Correction-Thomas Bernhard

[Amanda]

A somewhat experimental styled novel about a third hand account of Roithamer- a man who has died by suicide after becoming obsessed with building a perfectly conical house in the exact middle of the forest for his sister. Even after she dies in somewhat ambiguous circumstances while trying to live there, he cannot stop in his pursuit until he realizes the ultimate 'correction' to the pursuit is to end it, by ending his life.

The story employs a comma heavy style, with repeated asides from his friend's account that these ideas 'as per Roithamer'. The comma style did annoy the crap out of me at first lol, but I did get used to it and then I didn't really care either way. It is a bit obnoxious and pretentious at times, but it also does convey this fish-bowl obsessive quality that is relevant to the narrative. I felt similar to the incomplete POV shift: I get that it was probably done to maintain some distance between the reader and mindset of Roithamer to demonstrate he is someone who is 'apart'. But, in application, I found it got a little obnoxious.

The book seems to be about the alienation of perfectionism and possibly 'genius' as well. One of these analyses (perfectionism) plays out better than the other. I mean I definitely know people who do too much introspection to the point that they make a complex out of everything. But, so many people also think to the point of solutions, or just get a great sense of wonder out of researching and considering different topics. I often feel that way myself. In the story, it doesn't seem to be the volume of thinking that betrays Roithamer, but the limited scope and obsessive quality of his thinking. However I don't think this is the kind of unchangeable aspect that the book largely considers. I know people who used to be more high-strung perfectionists who have gotten severely burnt out and have reconsidered their philosophy to life. But, at the same time I feel like this is just a more pro-social response to the problematic presented in the book. It is "Correction" because if the pursuit becomes unattainable and infinite, the ultimate correction to be made is to stop the pursuit.

On the 'sad genius no one can understand' side of things however: I want to push back against the notion that 'trivialities' and imperfections are enemies of the thinking or 'brilliant' person.

There can be a depth of history or science, or feeling that can be gleaned from anything. As well, understanding the ways everything fails to meet 'perfection' and how to leverage that for art, architecture, and scientific innovation (mutation is the source of soooo much adaptation and even medical cures) is a much more interesting mark of 'brilliance' (if such a thing exists) for me.

As well, triviality is a matter of relativity: I think building a geometrically perfect cone in a forest center is a trivial idea that doesn't substantially contribute to socio-cultural or political issues, or an understanding of the aesthetic value of nature or the function of architecture. It reads more like one of those silly "let's see if I can do it just because" challenges you see on youtube clickbait videos.

This is my main conflict of the novel: Is it a sendup of these types or is it played straight? Does that matter if the book has me thinking about this subject? My thoughts on it are not fully settled yet.

And in general I dislike this cliché. Some people who contributed some great innovations in their fields have suffered with mental illness and felt alienated from others. So do people who lead otherwise average lives. There are 'brilliant' people who also have successful social and fulfilled lives all around.That perspective just strikes as condescending (and often classist) And even if someone is gifted in their specific field? so what. I don't think it takes a 'brilliant' mind to grasp that the human experience is complex and contains great compassion and horror. If someone is remarkable at math or art for example, but thinks they're the only genius who understands how bleak and apart from others they are, I just end up thinking their intelligence in that field doesn't extend to social/emotional intelligence.

I'm setting this one at 3 stars right now, but haven't fully committed to that yet.

[Gail]

I felt that Bernhard's writing in Correction did create a unique way of seeing the unraveling of a supposedly great but obsessive mind. The repetitions and endless sentences glued me into a way of perceiving the world that was quite foreign to me. The reader is not given insight into exactly what is so great about the Main Character Roithamer's science but his compulsiveness around the building of the Cone came through loud and clear as did the fact that he truly believed that he was making something perfect for his sister. He clearly did not understand his sister's needs at all. Or rather, he didn't think about fulfilling her needs, he only thought about reflecting her perfection. The idea of perfection, or really any pure idea at all, was destined to kill the originator of that idea according to Bernhard's characters.
However, I could barely tolerate the voices of either the unnamed friend's narration or of Roithamer's writing and struggled through the whole book. I did appreciate the story of the three friends traveling to school as it did remind me of my own adventures at that age, but I had very little else to hold on to in the rest of the book. The destruction of the family manor through both worms and the introduction of a lower class woman (as wife), conversely the feeling of safety and isolation in the garret, the need to go over his writing again and again until the original meaning is completely defaced and a new meaning is introduced were all unique and interesting but exhausting. I gave it 3 stars but can imagine changing that if the book wears well.

There were moments when his language phrases made me laugh out loud: "ghastly moisturizing delusions", "we had reached a high degree of natural ease in the art of tormenting ourselves"

[Pamela]

This was a really intense piece of work - partly because of the obsessive character of Roithamer and partly because of the style - two sections with no chapter or page breaks, multiple commas and endless repetition of phrases and ideas. It is a compelling portrait of a genius who is full of misanthropy and dislike towards his family, his home and Austria itself, and whose need for perfection leads him into despair.

I previously read Extinction and this covers much of the same ground, but I preferred that one because it had plenty of dry humour and this book was rather grim and humourless. I found a lot to think about in this book, and it raises some questions about the nature of the genius and perfectionist, but I’m not convinced that Roithamer can be used as an example of a genius in any more universal way.

