false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg 92570 13 For music lovers, perfectionists, and estheticians, Thomas Bernhard's <I>The Loser</I> (1983) poses an irresistible drama of failed excellence. In 1953 three friends, among whom is the famed Glenn Gould, study with Horowitz. Rarely sleeping, hardly eating, they burn intensely with the white and ruthless flame of virtuosity. Only Gould ascends. But this is no conventional narrative--neat, action-driven, or linear. It opens with the specter of death--Gould's at 51, and a suicide. Art exalts even as it destroys, when the aspirant is found wanting. Both Wertheimer, the suicide, and the narrator turn their backs on their musical careers, thus triggering their process of "deterioration." What is the consequence of throwing it all away? And yet, what are the rewards of realized genius? After Gould becomes, indeed, <I>Glenn Gould</I>, the two friends go to visit him in Canada. "He had barricaded himself in his house. For life. All our lives the three of us have shared the desire to barricade ourselves from the world. All three of us were born barricade fanatics."<p> Bernhard fans will recognize the restrained rant, the execution of an idea carried to a logical, caustic extreme. The rant creates, of the novel, a grand philosophical speculation: What is devotion to one's art? What is it to truly understand one's art and to not misuse one's gift? And, alas, <I>The Loser</I> can also be read as the profound consequence of perfectionism, whereby all efforts to create or execute anything of note are squashed in the critical mind's ruthless self-scrutiny. The narrator works, for example, on his Glenn Gould essay for nine years, grateful, in the end, that he has published nothing. "How good it is that none of these imperfect, incomplete works has ever appeared, I thought, had I published them.... [T]oday I would be the unhappiest person imaginable, confronted daily with disastrous works crying out with errors, imprecision, carelessness, amateurishness." The one regenerative act seems to be that of self-destruction. Destruction, indeed, becomes the flip side of perfectionist rigor. Thomas Bernhard (1931-89) was his own unique genius and in <I>The Loser</I>, one of his most acclaimed novels, he creates a chilling portrait of tragic compulsion, teasing and testing our assumptions human behavior. --<I>Hollis Giamatteo</I> 2361854 1983 The Loser: A Novel total:382|5:159|4:148|3:56|2:15|1:4| 382 1589 623 52 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 5 2 false Sun Jul 27 19:40:06 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 29 08:41:31 -0700 2008 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 5 2 false Mon Oct 15 08:18:32 -0700 2007 Sun Mar 02 15:38:50 -0800 2008 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 4 1 false Thu Dec 11 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Sep 07 14:39:22 -0700 2008 Wed Dec 24 10:06:36 -0800 2008 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 4 1 false Sat Apr 19 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 19 16:53:41 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 19 17:04:51 -0700 2008
****SPOILER ALERT???*****

Can I really spoil a Bernhard book? Bernha...more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 5 0 false Mon Feb 16 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 23 09:02:10 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 16 10:40:41 -0800 2009 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 4 0 false Sat Oct 11 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 09 16:49:51 -0700 2008 Sat Oct 11 08:02:56 -0700 2008 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 4 0 false Mon Jan 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Apr 19 22:58:12 -0700 2008 Tue Jan 27 18:43:37 -0800 2009 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 4 0 false Wed Apr 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 17 07:42:58 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 03 07:36:26 -0700 2008 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 5 0 false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed Oct 24 14:43:35 -0700 2007 Wed Dec 12 08:34:20 -0800 2007 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 5 0 false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 10 08:37:15 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 05 21:25:20 -0700 2007 notes from underground" phase still left in you, you'll love this book. after the first page the remaining 180 are just a single paragraph -- a stream-of-consciousness mixture of ...more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 5 0 false Sat Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Sun May 20 15:21:44 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 11 06:01:23 -0700 2007 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 4 0 false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 03 00:59:14 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 03 01:03:43 -0700 2009 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 4 0 false Tue Sep 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 01 17:08:05 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 02 09:34:44 -0700 2008 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 5 0 false Sat Dec 29 20:49:20 -0800 2007 Thu Jun 12 14:24:37 -0700 2008 The Loser, like a lot of Bernhard's "so-called" fiction, is philosophy rather than fiction. There's no plot, only characters (one...more...]]> 1441452 3518379976 9783518379974 14 1 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183632760m/1441452.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1441452.Der_Untergeher_ 4 0 false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 05 08:46:27 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 09 22:40:49 -0700 2008 more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 4 0 false Wed Jul 01 18:34:09 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 18:38:35 -0700 2009 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 3 0 false Mon Sep 08 21:03:33 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 08 21:12:00 -0700 2008
This novel, which imagines a possible life of the pianist Glenn Gould, as remembered...more...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 5 0 false Fri Jun 19 13:22:40 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 19 11:17:41 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 19 13:22:40 -0700 2009 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 0 0 false Tue Mar 10 12:15:02 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 10 12:15:02 -0700 2009
http://emdashes.com/2009/03/syllabus-col...]]> 92570 1400077540 9781400077540 341 49 4.16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217968626m/92570.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92570.The_Loser_A_Novel 3 0 false Sun Apr 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 05 07:59:32 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 05 08:00:00 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=92570