[lit-ideas] Re: literary views (from t B)
- From: cblists@xxxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 17:05:43 +0200
On 31 Mar 2014, at 10:16, palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx> wrote (quoting
[Thomas] Bernhard):
> Heidegger was a kitschy brain..... a feeble thinker from the Alpine
> foothills, as I believe, and just about right for the German philosophical
> hot-pot. For decades they ravenously spooned up that man Heidegger, more than
> anybody else, and overloaded their stomachs with his stuff.
What on earth is "the German philosophical hot-pot"? Do you honestly believe
that there was so little going on in philosophy in the first two decades of the
twentieth century that intellectuals would 'ravenously spoon up' the writings
of 'a feeble thinker' with 'a kitschy brain'?
(And wasn't it in the end the French who 'spooned up Heidegger, more than
anybody else'?)
Where's YOUR brain, man!
Chris Bruce
Kiel, Germany
P.S.: Nice to hear from one of Thomas Bernhard's characters, though - always
good for a laugh! (OLD MASTERS *is* a comedy!) Bernhard [Austrian himself] also
had another of his characters call Austria "a brutal and stupid nation ... a
mindless, cultureless sewer which spreads its penetrating stench all over
Europe."
Ah yes, the stench of 'Der Zauberflöte' and 'Eroica', 'Die Forelle' and 'Die
Winterreise', 'Kinderszenen' and Bruckner's eighth; the mindlessness of Robert
Musil, Sigmund Freud, Karl Kraus and ... Thomas Bernhard! (Aha, an author who
can take an ironic poke at himself - I wonder how many people even noticed?)
I had a great deal of trouble getting into Bernhard until I listened to a
reading of one of his works. I have heard NOTHING in literature that so
captures the musical idea of theme and variation. I once referred to Bernhard's
writing style in DER UNTERGEHER (roughly 'The Loser') as 'swamp [vs. stream] of
consciousness.
Query to other list members: is he read in English translation?
Chris Bruce,
Kiel, Germany
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