Bernhard's theatrical work, it is certain that his plays brought him to the notice of a wider audience during the 1970s. This development was facilitated by his friendship and collaboration with an equally provocative if more extrovert figure, the director Claus Peymann^^, and should not be overlooked in tracing the changes in outlook visible in his prose works^?. The narrator of Beton , for example, shares some of the characteristics of figures such as Konrad (as well as some of Bernhard's own) but is, as Giinter Blocker puts it, "fahig,..,aus seiner
Gebundenheit herauszutreten "68 _ helped not just by the object of his "Studie",
Mendelssohn, but by the meeting with the young widow Anna Hardtl in Mallorca and the ensuing tragedy (176-200) which move him to abandon his self centredness. This story could be based just as easily on a fait divers in a newspaper - the technique developed in Der Stimmenimitator - as on an authentic encounter ; although readers of Bernhard will know of his fondness for Mallorca69 , and the close and detailed recounting of the episode does seem to point to personal involvement. Fetz (1987) discusses the motif of suicide in this work, finding it the most obvious illustration of a change of attitude - no longer do the books conclude with a suicide which simply confirms what has been said earlier^o ; rather, "the transforming power of these suicides to cause self-reflection and even a kind of
renewal in the narrators " is emphasised 71, According to this argument, Rudolf,
"isolated, self-absorbed, hypochondriac and melancholic ", is close to the static,
66 See David Horton, Thomas Bernhard’s Heldenplatz - The Scandal, The Play and its Reception,
Ouinquereme 12, 1 (1989), 101-113, for an account of the provocations and scandals following I Peymann’s appointment as Burgtheater director, which contributed both to the controversy |
surrounding Heldenplatz and to his continung unpopularity with sections of the Viennese I
public. I
67Meyerhofer (1985, p.51). Holler (in Jurgensen 1981) and Gamper (1977) all investigate the |
structural and thematic similarities between Bernhard's prose and his stage works - as well as his
frequent use of "Theater" and "Biihne" as metaphors in the former.
68 Blocker, FAZ. 25.9.1982. Extract reprinted in Dittmar(Hg.), Werkgeschichte. 1990, 247 69 From (e.g.) Krista Fleischmann/Wolfgang Koch, Thomas Bernhard - Eine Herausforderung.
Monologe auf Mallorca [Film], ORE FS 2, 11.2.1982
70 Although Ausloschung (1986) will return to this pattern ; see Kraettli(1987), Klug(1990), Weinzierl(1990) for discussions of this work in the context of Bernhard's development.
"frozen" situation of Strauch and Saurau, until Anna Hardtl's "real entombment " delivers a shock which enables him "to escape the figurative entombment, the existential death into which he had withdrawn ".
A new humanity and more scandals
Rudolfs change does, in any event, stand for the introduction of a new, "human" quality into Bernhard's prose work, which could be said to have begun with the autobiographical cycle and in particular with Ein Kind. Barbara Saunders (1985, 73) argues that these works go "a long way towards destroying the image
the media have created of Bernhard's misanthropy and misogyny ". They also
"show how far-reaching his experience of community life of all kinds actually was, and the reasons for his present isolation. They do not suggest that Bernhard is
by nature disagreeable, callous and antagonistic...". This is true enough ;
Seymour-Smith (1985, p.658), though, remarks that "Bernhard is perhaps a very nasty man, although it is more likely that he protects himself under the guise of
being one ". Certainly he did not cease to enjoy creating controversy and scandal ;
if one examines the latter years of his career it would seem that the reverse is the case. His reminders of Austria's Nazi past and his disgust with the present-day republic were expressed with increasing frequency, both in attacks on politicians - Kreisky, "Der pensionierte Salonsozialist ", is "eine siÀfisaure Art von
Salzkammergut- und Walzertito "72, Vranitzky (who as Finanzminister had
objected to his alleged belittling of Austria in the play Der Theatermacherl was described as "ein eitler Geek " 73 _ and in laments for the provincialism ands mediocrity of Austrian artists and cultural institutions, typical of which are the comments on the Burgtheater cited above. In fact, Bernhard was probably more
72 Der pensionierte Salonsozialist. In : Die Zeit. 29.6.1979
73 Vranitzky. Eine Erwiderung. In : Die Presse 13.9.1985. Reprinted in Dittmar(Hg.),
■ ï
124 ■'
celebrated in his own country for his provocative comments on national life than for his literary achievements - which, according to Schmidt-Dengler^^, most of his countrymen preferred to ignore (the prose works most of all). These interventions, although drawing skilfully on the Austrian tradition of exaggeration and tirade, sometimes embarrassed even Bernhard's admirers ; critics noted, for example, that the passages in his plays in which he criticises his compatriots for their suggestibility to, or tolerance of, Nazi attitudes, were frequently greeted with laughter from audiences, a sign that his "Beschimpfungen" had become predictable, and that he was, in effect, preaching to the converted. This was not always the case, though ; as the law-suits which followed some of his works proved, he was capable of being uncomfortably specific in his accusations. The real-life model for "Onkel Franz" in Die Ursache successfully sued Bernhard for libel, forcing him to delete a number of sentences containing comments deemed to be defamatoiy.75 .
