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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Existentialism with a moral heart., December 19, 2002
"Extinction" is the story of Franz-Josef Murau, a wealthy Austrian gentleman living in Rome as a private tutor in German literature. His tastes run to the esoteric and philosophical, and his relationship with his student, Gambetti, is intellectually mutual. He has just returned to Rome from the wedding of his younger sister, Caecilia, to an "obese wine cork manufacturer," held at the family estate in Austria, called Wolfsegg. At the wedding were his parents, older brother Johannes, and his other younger sister, Amelia. He receives a telegram in Rome: "Parents and Johannes killed in accident." For the first half of this 320-page book (each half being one unbroken paragraph!), he describes his life, and his narration becomes a deep reflection on his childhood and life to date. He delivers a marvelous psychological portrait of himself, as well as the family members who have just died, and his long-dead Uncle Georg, whom he remembers with great fondness. He hates his family deeply, and the feeling is mutual. He is a philosopher, they are down to earth. He is an aesthete, but they are simple folks. He is a scholar, but they are hunters and farmers, despite their fantastic wealth and their prosperous family estate. Only Uncle George understood him, artistic, free-spirited, and educated. Franz-Josef reflects passionately on his current situation, and tells us many stories of himself and his family. For the second half of the book, he describes the funeral at Wolfsegg. Lacking parents and older siblings, he is now the master of the estate. His sisters look to him for leadership. He must now decide what to do with the estate. Will he move back to Wolfsegg in Austria, a land he loves, but an estate he hates? Will he pass it to his sisters and remain in Rome, a city he cherishes more than any other? Bernhard will stun the reader with the beauty of the resolution, but will do it in his own literary fashion. During the story, we learn Franz-Josef disdains Catholicism and National Socialism (i.e., Nazism) in equal parts. His mother had been having an affair with a Catholic Archbishop in Rome, a relationship which was supposedly secret, but which all her children seem to know of. The Archbishop is a close family friend, and will certainly visit the estate for the funeral. His father had many Nazi friends, unbelievably still openly Nazi all these years after the war. He tells us of the fun times he enjoyed playing at his estate's Children's Villa, and how disappointed he was when it was shuttered. He vows to open and restore it when he is master. He tells us of the five libraries---five!---scattered about the estate, similarly shuttered up, collecting dust despite a half-dozen generations' worth of valuable books stored within. He tells us childhood stories of his parents, his brother, and his sister, all disdainful, and heaps contempt upon his brother-in-law, whose name he cannot even bring himself to utter, in generous proportions. At one point, he bathes in his father's bath, and wears some of his clothes. Is this a metaphor for his feelings? We learn that he blames his father only for being such a simple man, but hates his mother passionately, for dragging his father into the mud. We struggle with the idea that this is an unreliable narrator, and we are only hearing one side of a two-sided story, but unlike Italo Svevo's masterpiece, "Confessions of Zeno", it is clear that despite this narrator's one-sided story, there is no reason to disbelieve him. He is as critical of himself as of others, and he demonstrates the pettiness and crudeness of his family in many different ways. We trust him, not only because he is self-critical, but because despite his self-confidence, he is not a fool. We also learn some untoward truths about his family, and a few hidden secrets, which cannot be dismissed, even from the most unreliable narrator. His angst comes from a simple sentiment, expressed early on: "I can't abolish my family just because I want to." He struggles to resolve the question of extinction: Must he extinguish himself to satisfy his family? Must his family be extinguished to satisfy himself? Finally, after a rollicking narration of heartfelt emotions and deeply-help philosophies, Bernhard's narrator demonstrates how he chooses to reconcile his thoughts and feelings, his inheritance and his sisters, his legacy and his future, and all the elements demonstrated through the length of the novel braid together like a jewel. Bernhard's prose is difficult for those unfamiliar with experimental or cutting-edge literature, but actually not very difficult once one tries. Curious readers will greatly enjoy engaging their mind with this book. If they wish to sample a smaller work before digging into this one, Bernhard's "Yes" is another masterpiece of style and depth. Both are rewarding, brilliant works from a literary master.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A joyous read and a great work, June 11, 2000
