Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Suhrkamp Verlag (1982), Edition: Erstausgabe, Gebundene Ausgabe, 164 pages
Description
It is 1967, in a Viennese hospital. In separate wards: the narrator named Thomas Bernhard, is stricken with a lung ailment; his friend Paul, nephew of Ludwig Wittgenstein, is suffering fom one of his periodic bouts of madness. Bernhard traces the growth of an intense friendship between two eccentric, obsessive men who share a passion for music, a strange sense of humor, brutal honesty, and a disgust for bourgeois Vienna. "[Wittgenstein's Nephew is] a meditative fugue for mad, brilliant voices on the themes of death, death-in-life and the artist's and thinker's role in society . . . oddly moving and funny at the same time."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune "Mr. Bernhard's memoir about Paul Wittgenstein is a 'confession and a guilty homage to their friendship; it takes the place of the graveside speech he never delivered. In its obsessive, elegant rhythms and narrative eloquence, it resembles a tragic aria by Richard Strauss. . . . This is a memento mori that approaches genius.'"—Richard Locke, Wall Street Journal… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member thorold
Wittgensteins Neffe was written directly after Bernhard's five short volumes of memoirs about his childhood and youth, and is in a similar format, somewhere between fiction and autobiography in tone (160 pages without any chapter or paragraph breaks). It deals with his friendship with the Viennese
It might not sound like a very cheerful book, but there is always an (intentional) element of caustic humour in Bernhard's writing, especially when he is at his blackest. We have to laugh at his excess, at ourselves for finding it funny, and of course at the targets of his rage, all the doctors, nurses, actors, cultural bureaucrats, government ministers and other exponents of Stumpfsinnigkeit (dullwittedness) who happen to walk into the line of fire. We also get plenty of Wittgenstein anecdotes, which were obviously prime fodder for Vienna gossip at the time (Bernhard apologises for retailing these, but does it anyway). And a couple of accounts of Bernhard behaving badly at awards ceremonies, which is always fun.
Of course, the real reason to read this book is Bernhard's inimitable style, which works more like music than any other prose you're likely to have come across (although Beckett does something a little bit similar). Words and phrases are combined in sentences, then repeated over and over again with transpositions, inversions, variations that create meaning not by a series of logical steps, but by gradual accretion of similar but subtly different assertions coming at you from different directions. You have to give the text as much attention as you would give a Bach keyboard piece, but over the stretch of 100 pages or so you can do that, and it's very rewarding.
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eccentric and music-lover, Paul Wittgenstein (1907-1979 — technically, a second cousin of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, not a nephew), whom he met through a mutual friend in 1967. Not long afterwards, as he describes in the opening pages of the book, Bernhard and Wittgenstein coincidentally both found themselves in the same hospital complex on the outskirts of Vienna, Bernhard in a ward for patients with lung disease, and Wittgenstein, who suffered from bouts of mental illness throughout his life, in the psychiatric section. Naturally, it takes Bernhard 20 or 30 pages to discuss his feelings about the possibility of meeting his friend in the hospital, and about half a page to describe what happens when they actually do meet, but in the process we learn a lot about friendship, mortality, the incompetence of the medical profession, etc. A running theme is the interchangeability of the two men's illnesses and the way Bernhard sees his own mortality reflected in Wittgenstein's obvious decline in his later years, which leads him to spend less time with his friend than he feels he ought to have.It might not sound like a very cheerful book, but there is always an (intentional) element of caustic humour in Bernhard's writing, especially when he is at his blackest. We have to laugh at his excess, at ourselves for finding it funny, and of course at the targets of his rage, all the doctors, nurses, actors, cultural bureaucrats, government ministers and other exponents of Stumpfsinnigkeit (dullwittedness) who happen to walk into the line of fire. We also get plenty of Wittgenstein anecdotes, which were obviously prime fodder for Vienna gossip at the time (Bernhard apologises for retailing these, but does it anyway). And a couple of accounts of Bernhard behaving badly at awards ceremonies, which is always fun.
Of course, the real reason to read this book is Bernhard's inimitable style, which works more like music than any other prose you're likely to have come across (although Beckett does something a little bit similar). Words and phrases are combined in sentences, then repeated over and over again with transpositions, inversions, variations that create meaning not by a series of logical steps, but by gradual accretion of similar but subtly different assertions coming at you from different directions. You have to give the text as much attention as you would give a Bach keyboard piece, but over the stretch of 100 pages or so you can do that, and it's very rewarding.
