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| Thomas Bernhard |
The Loser: Thomas Bernhard's Stream-of
Consciousness Novel About Glenn Gould
by Ted Gioia
In any contest to pick the most vitriolic novelist of the
20th Century, Thomas Bernhard makes the short list of
leading candidates. His pugnacious and acerbic manner
is now known worldwide, but the closer one gets to
Vienna and Salzburg, where he lived
for so many years, the greater the
antipathy—indeed, no award-winning
author of the modern era is less be-
loved in his homeland than Bernhard.
There he is known as a nestbesch-
mutzer—a German word, with no
English equivalent, signifying some-
one who befouls his own nest.
