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Old Masters: A Comedy

Thomas Bernhard,

Ewald Osers (Translator)

Start date: June 1, 2021

Finish date: June 30, 2021

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What Members Thought

Jun 29, 2021 Leni Iversen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 1001books, black-comedy

This was my first Thomas Bernhard, and I am looking forward to reading more. Even if it is written in the dreaded Stream of Consciousness. Really not my favourite style. I managed to get used to it, however, repetitions and all. The story doesn't move between characters (or places) a lot, in fact the whole book takes place in one day and two rooms in an art museum, and that made it easier to follow than a lot of other SoC books I have struggled through.

The book is one long rant about art, liter This was my first Thomas Bernhard, and I am looking forward to reading more. Even if it is written in the dreaded Stream of Consciousness. Really not my favourite style. I managed to get used to it, however, repetitions and all. The story doesn't move between characters (or places) a lot, in fact the whole book takes place in one day and two rooms in an art museum, and that made it easier to follow than a lot of other SoC books I have struggled through.

The book is one long rant about art, literature, humanity, and Vienna, and it is fabulously entertaining in its vitriol. (I did zone out a bit during one long bit about an author named Stifter. I'm sure the main character, Reger, would be pleased to hear that Stifter remains virtually unknown and unread outside of the German speaking world. But I would probably have been more entertained by Reger's contempt of Stifter if it hadn't been the first time I heard of him.) One thing I found really interesting is that Reger goes on about the Catholic State National Socialism, and the things he say really reminded me of the criticism of the Lutheran State Social Democracy by various Norwegian writers and artists in the 1930s-50s. It makes me think that the issue is more 20th Century Europe and having a state religion than what denomination that religion is.

Reger really was an insufferable yet highly entertaining character. I admire the narrator Atzbacher's patience with him. Although by the end I had a soft spot for the crotchety old man myself. Another thing that struck me is that Reger talks about making his wife a mouthpiece for his ideas, but the book is narrated by his friend Atzbacher, who mostly inform us about what Reger has said and about how the museum guard Irrsigler keeps repeating everything Reger says, and thus they all become mouthpieces for Reger. And while I know that we should be wary of inserting the author into the text, I can't help thinking that Reger is a mouthpiece for Bernhard. Reger clearly loves to hate Vienna. He loves the idea of Vienna, but hates what Vienna was becoming. (Everything was better before, except that he has little good to say about past Vienna either). Bernhard himself, from what I can tell, kept writing scathing novels and plays about Austria, and especially Vienna, and then put it in his will that after his death none of his works were ever again to be published or performed in Austria!

Old Masters is a bitter book, but also quite humorous. And ultimately it is a book about the importance and necessity of human connections. ...more

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Nov 27, 2024 Christopher rated it liked it

Shelves: 1001_books_read

The Austrian Thomas Bernhard’s novel Old Master: A Comedy mostly takes place in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Reger, age 82, has been coming to the museum every other day for the past 35 years, where he sits in front of Tintoretto’s painting the White-Bearded Man. He has bribed Irrsigler, the gallery attendant, to block off the Bordone Room, so that Reger can admire the painting by himself. Reger has invited his friend Atzbacher, a private academic, to visit him at the museum. Atzbache ...more

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Feb 24, 2023 Pip rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-books-challenge

This is my second Bernhard, having previously read Wittgenstein's Nephew, which is also written in a stream of consciousness style. I began by thoroughly enjoying the old, erudite curmudgeon ranting on about everything which is wrong with the world, particularly the art world. Dare I admit, it rather seemed like a parody of my husband's pontifications in the last months of his life. There is no room for argument, one subject riffs into another and there is constant repetition. There are some ver ...more

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