Wittgenstein's Nephew: A Novel (Vintage International)

chewy read, and a lot to learn - personalisaton of the characters really well done - reads in an idiosyncratic way Bernard made his own - a form of writing that is Austrian to its core.literary and valuable.

Possibly a life-changing book, a great introduction to a difficult and rewarding author, master.

Really...I don't know...this is an extraordinarily well-written book...smart...observant...philosophical...no laughs, but not without some very sharp humor. The sentences build momentum, one after the other, then echo and fall back on themselves as it goes...like an argument.The premise is clever, intellectually intriguing...an exploration less of character and more of an appreciation these character's IDEAS about life and each other...their failed careers...their failed friendship...the "story?"...I don't know.To my mind, somewhat reminiscent of Thomas Mann (though the writer might wince at that...esp. as Mann loved plots and flesh-and-blood as much as ideas.)I much preferred "Wittgenstein's Mistress" by David Markson...equally challenging (in a very different way)...exceptionally clever, but. it's "meta," so ya gotta work for it...( I confess, I alternated reading it with a Jo Nesbo thriller...sometimes you need a bloody page-turning "palate cleanser." ya know?I don't know...I'll eventually read one more book by Bernhard and decide...or maybe not.

I've read most of Bernhard's works and am well-acquainted with his style and his typical subject matter. I was a little disappointed in this one. It is not up to the same great standard set by Concrete or The Loser, two that I like very much. I consider this and Frost to be among his lesser works.

Very good.

Wittgenstein's nephew was above all my expectations. Wonderful!!

Thomas Bernhard is a wonderful wordsmith. He weaves his story in riffs like jazz motifs or the most beautiful of tapestries. In a tapestry, there may be repeat stitches but the colors and gauge change, the dynamic conspires to grow and become something else just as it is being created. Like a weaver or jazz musician, Bernhard repeats the essence of his message in many ways, giving the reader a marvelous opportunity to see into the protagonist's mind. He is a natural story teller.This book is considered a novel but it is very autobiographical in nature. The novel opens up in 1967 in a Viennese hospital. It is about the author's friendship with the nephew of the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ludwig's nephew's name is Paul and he is considered a madman, a 'lunatic' in his day. He is also considered a great lover of opera and music, perhaps a bit of a dandy at times.The story starts out as the author is recuperating in a hospital that has two pavilions, one for pulmonary patients and one for psychiatric patients. The author is in the pulmonary wing. He has just had a huge tumor removed from his thoracic region and is expected to die. Paul Wittgenstein is in the psychiatric unit for one of his regular stays. He suffers from an unnamed ailment but his relatives find him a burden and suspect he is harmful to others so they have him committed. The author is no friend of psychiatry. He states "Psychiatrists are the real demons of our age, going about their business with impunity and constrained by neither law nor conscience."Paul Wittgenstein was born to great wealth and prestige but used up all his money and now lives on the hand-outs of family and friends. He has a loyal wife who stands by him through thick and thin. The author is a writer who met Paul at a mutual friend's home and they became "difficult" friends from the start. There was nothing they could not talk about, be it music, philosophy, literature, politics. Paul is an opera lover, a lover of music in general and also a lover of race car driving. He is a man of anomalies and paradoxes. In a sense, we learn much more about Paul in this book than we learn about the author. The book seems to be an homage to Paul and to a great friendship.The author is appalled at the state of psychiatric care in Vienna. He believes that Paul is hospitalized to drain him of his life forces. Paul is given electro-convulsive therapy, medications, treatments and put in an environment designed to sap the life out of him. When he is as close to death as he can be, he is discharged until he gets sick again, usually in four or five months. The symptoms that plague Paul sound very much like manic depressive disorder - pressured speech, volatile moods, strange movements, serious depression, obvious mania, narcissism.The story plays out in the author's telling of multiple vignettes and thoughts about the nature of the friendship. He repeats aspects of the stories over and over in different words in order to get to the essence of what really was or what he truly believes. It is as if he is trying to reach the Platonic ideal of truth in his telling the story of his friendship with Paul. Some of the stories are tragic and others are laugh-out-loud funny. There is one vignette about the two of them driving hundreds of miles throughout Austria to find a particular newspaper. They can't find it and determine that Austria is barbaric. It is like the country, not civilized urbanity. Both men hate the country.The author discourses a lot about health and death. He has lived his life near death for a long time and compares death of the body to death of the spirit or mind. He resents healthy people who he feels are hypocrites and truly hate sick people.Here are two men, both misanthropic and narcissistic, carrying on the grandest of activities together - going to literary ceremonies, award banquets, operas, sitting together at coffee houses. They ebb and flow in the friendship, always trying to stay on the other's good side. Each is opinionated and difficult and the friendship is as different and wonderful as any I've read about.Bernhard is a word weaver and he creates his book as an art form in itself. There are no paragraphs. The book slips as easily from idea to idea and story to story as an Olympic ice skater. One has to be able to relate to Bernhard's style of writing. I certainly could. I loved the book and found myself completely entrenched in it.Towards the end of his life, when Paul was dying, the author abandoned him. This book is his way to seek forgiveness for that, to pay homage to the great and difficult man that was his friend.

Quite boring

Great book for insight into the mentally unstable and their closest friends.

On the edge of being boring. The beginning was most promising but then developed into a dull and depressing soliloquy. The observations I found commonplace without one surprising perspective on life. Disappointing.

Quite simply a book about friendship and art. But as usual Thomas Bernhard uses it as a vehicle for illumination. Of all the writers that I have recently read Thomas Bernhard hits the spot more times than not. This is a book that I will come back to again and again I can see. I wonderful, easy-to-read book written in Bernhard's usual one paragraph style.

A short burst of that inimitable Bernhardian mordant wit

Good Book