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LibraryThing member Brasidas
No brief review can sum up the dazzling WITTGENSTEIN'S NEPHEW. One can only rough out its contours. It is based in part on a true story: author Bernhard's friendship with philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's nephew (actually grandnephew), Paul. Prepare yourself for a blast of intellectually dense but
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very compelling--and funny--writing. The book is at bottom this great howl of rage against death. Bernhard in his day (1931-1989) was perhaps Austria's most controversial novelist/playwright. The narrator, based on Bernhard, and his familiar, Paul Wittgenstein, share a rare friendship. They're the sort of people who laugh at others in public places out of a false sense of superiority. They are compassion-free. Neither ever transcended his own rage. Bernhard, in fact, made his name on his rage. Paul Wittgenstein's rage, by contrast, turns to madness. For the first 70 pages or so we stay with the friendship between the two men who are both in separate wards at a Vienna hospital, the Wilhelminenberg. They have astonishingly similar tastes. The both love philosophy and music. Paul, like his uncle, is from a family of mercantilists (munitions, I think). Bernhard does his best to paint the family as notoriously hostile to art and culture. So Paul, like his uncle Ludwig, must reject his family. For the first half of his life, some 25 years or so, he is fabulously rich and travels widely. Then he exhausts his pile and for the rest of his life must live like a pauper. He's in and out of the Wilhelminenberg mental facility every six months. There he receives shock treatment and is locked into a cage that surrounds his bed. Bernhard describes Paul's treatment as a kind of breaking of the spirit. Once his spirit is broken and his weight dramatically down he is released. Then the cycle starts over again. I was not entirely correct in saying that the two are compassion-free. Certainly, based on this brief text, it can be said that the two main characters' friendship, no doubt intellectually rich, was floated upon a certain cynical rage and hatred of others. WITTGENSTEIN'S NEPHEW by contrast is an exercise, albeit a tardy one, in compassion. Bernhard has written this tribute to his friend in which he excoriates himself for abandoning Paul during his final sad days. But he could not, being an invalid himself, meet death face on. He was too afraid. He admits his cowardice. So WITTGENSTEIN'S NEPHEW is Bernhard's apologia. He wants us to know why he failed his friend. He is nothing if not painfully honest. A wrenching but exciting read. Show Less
LibraryThing member reganrule
On first pass I was convinced that Paul Wittgenstein (the eponymous "nephew") was merely a cipher for the narrator Thomas Bernhard, and that what Thomas describes as the "most valuable relationship I have ever had with a man" is actually about Bernhard's relationship with himself.
I'd contend that
Wittgenstein's Nephew is subtitled A Friendship, and yet despite the friends' physical proximity to each other (the narrator is in the lung wing of a hospital, Paul in the mental ward), Bernhard never makes it over to him for a visit. Instead he imagines the lively conversations they would have about their many shared interests (music, opera, making fun of people), and makes excuse after excuse not to face his friend personally. This is because Thomas now associates Paul with death and dying--which is, in his words, "grotesque"--and he can't bear to confront him.
As Paul is dying, Thomas absents himself from their friendship not just physically but also emotionally. Mentally, Bernhard's thoughts move away from his "notes" on their relationship and towards his personal, petty grudges about the poor reception of his literary work. One wonders if this was much of a friendship at all, or if it was merely an unlikely and anti-social union of like-minded misanthropes?
The title is likely drawn from Diderot's Rameau's Nephew, which might serve as a key to decoding the narrator's alternating self-congratulations and self-effacement. Rameau's nephew is the consummate imp: cynical, self-contradictory, and generally unreliable. Perhaps Bernhard is alluding to himself--not Paul--as the mercurial "nephew."
I'd contend that
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there is textual evidence which supports my initial view, although I have read that this is an autobiography of sorts, and that Bernhard's friendship with Paul was real and not simply a metaphor. So I'll cede (somewhat) to reality.Wittgenstein's Nephew is subtitled A Friendship, and yet despite the friends' physical proximity to each other (the narrator is in the lung wing of a hospital, Paul in the mental ward), Bernhard never makes it over to him for a visit. Instead he imagines the lively conversations they would have about their many shared interests (music, opera, making fun of people), and makes excuse after excuse not to face his friend personally. This is because Thomas now associates Paul with death and dying--which is, in his words, "grotesque"--and he can't bear to confront him.
