"The imagination is an expression of disorder, it has to be. In an ordered world, there would be no such thing as imagination, order wouldn't tolerate such a thing, imagination is completely alien to it. All the way here, I was asking myself what imagination is. I'm sure imagination is an illness. An illness that you don't catch, merely because you've always had it. An illness that is responsible for everything, and particularly everything ridiculous and malignant."

But then amazingly, precisely around the halfway point of the book, I discovered a few lines that counter the entire novel's essence. It is about a hospital attached to a chapel, with nuns working as nurses. The internist reflects:

"The sisters perform astonishing feats. They never get to bed before eleven and are back from church already by five, having been heard singing there at half past four. Everywhere, the great white tulips of their bonnets, which manage to flower where everything is dark with despair, where everything else is bleak and bare and inimical."

Well, how un-Bernhardian this seems! A solitary bright ray, surrounded by darkness.

So you can see why I can't give it just 1 star, despite the fact that I skimmed near the end. I hate skimming as it is the antithesis of my entire being, and I can't imagine recommending this book. Now, I wonder how I'll like his second novel...

Premetto che non sono sono un divoratore di libri. Tuttavia, devo ammettere che la storia, nonostante fosse carina inizialmente, ha perso di intensità a causa dei continui monologhi e delle continue riflessioni filosofiche del personaggio che durano pagine e pagine. Il 50% del libro è costituito da un unico filosofeggiare, mentre il restante è composto da una narrazione scritta bene e anche quasi scorrevole, se non fosse interrotta ogni 2-3 pagine dal filosofeggiare. Penso che questa scelta narrativa e linguistica sia stata voluta dall'autore, ma a me è risultata piuttosto pesantina. Non lo consiglierei a qualcuno che sta cercando una lettura leggera e coinvolgente. Tuttavia, per chi è interessato a riflessioni filosofiche profonde e a un approccio narrativo più complesso, potrebbe essere un libro interessante da leggere.

"Helada" was the novel that made the great Thomas Bernhard famous, and I notice that his prose lacks that characteristic rhythm and repetition. Although it's not a bad novel, there are many moments when I got bored, especially because of the avalanche of senseless (and sometimes meaningful) reflections of the painter Strauch, which sometimes border on hermeticism.

The picture that was offered in the summer gardens of the inns allowed one to see men in their silliest maneuvers. "Enter their world. Enter the world. Tactics? When the vulgar holds its head as high as the noble! The brutal presents itself as the original disposition of all sweetness, as the most famous, the purest, the most inimitable. Thinking of a glass of beer leads to the greatest overestimations, reflections: the world is what I am! It begins where I begin. And ends there. It is as bad as I am. It likes to drink. It likes to eat. It doesn't know even a hundredth part, because I don't know even a hundredth part. To be famous? Yes and no. Too much, it would make me sick. Without desire. That's how the world is: limited to a piece of beef, to a fillet of veal. Man always goes only as far as he thinks the world goes. His abyss is also the abyss of the world. His defeat is also his. In a summer garden of an inn the world is limited to the hunger and thirst of the world. Of each individual. Of each individual individual. "A beer, please" means the world wants a beer. It drinks it and, with time, gets thirsty again."

The story has as its protagonist a student to whom a doctor, the Chief's Assistant, entrusts the mission of observing his brother, the painter Strauch. It can be said that the novel deals with the disintegration of a person, the painter Strauch. He lives in a mountain village apart from everything, a place where it is always cold. The book covers a series of days, equivalent to chapters, where the protagonist tries to portray what the painter is like; in a relationship based on the conversations (or monologues) they have, the walks they take in the forests, the meals they have in the inn where they both stay, the diatribes of the painter against the world in general and against himself in particular.

All this would be very interesting if it weren't for the fact that it consumes most of the novel, with parts like the one quoted above, except for the protagonist's observations of other characters, such as the innkeeper, the butcher, the engineer and the policeman, which give some relief to the density of the rest of the narration.

I prefer the novels of the later Bernhard, where his technique is more refined, and his sentences drag you into a whirlwind, something I haven't found in "Helada"; although it can't be said that it doesn't contain some flashes of brilliance.

Thomas Bernhard appears to possess a far more somber imagination compared to numerous renowned authors who focus on manipulating the sinister in their works.

The narrative premise is exemplified by the task assigned to a young medical student. Sent by his assistant Strauch, his superior, to observe the activities of the painter Strauch, the eccentric brother of his superior. The novel will be composed of the dialogues between the two, particularly in the meticulous recording of Strauch's lengthy monologues. In these monologues, he defines his conceptions regarding the tragic and the absurd, human existence, and the profound mysteries of life.

Bernhard manages to evoke in me a sense of initiation and involvement, compelling me to adopt an inner stance in deciphering the meanings of his story.

The employed technique is one of shadow and the blurring of contours. The characters are seldom described, having only hinted-at characteristics. Interestingly, Strauch reads a novel by Henry James throughout the entire narrative, although the title of this book remains undisclosed. I am still endeavoring to discern the significance of this element, which reminds me of Magritte's "La Reproduction Interdite" painting, where a book appears as a seemingly minor detail.

Bernhard's intention seems to be to train the reader and convey distrust in existence. Nevertheless, I view him more as an architect of consciousness rather than a writer in pursuit of a style. He showcases an art of narration that astonishes and convinces simultaneously, even if initially he confounds his reader, just as the young narrator in the story is bewildered by the unexpected reactions of a solitary painter and by the realities of a world whose existence he had never before perceived.

The title, in my opinion, is highly appropriate, suggesting the coldness experienced in the context of appraising human existence. A pessimism that can either captivate the reader or, if not, will at least intrigue him. It will not leave him indifferent.

Incidentally, I believe that a man can achieve immortality through an angelic or malevolent character, but never through a character lacking distinctiveness.