The most significant of Bernhard's brushes with the law followed the publication of Holzfallen in 1984. This book was subtitled "Eine Erregung". and, as Der Spiegel's account of the affair points out, the work had precisely that effect in the Viennese cultural circles which were the object of the author's scorn76. Bernhard's former friend and collaborator, the composer Gerhard Lampersberg (the same "geniale(r) und genauso verrUckte(r) Komponist... " who is mentioned in passing in Wittgensteins Neffe. 135), felt himself particularly insulted by the scurrilous portrait of the composer in the book, and sued Bernhard for libel. The ensuing confiscation of all copies of the work by "die bewaffnete Polizei "77 provoked Bernhard to retaliate by banning the sale of all his books in Austria for
74 Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler : Bemhard-Scheltreden. Um- und Abwege der Bernhard-Rezeption, In
: PittertschatschehLachinger 1985
75The Residenz Verlag edition (1975, 116) contains the passage linking Catholicism and National Socialism in the dominant Salzburg mentality ; this was deleted from subsequent editions
(including the paperback, published by dtv) following the successful libel case brought against the
author by the "real" "Onkel Franz", who, Bernhard had claimed, exemplified these qualities. For an !
account of this episode and its consequences, see Martin Huber : Romanfigur klagt den Autor. Zur I
Rezeption von Thomas Bernhærds Die Ursache. In : Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler /Martin
Huber(Hg.) : Statt Bernhard. Über Misanthropie im Werk Thomas Bernhards. Wien 1987, 59-110
76 Who's who in Wien, Der Spiegel. 3.9.1984 \
77 T.Bernhard, FAZ. 15.11.1984. Reprinted in Dittmar(Hg.), 1990, 270-271 ]
78 Gerald Fetz, Thomas Bernhard. In : K.Bullivant (Ed.), The Modern German Novel. 1987, 103 79 Hamburger 1986, 259
Loffler, Die misanthropische Wortmiihle, Der Spiegel. 10.9.1984. For a fuller account of the
controversy, see Eva Schindlecker : Holzfallen. Eine Enegung. Dokumentation eines
fifty years. The affair was soon settled, neither the suit nor the ban being pursued,
but "a very dramatic public and media-promoted spectacle was created " 78 _ and
Holzfallen became a best-seller. As Michael Hamburger said:
Undoubtedly it was wicked of Bernhard, as well as cavalier and lazy, to pick on identifiable persons, some of whom had been close friends, for another of his farcical exposures of vanity and pretentiousness, more tirades against the depravity and decadence of Vienna, more grumbles about its music and literature. The magnanimity demanded of those travestied in that book was the recognition that their real selves could no more be identical with those characters than the
narrator's persona could be identical with Bernhard's real self... 79
Perhaps so ; but the impression given is of another quasi-autobiographical work, which, like, say, Beton. is in the typically Bernhardian mode of
"Schimpftiraden und Scheltarien " (Reich-Ranicki 1983) for most of its length until
a change occurs in the final section. The "BedUrfnis nach Zuwendung " which Reich-Ranicki finds in the book, and the increasing humanity which he sees as a factor in the author’s development, is signalled here by the closing passage, where the narrator declares that he loves Vienna and its people, even though he scorns and curses them. At least one Viennese, the critic Sigrid Loffler (never one of Bernhard's keenest supporters), was not convinced by this; in her essay on Holzfallen in Der Spiegel80 she merely comments that "Die Bosheit kippt um in
Larmoyanz " ( a remark taken up by Meyerhofer 1985, 50, who, although much
more an admirer of Bernhard is equally unhappy with the book's ending) and accuses Bernhard of "Liebeskitsch " and "Hafikitsch ". Perhaps she lost patience
with Bernhard's exaggerations - "Diese Prosa lebt von ihrer t
Unverhaltnismafiigkeit..." - she would hardly be the first critic to do so. Or, more
probably, she may have felt that the author had been unfair to the "Wiener Halbberiihmtheiten" lampooned in the book ; the opening paragraphs of her essay
126 suggest that she is certainly aware of the identities of those concerned.
