It is 1967, in a Viennese hospital. In separate wards, two men lie bedridden: the narrator, named Thomas Bernhard, is stricken with a lung ailment; his friend Paul, nephew of the celebrated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, is suffering from one of his periodic bouts of madness. Beginning with his memory of the hospital, Bernhard traces the growth of an intense friendship between two eccentric, obsessive man who share a passion for music. A strange sense of humor, brutal honesty, and a disgust for bourgeois Vienna. Part fiction, part memoir, Bernhard's evocation of the fear and longing for intimacy he and his truest friend share in the face of death chronicles both the spiritual symmetry that bonds them for twelve years and the emotional betrayal that elicits Bernhard's eulogy.
- ISBN10 0099762706
- ISBN13 9780099762706
- Publish Date 15 October 1992 (first published 1 February 1987)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 14 September 1995
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Vintage
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 128
- Language English