Instead of the book he's meant to write, Rudolph, a Viennese musicologist, produces this tale of procrastination, failure, and despair, a dark and grotesquely funny story of small woes writ large and profound horrors detailed and rehearsed to the point of distraction.
"Certain books few assert literary importance instantly, profoundly. This new novel by the internationally praised but not widely known Austrian writer is one of those a book of mysterious dark beauty . . . . [It] is overwhelming; one wants to read it again, immediately, to re-experience its intricate innovations, not to let go of this masterful work." John Rechy, "Los Angeles Times"
"Rudolph is not obstructed by some malfunctions in part of his being his being itself is a knot. And as Bernhard's narrative proceeds, we begin to register the dimensions of his crisis, its self-consuming circularity . . . . Where rage of this intensity is directed outward, we often find the sociopath; where inward, the suicide. Where it breaks out laterally, onto the page, we sometimes find a most unsettling artistic vision." Sven Birkerts, "The New Republic""
- ISBN10 0460046101
- ISBN13 9780460046107
- Publish Date 1 April 1984 (first published 1 January 1984)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 12 July 2000
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Orion Publishing Co
- Imprint Weidenfeld & Nicolson
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 160
- Language English