Customer Reviews

Correction (Phoenix Fiction Series)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Bernhard's novel "Correction" tells us the story of two friends. The main character, Roithamer, commit suicide (as we know from the first page of the book) and his friend (the person who tells the story) take charge of his legacy: A huge mass of calculations and thinkings about the construction of a Cone (in the center of a forest called Kobernauss) for the "supreme happiness" of Roithamer' sister (who is expected to dwell in it). Following this main idea Bernhard writes a superb novel dealing with the loneliness of an exceptional man in a stupid, brutal and destructive society that consider mad to those people with true artistic and intellectual interests. Strong thoughts and strong beauty are the main virtues of this book. I have read almost all the works by Thomas Bernhard and this one, I think, is the kernel of all his production. It is, maybe, his greatest masterpiece (in narrative) besides his five-volume autobiography. We encounter, here, for example, that wild irony and humour of his plays for the scene and his deep view of the world. Yes, "depth" is the magical word dealing with Bernhard works. And against the depth is all the superfluidity and foolishness of the surroundings in our way of life. Superfluidity which threatens us in every moment wanting to kill us intellectually and spiritually. Only knowledge can save us but then (considering knowledge only) our life is difficult when not terrible.
I will say nothing of Mdme. Wilkins translation as I think that there is no alternative for reading this novel in English. Translating Bernhard is very difficult. Long sentences, with periodic and obsessive motives which repeat and repeat producing an amazing and incredible effect. Bernhard is a master of rhythm and precision and his style is a musical one.

I consider Correction as one the best works of his author. I've read Miguel Saenz' translation into Spanish and I've found it excellent. I can't quite say wether English traslation is as good or it's not. The main Bernhard obsession are shown in this book. His peculiar, rather tough style is displayed in all its intensity as well. Amongst the former the suicide topic and the relationship between the man and Nature are worth mentioning. Among the latter, I guess those endlessly soliloques whose secret only Bernhard seems to know, would be the most characteristic. The plot is based upon Wittgenstein's life or, rather, upon Wittgenstein's philosophy. The method of this philospher has been described as a spiral -rather than lineal way of thought. He rounds the same issues all the time but getting deeper and deeper every time. In Bernhard prose, the same process can be verified. In a lineal following of the plot, not many things can be registered. But the thoughts of the protagonist are able to discover always a new view of those few issues he is obsessed with. At last, the suicide of his friend (known for the reader since the first page) can be interpreted as his last step in his impossible way from civilization (in wich he has been thrown against his will) back to Nature. Highly significative in this regard is the place where the suicide takes place: a spot in the woods exactly in the half of the way between the town and his house in the mountains. The style and the strange use of the lenguage can be interpreted in the same way. Wittgenstein once said: "When you can't talk about things is better to keep silence." Bernhard try to fight this assumption by writing. No matter what he is writing about, keep writing, unceaselessly, correcting the former phrase with the current one, and recorrecting it again, and again and againg. This effort is highly evident Bernhard work. Like the life of the suicidal, his literature is a continuos process of correction, of amending, improvement, redefinition. But is never enough. There is no end, no limit, measure bound in this toil. Written words in Bernhard are just useful to realize they can't quite convey what they are trying to. But is not a failure what he gets as a result. On the contrary, by means of suggesting what he is not able to convey, he remarks exactly what the rest of the literature always tries to hide: its dispatched of the essential, its lack of hinges, its desperately seeking in a world where no points of reference have been left.

This novel is essentially about a man (two men, really, in sequence although at times it feels like the narrator is of one piece) in a little dark room who cannot turn his brain off and has an incessant need to share it with you (the reader). I found the passage about the stuffing of the big black bird to be incredibly hilarious. People who aspire to be well-read must put Thomas Bernhard on the top of their reading list. Adjectives like obsession and neurotic don't do this particular book justice. I've read most of Bernhard's books (as translated in English) and this is certainly one of his strongest. I recommend this book to everyone -- graduate students, widows, orphans, the mentally ill, little children. Five stars absolutely.

I had read "Wittgenstein's Nephew" and "The Loser" and was prepared to regard Bernhard as interesting and innovative but not compelling, certainly not the Austrian novelist Handke is; but a Bernhard fan urged this on me. Even though I usually favor comic novels, and value richness of language and varied sentence structure per se, I think Bernhard's run-on style has more pertinence and dramatic force in this tragic tale than in his more humorous efforts. This was a memorable experience on two levels--the level of its subject matter and the level of the aptness and suppleness of Bernhard's craft. If you haven't read any Bernhard before, start with this one. The two Muldoons (!) reviewing here are right on target.

Bernhard's novel "Correction" tells us the story of two friends. The main character, Roithamer, commit suicide (as we know from the first page of the book) and his friend (the person who tells the story) take charge of his legacy: A huge mass of calculations and thinkings about the construction of a Cone (in the center of a forest called Kobernauss) for the "supreme happiness" of Roithamer' sister (who is expected to dwell in it). Following this main idea Bernhard writes a superb novel dealing with the loneliness of an exceptional man in a stupid, brutal and destructive society that consider mad to those people with true artistic and intellectual interests. Strong thoughts and strong beauty are the main virtues of this book. I have read almost all the works by Thomas Bernhard and this one, I think, is the kernel of all his production. It is, maybe, his greatest masterpiece (in narrative) besides his five-volume autobiography. We encounter, here, for example, that wild irony and humour of his plays for the scene and all his personal universe and obsessions.
I will say nothing of Mdme.Wilkins translation as I think that there is no alternative for reading this novel in English. Translating Bernhard is very difficult. Long sentences, with periodic and obsessive motives which repeat and repeat producing an amazing and incredible effect. Bernhard is a master of rhythm and precision and his style is a musical one.