As Paul is dying, Thomas absents himself from their friendship not just physically but also emotionally. Mentally, Bernhard's thoughts move away from his "notes" on their relationship and towards his personal, petty grudges about the poor reception of his literary work. One wonders if this was much of a friendship at all, or if it was merely an unlikely and anti-social union of like-minded misanthropes?
The title is likely drawn from Diderot's Rameau's Nephew, which might serve as a key to decoding the narrator's alternating self-congratulations and self-effacement. Rameau's nephew is the consummate imp: cynical, self-contradictory, and generally unreliable. Perhaps Bernhard is alluding to himself--not Paul--as the mercurial "nephew."
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LibraryThing member JimmyChanga
a 100 page book consisting of 1 paragraph should not be this enjoyable to read (I read it in a day), especially without any kind of intriguing plot, flashy language or the like. But Bernhard's subtle writing style draws you in, always interesting and often hilarious, without appearing like he is
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trying all that hard to be. Most of all, it's the line of thought in this book that is the most impressive to me, the way it moves from thought to thought like a very good poem. I will definitely read more by Bernhard soon. PS - you don't have to know anything about Wittgenstein to read and enjoy this, it's not really about Wittgenstein. Show Less
LibraryThing member freelancer_frank
This is a book about the isolation of the rational mind. Isolation clings to the central characters, who are both marginalized after their own fashion. Isolation is suggested again with various passages that reveal a contempt for corporeal form. While the subject matter is autobiographical
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Bernhard's writing style and play with form lend the presentation a searching and dream-like solipsism. The frequent repetition and circling loops emphasize this. Scenes flow into each other like water. Show Less
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Madness and philosophy are a lot alike. Or at least they are for Thomas Bernhard. He consistently mistakes madmen for philosophers and philosophers for madmen. And whenever he, himself, is at his most philosophical, he is most certain that he is mad; but just when he is most mad, he is convinced
This is a short book but a very long paragraph. Indeed it is one long paragraph that extends for 100 pages. Within the confines of that paragraph, Bernhard is able to roam freely across such subjects as the nature of friendship, madness, illness, health, nature and its discontents, coffee houses, classical music, literary prizes, and more. He does this breathlessly. So much so that the reader almost feels compelled to race through to the end of the paragraph (book!) in one reading breath. This is aided by the rhythmic technique Bernhard deploys regularly conferring a positive description of something only to immediately state the opposite, like lapping waves on a shore. It’s mesmerizing. And even his flights of fancy and exuberant denunciations of friends, literary prize givers, conductors and thespians come across as just more typical Bernhard excess. As though everything he were about to say had already been discounted.
I’m not entirely certain what to make of this book, though it certainly has its moments, some of which of are very funny (usually at the expense of Bernhard himself). You’ll find it an easy read, if you can put up with Bernhard’s antics, and sometimes slyly insightful. Just not about philosophy.
Gently recommended.
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that he is a brilliant philosopher. It’s understandable, in a way. Bernhard is friends with Paul Wittgenstein, who is none other than the nephew of the estimable philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Paul is a bon vivant, a lover of opera, a fashionable dresser, a wit. He is also mad. At least sometimes. Enough to be periodically institutionalized. Why exactly Bernhard conflates Paul’s vivid mental life with the mental rigour of his famous uncle is not clear. But he does. And he draws his inference in the other direction as well, assuring us that Ludwig was also a madman. And, oh yes, this is a sort of memoir of Paul, or belated eulogy. Though really, as ever, it’s entirely about Bernhard himself: madman, philosopher(?), enfant terrible of Austrian letters, and sometime friend of Paul Wittgenstein.This is a short book but a very long paragraph. Indeed it is one long paragraph that extends for 100 pages. Within the confines of that paragraph, Bernhard is able to roam freely across such subjects as the nature of friendship, madness, illness, health, nature and its discontents, coffee houses, classical music, literary prizes, and more. He does this breathlessly. So much so that the reader almost feels compelled to race through to the end of the paragraph (book!) in one reading breath. This is aided by the rhythmic technique Bernhard deploys regularly conferring a positive description of something only to immediately state the opposite, like lapping waves on a shore. It’s mesmerizing. And even his flights of fancy and exuberant denunciations of friends, literary prize givers, conductors and thespians come across as just more typical Bernhard excess. As though everything he were about to say had already been discounted.