[Kristel]

Reason Read: Reading 1001 botm April 2023
This was my second book by Thomas Bernhard and the most painful so far. I don't think I will ever understand the point. The translator from German to English was Sophie Wilkins. The structure is two paragraphs 1) Heoeller's Garret and 2) Sifting and Sorting and many, many commas. The book is published by Vintage and the sentences which run on and on are also quite close together so this is part of what makes it painful to read.
In the first paragraph we have an unnamed narrator who has been appointed to be the main character's literary executor. The main character has died by suicide. The second paragraph is a conglomeration of the main character Roithamer's ideas about many subjects; child parent relationship (abusive mother), Eferding woman, suicide, marriage as annihilation, correcting, suicide as existential correction, etc.
Quotes;
", here everybody is always inclined to suicide, everyone feels he is suffocating because he can't change his situation in any way,"
"People always do whatever they do for themselves alone, only for themselves and never, in no instance, it is done for someone else's sake."
",I'll correct it all when the time for such correction has come and then I'll correct the corrections and correct again the resulting corrections andsoforth, so Roithamer, We're constantly correcting and correcting ourselves, most rigouously, because we recognize at ever moment that we did it all wrong..."
". we didn't really know all these people's characters, because their self-correction took us by surprise, otherwise we wouldn't have been surprised by their ultimate existential correction, their suicide,"
", the schools are gigantic institutions for the annihilation of the young, those who come to them for help are annihilated, but the state has its own good reason for financing the schools,"

These are interesting thoughts but that's all they are. There are symbols but what they stand for is mostly mystery; black birds that the taxidermist Hoeller is stuffing and the one on the wall, the Cone, The roar of the water as silence, the silence of Altensan disturbed by woodworms. I can sum it up by saying; "I don't get it".

[Rosemary]

This is a groundbreaking book in so many ways, and I admire that. But as we get into the second part, Roithamer's papers, I had so much distaste for Roithamer that I couldn't enjoy the unspooling prose in the way I did with the earlier part or with Wittgenstein's Nephew.

Roithamer despises his mother and wants to imprison his sister (whom he claims to love more than anyone in the world), and it's all so misogynistic and destructive that the world of the novel seemed better off without him, to me. So I could see why his death could be seen as a correction! The character is supposed to be based on Ludwig Wittgenstein - I know he was very unstable, but I hope he wasn't as vicious as this.

I still gave it 3 stars, but it would be 4 stars for the first part and 2 for the second.

[Gail]

I have seen the “home” that Wittgenstein built for his sister. It reflects the extreme hard lines and zero ornamentation of the Bauhaus movement, but to my knowledge, it did not kill her…

[Kristel]

Gail wrote: "I have seen the “home” that Wittgenstein built for his sister. It reflects the extreme hard lines and zero ornamentation of the Bauhaus movement, but to my knowledge, it did not kill her…"

I think it killed her in that she didn’t want to live there, to live there was to live in total isolation and unable to see anything but trees because of its location in the forest and the height of the Cone. All of those things would be detrimental to life. Plus I didn’t feel that he really knew his sister and what his sister really needed to be happy. And his love of his sister seemed very unhealthy. So I felt that even though the cone did not physically kill her, it killed her none the less.

[Pip]

This is a difficult book to read and when I finally slogged to the end I was awarding it only two stars. But on reflection I have appreciated the theme of correction "We're constantly correcting, and correcting ourselves, most rigorously, because we recognise at every moment that we did it all wrong". The protagonist certainly did it all wrong, in that he became obsessed with building "The Cone" as a habitation for his sister. He studied her diligently to build something that would perfectly reflect her, but he did not think to discuss his obsession with her. He seems to have had little contact with her despite devoting six years to building a home for her, which exemplifies his complete lack of empathy, or social intelligence as we would call it. His utimate correction was suicide.

[Valerie]

Read April 2023

I like reading Bernhard. I think because I read “The Loser” first (of the ones I’ve read) I got a real feel for his writing. It’s like one long breathless sentence. In this novel I enjoyed the cadence of the first part quite a lot, probably because I actually know people who speak like that – all commas, no full stops! I even found parts of it amusing. As the novel goes on, the narrator and Roithamer both fall into some sort of whirlpool of language and ideas. Some of the ideas are interesting and worth thinking about further, others are examples of their narrow and stunted points of view. I did find the fourth section the hardest to read because of the vitriol. 4.5*

I liked this summary from GR reviewer ‘William2”: ‘Highly recommended, but brace yourself for a dark, dense, sexless, misogynistic, icy-hearted read.’

[Patrick]

*** 1/2

I'm generally attracted to such works, and I liked the other Bernhard novels I read so far. But this novel is a bit more daunting. For most people, the idea of reading a 400-odd pages book containing only 3 paragraphs and thousands of commas can induce an inexplicable and sudden infatuation to root canal procedures. In short, the narrator undertakes of sorting out the notes and writings of his friend Roithamer who has recently committed suicide after completing the construction of the Cone, a building meant for his sister to live in (she died from nebulous causes after seeing the Cone for the first time). The writing style is highly reminiscent of Beckett from his Trilogy days; you can also feel the influence of Musil in the treatment of all themes related to Austria (well, this wouldn't be from an Austrian author if there were not a bit of Austria-bashing in it). There is plenty of food for thought about the characters, but also about the ideas haunting some of the characters. I guess the final message is that death is the ultimate correction. I have read the French version of the book and the title is plural (Corrections), unlike the original and the English versions: is there something that the French understood better about this novel?