In Correction, Thomas Bernhard arranges an interlocution between poet and thinker, between his own protagonist's theories and Heideggerrian thought. Correction seems to undertake a "mock-up" of Heideggerian thought, a parody of Heidegger's essays on "Clearing," "Origin," "Thinking." Inasmuch as there are similarities between the novel and Heidegger's essays, a "fictional-critique" of Heidegger becomes apparent. Essentially, Bernhard's novel evolves its critique not through close examination or critical analysis, but by embracing Heideggerian thought whenever Roithamer (the protagonist) attempts to enact it--in short, making it "literal." Even where Heidegger cautions that this poetic space of Origin must remain beyond the temporal capabilities of the present, Bernhard makes it exigent in his text, makes it concrete. Bernhard, however, is less interested in showing the weaknesses or contradictions in Heidegger's thinking than in illustrating the results of its realization, its literalization. Roithamer, in fact, models his architectural plans to build a Cone in the middle of a forest on Heidegger's writings on architecture and his insistence on the "mutual articulation" of city, surrounding landscape, and human culture. Similarly, throughout the novel, Roithamer is engaged in a rigorous correction of all the ideas which he had previously written in his architectural journals. Yet--having read the accumulated logic of Roithamer's dissembling--I was not left with a reduced and refined record of his thinking at the end of the novel, but ironically with an excess of meaning, the architectural plan including all its corrected ideas. In effect, as a reader, I was presented with the residue of meaning: a hard copy of the correction of Roithamer's "originary" thinking, a protuberant eulogy for the ideas which cannot be cancelled into oblivion.

An incomparable work. Thomas Bernnhard's fluid meditation on genius, obsession, and suicide is characteristic of his monomaniacal style. In Correction, the great scientist Roithamer has left behind a voluminous collection of letters and plans for the construction of his "cone," designed to honor his sister. In the first book, an unnamed narrator attempts to sift through the disarray that Roithamer left behind, while in the second book the narrative voice shifts to the tragic hero himself. This is a remarkable novel about the loneliness and alienation of the intellect as well as a significant meditation on the desire for perfection. Often regarded as Bernhard's greatest novel, it will undoubtedly be read in future years for its extraordinary combination of elements.

I'm so glad I happened to find out about this writer, who I suppose is becoming better known in the United States. This novel is a very successful presentation of a mind. It's clear why people compare it to Beckett, though Bernhard is darker and more disturbing.

If you like this book by Bernhard, you might also be interested in "Jacob von Gunten" by Robert Walser.

Jakob von Gunten (New York Review Books)

One of the more demanding and stylistically excessive texts I've read, "Correction" is obsessive, depressive, mad, maddening, but also brilliant.

The main emphasis, and ultimately the main accomplishment in "Correction" (that's Korrektur in German, with shades of Kafka's K) is structural. The prose, the quickening of the pace of the narration towards the end of the novel (which coincides with Roithamer's mental and physical end as well), the extreme repetition of ideas and words- all these succeed in imitating Roithamer's obsession and mad strive for impossible perfection, towards his final existential "correction".

Just try to count the occurrences of the word "Altensam"- the name of his childhood home, and you'll see where the source of madness and obsession comes from.

While part of the character of Roithamer is based on Witgenstein, a reasonable assumption given by the many shared similarities in their life stories, there are many autobiographical elements from Bernhard's own past- his troubled childhood and relationship to his parents, to name a few. And at the same time there are totally fictional, even absurd, elements abound.

So whether Roithamer is more like Wittgenstein, Bernhard, or something entirely fictional- like something out of Becket- remains intentionally ambiguous.

Of course, with Thomas Bernhard being himself, the narration is at times overly hateful, spiteful, even misogynic as some readers point out. But who is really the misogynist here, Bernhard or Roithamer?

And yet with all the emphasis on style there is not a wealth of ideas in "Correction". This might be intentional, because while the core and specifics of Roithamer's science, the logic behind the building of the cone, and other key issues remain infuriatingly ambiguous throughout the novel, near the very end Bernhard DOES give us a glimpse of logic and meaning.

For instance, does the cone symbolize a tomb? A phallus? A mathematical symbol? All of the above? Strangely enough, and many readers seem to have missed this, Roithamer hints at it to be a direct representation of his (and so his beloved sister's) psych- while the base is wide, a external horizontal force is enough to topple it, "correcting" it out of existence. Roithhaer and the cone, as we can all but deduce by ourselves by the end, are somewhat one and the same.

Has this review been long? Strange? So is the cone.
So is "Correction".

Two science academics, one dead one alive, get themselves in a first person singular dither about all kinds of things - siblings, mothers, neighbours, aloneness, the point of existence, suicide, parents, self, the apparent conflict in EVERYTHING including their own minds. Reminiscent of Bach insofar as repetition, and exploration and improvisation on a theme apply. If you like Beckett, stream of consciousness, psychology, Freud, music, philosophy, and a solid read, this book, as one of the protaganists explains, is what it is.