I’m not entirely certain what to make of this book, though it certainly has its moments, some of which of are very funny (usually at the expense of Bernhard himself). You’ll find it an easy read, if you can put up with Bernhard’s antics, and sometimes slyly insightful. Just not about philosophy.
Gently recommended.
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LibraryThing member OccassionalRead
Thomas Bernhard is an intellectual snob and a curmudgeon but he is also delightfully funny in a wry, dry way. I really enjoyed when he went off on the Austrian literati, or country living, or even the average brains of most of his fellow citizens. His misanthropy, or at least disinterest in most of
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his fellowmen, did not extend to Paul Wittegenstein, nephew to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (of the equally entertaining book, Wittgenstein Poker). Paul was a soul mate, sharing Berhhard's love and fascination with music. While Bernhard had chronic lung problems that led to ongoing hospital stays in a sanitorium, Wittgenstein suffered from frequent mental breakdowns. Their brains and intellects were far and away superior to most, and they could follow and lead each other's thoughts in a way that few others could. This led to a true and enduring friendship for 12 years which finally ended when Paul died. It is really a fascinating memoir and commentary that is both extremely intimate but also touches upon larger and more universal truths that we can all relate to. Show Less
LibraryThing member stillatim
Okay, I'm giving this five stars because I'm already nostalgic for the times when I had new Bernhard to read--I've only got a couple more novels to go before I move on to the stories. This is an odd part of his work, since it's actually kind of in praise of something. It's in praise of a mentally
Aside from the fact that it's a genuinely moving elegy, I found this novella interesting for one short passage toward the end:
"I reflected that in my whole life I had possibly never had a better friend than the one who was compelled to lie in bed, probably in a pitiful condition, int eh apartment above me, and whom I no longer visited because I was afraid of a direct confrontation with death... I had met Paul, as I now see, precisely at the time when he was obviously beginning to die, and, as these notes testify, I had traced his dying over a period of more than twelve years. And I had used Paul's dying for my own advantage, exploiting it for all I was worth." (98-9)
The narrators of Bernhard's fiction never admit to their own guilt, in large part because they can't find anything worth being guilty before. In this book, Bernhard does find such a thing, Paul Wittgenstein, a fascinating, loving, difficult friend, to whom he did not and cannot do justice, whom he cannot repay. He is doubly guilty, first because, like everyone else, Bernhard fails to aid the dying, and second because he uses the fact of his friend's dying to create fiction. This recognition makes this stand out among Bernhard's works. Well, that and the rant about the literary coffee houses of Vienna.
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disturbed wastrel, yes, but still, it's in praise of something. Bernhard records his friendship with Paul Wittgenstein, their mutual sicknesses, then moves on to more usual Bernhard territory (I HATE VIENNESE COFFEE HOUSES BUT ALSO I LOVE THEM!), which is very amusing. Aside from the fact that it's a genuinely moving elegy, I found this novella interesting for one short passage toward the end:
"I reflected that in my whole life I had possibly never had a better friend than the one who was compelled to lie in bed, probably in a pitiful condition, int eh apartment above me, and whom I no longer visited because I was afraid of a direct confrontation with death... I had met Paul, as I now see, precisely at the time when he was obviously beginning to die, and, as these notes testify, I had traced his dying over a period of more than twelve years. And I had used Paul's dying for my own advantage, exploiting it for all I was worth." (98-9)
The narrators of Bernhard's fiction never admit to their own guilt, in large part because they can't find anything worth being guilty before. In this book, Bernhard does find such a thing, Paul Wittgenstein, a fascinating, loving, difficult friend, to whom he did not and cannot do justice, whom he cannot repay. He is doubly guilty, first because, like everyone else, Bernhard fails to aid the dying, and second because he uses the fact of his friend's dying to create fiction. This recognition makes this stand out among Bernhard's works. Well, that and the rant about the literary coffee houses of Vienna.
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LibraryThing member Kristelh
Reason read: botm April 2023, Reading 1001
This is written by Thomas Bernhard, with the narrator being Thomas Bernhard, set in 1967. The narrator and his friend Paul are hospitalized. The book is brief, encompassing passions, music, humor, and a great fear of death. It is fiction but it is also
This is written by Thomas Bernhard, with the narrator being Thomas Bernhard, set in 1967. The narrator and his friend Paul are hospitalized. The book is brief, encompassing passions, music, humor, and a great fear of death. It is fiction but it is also
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part memoir. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
German
Original publication date
1982
Physical description
164 p.; 7.13 inches
ISBN
3518017888 / 9783518017883