Concrete (Phoenix Fiction S.) - Softcover

Bernhard

4.15

3,906 ratings by Goodreads

9780226043982: Concrete (Phoenix Fiction S.)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226043983 ISBN 13: 9780226043982

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1986

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

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

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

Certain books few assert literary importance instantly, profoundly. This is one of those a book of mysterious dark beauty.
Los Angeles Times
A masterpiece. . . . [Bernhard s] world is so powerfully imagined that it can seem to surround you like little else in literature.
The New Yorker
Something of a tour-de-force.
The Washington Post
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"

"Certain books--few--assert literary importance instantly, profoundly. This is one of those--a book of mysterious dark beauty."
--Los Angeles Times

"A masterpiece. . . . [Bernhard's] world is so powerfully imagined that it can seem to surround you like little else in literature."
--The New Yorker

"Something of a tour-de-force."
--The Washington Post

"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

About the Author:

Thomas Bernhard was born in Holland in 1931 and grew up in Austria. He studied music at the Akademie Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 1957 he began a second career, as a playwright, poet, and novelist. The winner of the three most distinguished and coveted literary prizes awarded in Germany, he has become one of the most widely translated and admired writers of his generation. He published nine novels, an autobiography, one volume of poetry, four collections of short stories, and six volumes of plays. Thomas Bernhard died in Austria in 1989.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.