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Bernhard fans will recognize the restrained rant, the execution of an idea carried to a logical, caustic extreme. The rant creates, of the novel, a grand philosophical speculation: What is devotion to one's art? What is it to truly understand one's art and to not misuse one's gift? And, alas, The Loser can also be read as the profound consequence of perfectionism, whereby all efforts to create or execute anything of note are squashed in the critical mind's ruthless self-scrutiny. The narrator works, for example, on his Glenn Gould essay for nine years, grateful, in the end, that he has published nothing. "How good it is that none of these imperfect, incomplete works has ever appeared, I thought, had I published them.... [T]oday I would be the unhappiest person imaginable, confronted daily with disastrous works crying out with errors, imprecision, carelessness, amateurishness." The one regenerative act seems to be that of self-destruction. Destruction, indeed, becomes the flip side of perfectionist rigor. Thomas Bernhard (1931-89) was his own unique genius and in The Loser, one of his most acclaimed novels, he creates a chilling portrait of tragic compulsion, teasing and testing our assumptions human behavior. --Hollis Giamatteo
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Fine in a Fine jacket. 1st U.K. Printing. Seller Inventory # 160618
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. APPARENTLY NEVER READ. Unmarked PAGES And BINDING In EXCELLENT CONDITION. Some scuffing On Dust Jacket. HARDBACK. As Shown. Not ex-library or facsimile reprint. Published/printed by Quartet, 1992. Approximately 5 ½ X 9.190 pages. Seller Inventory # 007081
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. A nice, bright copy. ; 8vo; 189 pages. Seller Inventory # 315331
Book Description 8vo. pp 189. Black and white illustrated dust jacket. Original publisher's black cloth with silver lettering at spine. ISBN: 0704370123 Pages toned, top edge faintly faded, else clean. Very good in slightly faded, slightly toned internally, very good dust jacket. Seller Inventory # C68412
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. A wonderful novel. First UK. Mark Anderson afterword. Transl. Jack Dawson. pp.190. DW in archival sleeve; shelf wear. Seller Inventory # 014586
Book Description 1st UK edition. HC in dust jacket. 1st Printing. First published under the title, "Der Untergeher" by Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 198. Jack Dawson and with an afterword by Mark Anderson. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Seller Inventory # 39343