There is great joy to be had from this wonderful book. Its first joy is its prose - sparkling in its clarity, musical, effortless - which carries one along on a journey through the thoughts and feelings of Viennese 48 year old Franz-Joseph Murau. Intellectual resident of Rome, alienated by choice from his Austrian family, friend to Archbishop Spadolini(who is also his mother's lover!), he receives a telegram that his father, mother and brother have died in a car accident making him at one stroke inheritor of the family's wealthy estate. He is now MASTER OF WOLFSEGG. The first half of the novel THE TELEGRAM concerns his recollections of childhood and relationships and events that shaped his life. Example: " At first we always tell ourselves that our parents naturally love us, but suddenly we realise that, equally naturally, they hate us for some reason - that is to say, we appear to them as I appeared to mine, as a child that didn't conform with their notion of what a child should be, a child that had gone wrong. They had not reckoned with my eyes which probably saw everything I was not meant to see when I opened them. First, I looked in DISBELIEF, as they say, when I stared at them, and finally, one day I SAW THROUGH THEM, and they never forgave me, could NOT forgive me.(p 76)" The second half of the novel THE WILL concerns his attendance at the estate where he oversees the funeral and greets and reflects upon the range of visitors paying their respects. Example: "In ROME I often lay on my bed, unable to stop thinking of how our nation was guilty of thousands, tens of thousands, of such heinous crimes, yet remained silent about them. The fact that it keeps quiet about these thousands and tens of thousands of crimes is the greatest crime of all, I told my sisters. It's this silence that's so sinister, I said. It's that nation's silence that's so terrible, even more terrible than the crimes themselves.(p 231)" This bare outline of the two parts cannot prepare you, dear reader, for the experiences of this novel. It is as if one becomes privy as another Viennese Mr Freud did, to the real secrets of the heart of an individual, an individual nevertheless, shaped by the world in which he was born but determined to realise some truths about that world. WE are privy then to the feelings, equivocations, doubts, fears, guilt and searching. It is a revalatory experience, scaldingly honest, which provides one man's analysis of 20th Century Austrian culture, including National Socialism, the class system, religion, architecture, cuisine et al. Sometimes mocking, sometimes self excoriating, sometimes savagely funny, we travel with Mr Murau through his thoughts and feelings at this turning point in his history. In the end, Mr Murau makes a stunning act of redemption which concludes his statement and rounds off this wonderful work of literature on a joyous note. Please accompany, or perhaps follow,this novel with a large dose of HAYDN. Most modern novels pale into the ordinary compared to this work.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bernhard's Extinction, December 9, 1998
In Extinction Bernhard creates his most indulgent, and most inscrutable work since On the Mountain - the likes of which only he can muscle into great literature. These two works can very much be seen as the brackets around all of his work, the beginning and the end. Extinction is the pile driving of Correction and Gargoyles, the lyricism of Old Masters and The Loser, and the sustained climax of Yes. I may even choose one of those novels as his most important work, or my personal favorite - Extinction will never be remembered as an example of Bernhard's work - it's artistry might just be too profound to be very useful. Bernhard's last novel flows very much like the last movement of a dark symphony - it borrows phrases, and alludes to even his first published words, but it is very clearly the end. To one who has read the complete works of Bernhard and who has seen time and again his genius use devices and set motion upon everything from the merits of artistic expressions and intents, to in other works, the fabric of cognition and existence, to the very fabric of the words on the page - the very reason for the work Extinction becomes unclear. It is not like any of Bernhard's other works. Page after page it challenges the reader to give up. Its almost as if Bernhard left this work as a special gift for only those who could really interpret and appreciate his art. Sticking with Extinction while Bernhard is shooing you and the collective literary world away is the greatest artistic experience one can undertake - because in the end, when you are sure you are the only one on the planet who has stuck with him to the last, he leaves you with one of his greatest surprise gifts. One which will float by silently and smash you in the face at the same time. It is all - only how its done. Over drinks, my friend the author, Rick Whitaker once said, 'Bernhard is the only author who ever succeeded in removing himself from everything.' Or at least he should have.
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