What do You think about The Loser (2006)?
Grey – The color that most of the characters created during large part of twentieth century and whole of twenty-first century till date, are painted in. Cruelly banishing the evergreen Black and all-star White to secondary positions, Grey has risen in ranks to be the heroic hue of all ‘famous’ characters. The modern reader in me haughtily merges this contemporary thought into her conversations and discusses the ‘grey’ shades of the latest literary protagonist she has encountered. But the conventional reader in me? Oh, she curses! Throws slang, moans hoarse. To all those authors who wiped the clear, unambiguous White (read good) and Black (read bad) from her book world, she casts a teary eye and howls a simple question: Why?The premise of The Loser is an intriguing one. Three youngsters join a renowned music academy to learn piano. Glenn, a born genius, simply uses the school to sharpen his existing incredible musical teeth. Wertheimer is a truck load of talent too, enough to prevail over most of the piano-playing community around him but nowhere near Glenn's magnificence. The third student, who is also our unnamed narrator, is in the same lustrous league as Wertheimer and at the same subjacent stand to Glenn. Fast forward twenty-eight years: Glenn and Wertheimer are dead and our unnamed narrator, having attended the latter’s funeral, is on his way to the latter’s last abode in search of some aphorism notes. And some base choreography of his only friends' life trances.The story began well, concisely drawing an unshapely circle around its characters as if a hand was either shivering or consciously teasing during the entwining exercise. Then, a solid tangent was drawn from a vantage point in the book, where all the characters had rushed in to create the richest pool of their natural shades - a point where Glenn had donned the recluse's garb, Wertheimer had submerged in pools of pungent losses and our narrator had mastered the oscillations between insipid and not-so-insipid days. On this tangential thought, I rejoiced and braced myself for a ride of a lifetime. Well, the ride controller had other plans.The characters depicted the darker, gloomier sides of human mind with panache and incisive depth. Their dilemmas, their failures, their disdains, all found evocative voices of the finest baritone. But what about those occasional sunny streaks? Agreed, Bernhard felt they held no merit in his work but does not the sheer veracity of a diary, chronicling a lifetime of three men, demand few positive scribblings as footnotes? Fleeting thoughts that infused some fragrance into the ailing minds that managed to live beyond fifty years each? While I had empathy for all the three as they possessed no massive blemishes on their hearts, I could not warm upto them for they bordered on the sunshine but never bothered to usher it in, even through the doors of unhappiness and dry humor. They basked in unhappiness way too much and I felt rashes on my skin, unexpectedly. The Loser is a tag Glenn gives Wertheimer on the first day of their meeting. But I could not help but wonder why Wertheimer was a loser in his suicide and Glenn was not, in his exile? Or for that matter, our narrator, in his directionless transit?With The Loser, Bernhard presents his fellowship in Advanced Grey-mmar. The characters appeared all ‘grey’ to me, meaning I could sit in a theatre, watch them act, clap in applause and not leave before the final scene but also not reward them with a standing ovation and take them home after the act is over. It was like a fabulous soprano, which reached its crescendo during the first half and all I did afterwards, was search its mellifluous vibrations in the rest of the piece. I have never admired anything but have marvelled at many things during my life and I, can say, have marvelled the most in my life. I did marvel at Bernhard though. Written entirely in one single paragraph, unfolding mostly within the troubled walls of the narrator’s mind, the reading pattern alone was a striking experience. Repetitive yet fresh, discoloured yet brilliant, his style was the strong ribs of his unusual plot. As if a person was sitting across me and narrating his life’s mistakes and while I wanted to chide him for his stupidities, I ended up ordering a few more cups of coffees in the greed of pushing him to a point where he might mend, something.Bernhard once said on his writing: “To shake people up, that’s my real pleasure.”He succeeded.
—Seemita
Bernhard is a great writer. If he keeps this up, he'll be one of my favorite writers. He really has an individual style, and reading reviews on here and elsewhere comparing him to salinger, beckett, joyce, kafka, dostoyevsky etc. All are lacking and completely puzzling comparisons to me. His obsessions are completely different from those great writers and his style is completely different. I laughed hard at this book. So far I've read Wittgenstein's Nephew and this. I liked WN more. I thought this book contained the same genius as WN, but it got itself entangled in the business of a plot towards the end. I wasn't interested in that. I loved how WN was all in his head, just as the first 3/4 of this book is all in his head. That is brilliant to me, to be able to do what he does with his head. WN also felt a little closer/more personal, it really moved me at points, whereas this book lacked some of those emotional highs even though it assumed a personal tone. But this book also felt more stylistically idiosyncratic, which is a good thing. This could perhaps be because of translators though. I'm looking forward to more Bernhard!
—Jimmy
First off, please listen as author Claire Messud, a guest on NPR's "All Things Considered," tells us why "You Must Read This." She speaks so eloquent, having found the way to convey just what her heart knows to be true, finding the means to describe such a complex mix of words, character, structure, book, creativity, obsession, genius. [Well, okay, she IS a writer : ) ]This book and the reviewing of it has been in the forefront of my mind, the back of my mind, the middle, top, never forgotten, over the course of this entire year—I read it in January, again in March. I simply haven't felt up to the task. The reasons are varied. One: this book turned out to be the most important book I've ever read. Easily my 8, 9, 10,000th read. A lot of books preceded this one. This book, "The Loser" was fundamentally different, in a very profound way. A surprising one. But first, listen to Claire Messud.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...Okay, I hope you listened to [or read] her passionate review. One small excerpt:"It is a book about anger. A book without paragraphs, which in its very form enacts anger. A book prone to wildly long sentences, preposterously violent judgments and enraging constructions. A deeply musical novel, about music — about Glenn Gould, or a fictional Glenn Gould, with all the structural complexity of The Goldberg Variations, to which allusions are repeatedly made. The Loser is willfully oppressive and agonizing to read, hilarious and awful by turns. And, above all, it couldn't care less about the reader." A Deeply Musical NovelThat's what it was for me. It sang. Behind the WORDS, there was a maniacal symmetry, a construct of pure poetry throughout the novel that awed me. Almost overwhelming. Almost. He is such a genius with structure he can up the pace that carries you along until you think you cannot read another sentence, you MUST put this down, and at just that moment, ALWAYS, the pitch changes. Or, he'll slow you down completely. "...he said, just like Glen would, as he stood at door, slowing down was so like The Loser, or so Glen said, but then Glen liked everything fast, and The Loser was just that, slow, he thought, while he waited at..." His pacing is impeccable, his characterization truer than life, the story flows, nihilistically bitter to the end, an ode, a homage to greatness, and the almost greats, and to music—in more ways than one. Until I read Thomas Bernhard, I didn't realize Novels could sing. Not like poetry. Not throughout the length of the book. Not like the beating heart of a metronome. Now I know different. All natural, gifted writers have this inner, musical beat. Now I'm ready for it. I'm sad for all those 8, 9, 10,000 books that didn't get read like a song. A lifetime of missed beats. One last excerpt from Claire Messud:"The greatness of a great book is untranslatable. I cannot tell you what is extraordinary about The Loser. You must read it for yourself. You will not find it pleasant. You may not find that it speaks to you with the immediacy and the insistence that it speaks to me. But you will certainly find that it speaks searingly, fearlessly and comically. It puts us inside the head of a coldly embittered man, who aspired to be a great pianist — until he heard Glenn Gould play, and realized he could never be as good. It is, you see, about being talented, and still being a loser."
—Wordsmith
