Book description
Old Masters (1985) is Thomas Bernhard?s devilishly funny story about
the friendship between two old men. For over thirty years Reger, a music
critic, has sat on the same bench in front of a Tintoretto painting in a
Viennese museum, thinking and railing against contemporary society, his
fellow men, artists, the weather, even the state of public lavatories.
His friend Atzbacher has been summoned to meet him, and through his eyes
we learn more about Reger ? the tragic death of his wife, his thoughts
of suicide and, eventually, the true purpose of their appointment. At
once pessimistic and exuberant, rancorous and hilarious, Old Masters is
a richly satirical portrait of culture, genius, nationhood, class, the
value of art and the pretensions of humanity. Bernhard is one of the
masters of contemporary European fiction Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989)
was one of the greatest German-language novelists and playwrights of the
20th century. Much hated in his native Austria for his highly inventive
derision for all things Austrian (which culminated in his will, which
banned further publication of his work there), Bernhard wrote a series
of harsh, inventive and brilliant novels, including
Gargoyles
Correction, Wittgenstein's Nephew, Old Masters, Yes
and Extinction.
