Gathering Evidence: A Memoir [Paperback]

Thomas Bernhard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2006

Written with a dark pain and drama that recalls the novels of Dickens, Gathering Evidence is a powerful and compelling memoir of youth by one of the twentieth century's most gifted writers. Born in 1931, the illegitimate child of an abandoned mother, Thomas Bernhard was brought up by an eccentric grandmother and an adored grandfather. Tormented as a young student in rightwing, Catholic Austria, Bernhard ran away from home aged fifteen. At eighteen, he contracted pneumonia. Placed in a hospital ward for the old and terminally ill, he observed with unflinching acuity protracted suffering and death. From the age of 21, everything he wrote was shaped by the urgency of a dying man's testament - his witness, the quintessence of his life and knowledge - and where this account of his life ends, his art begins.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For all its occasional shrillness and repetitiousness, and its denunciations of "society," "community" and "education" in terms of passionate generality, this unparagraphed outpouring of reflection and recollected experience by Austria's most prestigious novelist-dramatist is a work of extraordinary impact. Born out of wedlock, of a father whose name he was forbidden to mention and a mother who considered him "worthless," Bernhard spent his early life in a state of torment made bearable only by his musical studies and the love of his grandfather, a failed writer and social outcast. From a Nazi boarding school, he went to a Catholic grammar school which was scarcely less oppressive. At 15 he made the liberating decision to work in a grocer's shop catering to destitutes; but in his 19th year he contracted pneumonia, then tuberculosis, and his grandfather and mother died in quick succession. From the ashes of pain and chaos, however, arose his will to writedespite his conviction that words cannot communicate the truth. Bernhard has been justly compared to Kafka and Beckett; he shares the same bleak, unflinching, ultimately bracing vision.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

“Breathless, relentlessly compulsive. . . . A remarkable literary contribution.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“One of the most powerful autobiographies of the 20th century. . . . Overwhelming in its impact.”
—Los Angeles Times

“A searing and utterly extraordinary memoir. . . . Unflinching, resonant and simply important. . . . The book is magnificent in every sentence.”
—Claire Messud, Newsday
 
“Vehement and fascinating. . . . Arguably his finest work.”
—The Washington Post --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Vintage Books (December 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099442531
• ISBN-13: 978-0099442530
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,271,352 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars We don't choose life, but we can choose how to live..., October 22, 1999

By 

J. T. Meddle (Lancing, West Sussex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gathering Evidence: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Thomas Bernhard is a wonderfully engaging author, although at first glance, a depressive. He is (or was - he died in 1989) Austrian, and this unusual autobiography is written in one long go - there are no chapters or even paragraphs! It is hard going at first, until you suddenly click into Bernhard's point of view, which is a grim, often tragic take, and some readers might consider his remarks on life, death, marriage, education (especially in Austria!) to be offensive. But since he is a master of irony, his life's sad and terrible situations do become very funny. At the age of 18, he was hospitalised with pneumonia, and since the doctors thought he was going to die, he was put in a ward amongst the old and chronically ill, what he called the 'death' ward. Upon his recovery, he wasn't moved to another ward - the doctors, he said, seemed affronted that he hadn't 'gone under' as expected! On the daily round, he recounts how they grew progressively ruder, as his health improved. To Bernhard, doctors are marginally more criminal than teachers, but the greatest crime is that of parents who thoughtlessly "bring new human beings into the world," and then try to bring them up, in even more thoughtless ways. He went to a Catholic boarding-school until 1938,the year of the Anschluss, when of course it became a National Socialist school overnight - the great thing he writes is that there was no discernible difference - the brutally cruel school routine went on just the same, except there were different uniforms, beliefs, songs & decor!! Later, trapped in a sanatorium with TB, he discovers books, and they "became my best and most intimate friends," thus the act of reading became a decisive factor in his life, for he saw that literature could be applied to life, "as a form of higher mathematics." (not entirely sure that makes sense out of context - he's immensely quotable, but in chunks rather than odd lines). It's a very good translation, but as already said, it's not an easy read - apparently, in Austrian German, it reads as a marvellously-poetic prose; even so, for English readers, it's well worth persevering with the life-story of this saturnine character. I found a second-hand copy of this book, which is out of print, and was so impressed I've bought two more (new, from Amazon!)by Bernhard, "Wittgenstein's Nephew" and "The Voice Imitators."

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent introduction to Bernhard, September 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Gathering Evidence: A Memoir (Hardcover)

The version I read was in three parts and each part was like a whole so there was a fair bit of repetition. If that wasn't the case the book would get 5 stars as the man is clearly an inspired writer with an almost perfectly free intellect (much to the horror of Germans, Austrians, organised religions and the medical profession amongst others). Like JG Ballard he opens one's mind up to ideas that one would never have dared to dream of. Best of all, despite it all (his life was quite depressing due to growing up in Nazi Germany and contracting TB) he's very funny. Makes you feel that with humour you're safe from everything.

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kafka Take a Seat, August 1, 2000

By 

Toni Wuersch (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gathering Evidence (Hardcover)

This book, Bernhard's autobiography, combines a series of five books published in German from 1976 to 1982.

The first chapter of this translation, on Bernhard's early childhood, was the last volume of the series. It shows the no-limits nature of Bernhard's childhood strivings and the criminal talent he had to separate his sense of joy from the desire of his mother and other caretakers that he should detest himself for not being there for them, for not praising them, and for not feeling shame and failure like they felt. It also shows how much he loved his grandfather.

The second chapter was the first volume. George Steiner wrote in 1985 that it's the best description of what it's like to be bombed in any language. Also, that it's untranslatable. It covers the 1943-46 period when Bernhard was btwn ages 12 and 15 in Salzburg, as Salzburg was being bombed by the Allies, and just after Austria's unconditional surrender. It expresses Bernhard's nightmarish state of mind then, and tells in journalistic style just what he saw.

The German version of these books is outrageously better than the English translation in this case --- even though in others such as Woodcutters, the same translator produced what I feel is as good a book in English or maybe better than the original. Maybe these autobiographical books really are untranslatable.

Still, this book is amazing. Not only is it true to the state of affairs. But it's also a classic fairy tale where Bernhard takes on the role of Luke Skywalker, his grandfather the role of Obi-Wan Kenobe, and the grocer who employs Bernhard a role of Yoda.

By unwittingly retelling the Star Wars story, this autobiography shows both the power of myth and one way the story of Nazism could become a useful cautionary myth, like one of Grimm's fairy tales, for the next millenium.

...