Bernhard

Back in the early two-thousands I went through a period of hungry reading. A friend had suggested a book by Thomas Bernhard, an author I had never heard of. I ended up fascinated by his books, by his rage, his nihilism and his forms. That peculiar rhythm: two steps forward, one step back. Reading him is reliving every idea with an exquisite, musical cadence. I read several of his books. But my mind drifted off into other waters and I never read The Loser, perhaps his best-known book.

Recently I started it, and it surprised me as if I were reading Bernhard for the first time. With the benefit of a perhaps more orderly mind, able to appreciate his subtleties even more. Avid and greedy.