What Bernhard achieved in Austrian cultural circles with Holzfallen was repeated in a wider context with the play Heldenplatz. which in 1988 (the fiftieth anniversary of the "AnschluB") stmck a sensitive nerve at a time of international controversy over revelations of the war record of Austria's President, Kurt Waldheim, fears of a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Vienna, a continued rejection by many Austrians of "Vergangenheitsbewaltigung" in the German manner, and a succession of scandals in public life which sapped national self-confidence and seemed to bear out Bernhard's damning judgments on his compatriots^!. The play's political argument, expressed through the medium of a Viennese Jewish intellectual family whose members had been forced into exile (in Oxford), was that nothing had really changed in Austria since 1938, and that Nazism had not been eradicated but was only lying dormant, ready to re-emerge at a suitable moment. This was by no means a new insight for readers of his earlier works - for example. Die Ursache had given an equally condemnatory view of Salzburg - but what in 1975 might have been dismissed as mere rhetorical exaggeration seemed in the late 1980s to contain an uncomfortable grain of truth. Certainly the furious response of politicians and public indicated that this was Bernhard's greatest success in his career as a "Nestbeschmutzer" and "Storenfried", and critics were not slow to observe that the politicians who called for the play to be removed from the programme of the Burgtheater were reacting just as the author had wished. In refusing to give their consent to the performance of a play dealing with anti- Semitism, they were reminded, they would only confirm the outside world's worst suspicions of modern A u s t ri a ^ ^ • g g that, in the end, the play was premiered in
osterreichischen Literaturskandals. In ; Schnnidt-Dengler/Huber 1987, 13-58
8! See Josef Haslinger (1987) : Politik der Gefiihle. Em Essay tiber Qsterreich : and Gerhard
Melzer (1988), Heimkehr mit Hindernissen. Streifziige durchs tiefe Osterreich. In : TuK Sonderband ; Bestandsaufnahme Gegenwartsliteratur.
Vienna on November 4th, 1988, to a mixed critical reception.83
It was the final work of the author - In der Hohe. which appeared three months later, was a "Jugendwerk", and Bernhard died in April 1989, leaving the literary world to unravel the paradox of how this intensely private and reclusive writer could have come to end his career with a huge public scandal and yet be one of the most admired, even loved, figures of his generation. The gap between public image and reality accounts for at least some of this puzzlement ; if Bernhard did shun the company of fellow writers and kept his distance from the Literaturbetrieb , that did not mean that his relationship to the world at laige was always marked by the helplessness and hopelessness characteristic of many of his fictional characters. He travelled widely, despite his reluctance to leave Austria for good, and even after his "withdrawal" to Ohlsdorf this way of maintaining contact with a wider world continued to form a significant part of his stubbornly independent way of life..
Bernhard and "England "
Skwara (MAL 21, 3/4, 1988) claims that : "Nur Osterreich erhalt feste Konturen in diesen vielen Dutzenden von Biichern, das Ausland dagegen, das
Bernhard nurfUr seine Gegenentwiirfe braucht, bleibt x-beliebig..."(211). For the
British reader, it is interesting to consider this statement in the light of the numerous mentions of England and the English which appear in his work. Critics have been slow to acknowledge this feature of Bernhard's writing (Craig 1972 is an exception) - Sebald (1990), in his obituary of the author, refers to the special significance of "England" for him, while Mayer (1989, 152) sees Bernhard's period of residence in England as being crucial in his development as a writer. Certainly his "England-Komplex" can evoke a strange mixture of associations, which contrast sharply with the somewhat morose and pessimistic tone often
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