Gitta Honegger

First things first: I'm very grateful to Honegger for writing this book, which is so far the only English language biography of Bernhard.

That said, it would be nice if someone would a) write a good one, or b) even translate one from German. Because this is a hot mess. If you want proof of that, consider that Honegger used to work at Yale; it's published by Yale; and the only positive text they could find for a blurb was by... a professor at Yale.

I imagine this is how this book made it into the world:

i) Honegger, who works on drama and theatre, had some interesting ideas about Bernhard as dramatist.
ii) An editor at Yale got wind of this, and decided that instead of an academic monograph about Bernhard's theatrical works, Honegger should write a biography.
iii) Honegger, who knows about Bernhard's life, thinks that's a great idea, because Bernhard's life is *hand fucking made* for biography. Great origin story, great trauma, weird relationships, great success, great posthumous fun.
iv) The editor who decided that Honegger should write a biography proceeds to go on holiday. Honegger freaks out, because she doesn't know how to write a biography. Editor doesn't care, his/her work is just throwing out good ideas, not helping authors.
v) Book is published as a hot mess.

What kind of mess? The repetitive, narrative-less, 'thematic chaptered', let's-write-a-journal-article-then-stretch-it-out-into-a-book-and-stick-in-a-few-biographical-details-and-a-whole-bunch-of-plot-summaries-so-we-can-market-it-as-a-biography kind. There's no sense here that you might like to tell us about Bernhard's writing or life in, you know, order. The argument is perfectly good (Bernhard 'stages' his life; English majors will be familiar with this from a little period we like to call "the Renaissance"), but not at all interesting compared to, for instance, his tuberculosis, his novels, his weird relationships with women, his *bonkers* family, his hatred for almost everyone, etc etc...

So, thanks to Honegger, but we'd all be better off if she wrote a good book about his drama (I'm sure she could), and someone else wrote a good biography.… (mehr)

Having read already the exhausting autobiographical work by Bernhard titled Gathering Evidence, I really got little here I was that interested in. I go to Bernhard for his novels and stories, and not so much for his plays which were played a little top-heavy in my opinion regarding this book. But the text was fine, I enjoyed much of it, and I am glad I read it. I did learn more about the so-called aunt that I had not understood completely prior to this study. I would recommend this book to anyone very knowledgeable already with Thomas Bernhard. I am not sure how much help this book would be to the uninitiated.… (mehr)