The most interesting character in Thomas Bernhard’s memoir Gathering Evidence is hands down the grandfather. (Or perhaps I am irresistibly attracted to failures and losers of all kinds.) According to Bernhard, his grandfather was a total failure as a philosopher/writer from the point of view of the world (though there is some mention of a publication and royalties). He would get up at 3:00 a.m. to closet himself in his room to write, and everyone in the household was trained to walk on tiptoes and converse in whispers to not disturb the great man at his great work. He would take long walks on which Bernhard would accompany him and receive the real education of his life. Bernhard considered his grandfather his first real teacher (another would be an artist manqué grocer) and the person he loved the most, something he repeats throughout the book. The grandfather who was an anarchist by nature, who sought out conflict and chaos. The grandfather’s favorite mode of discourse seems to have been the diatribe – against teachers, schools, the petite bourgeosie, Catholicism, religion in general, and later against National Socialism or the Nazis. When you consider that Bernhard’s novels are essentially drawnout dramatized rants (not to devalue them in anyway!), and against those very same targets, it becomes evident that Bernhard has made profitable use of his patrimony. Indeed, it is hard to know where the grandfather ends and the grandson begins. This grandfather indulged himself in pursuing his totally unsuccessful career as a writer/thinker living off the labor of womenfolk, his wife and daughter (and later his son-in-law), who held a series of menial jobs to support the great man.
In spite of his excoriation of teachers and schools, paradoxically – even Bernhard seems to have been baffled by this – the grandfather sends him away first to a boarding school in Salzburg, then when the family relocates to Salzburg, to a gymnasium where the progeny of the local social climbing petit bourgeois send their boys. Both are run by Nazi sadists and numbskulls and it is only when one day Bernhard has had enough and does an abrupt turn in the “opposite direction” that he is saved.
The words of the poet who envied the skylark for its dominion over the blue skies should be revised
A person who’s ever taken flight for the sake of freedom knows with what in sight the skylark sings how it is that freedom smells of blood why revolt is lonely
That day – a wildly staggering winter We were entwined then Though it was all my fault The all too closeness reassured me I’m going to forget that bar I’m going to run away if the memory returns The guys were drunk with all their might The look in my eyes fell like wisps of straw No amount of shouting reached my heart There’s nobody like him in the world All the memories have lost their resting place I sobbed inside the bar That day – a wildly drunk winter We were entwined then The guys staggered holding onto what strength they had left I have ugly lips Though it was all my fault I sobbed beside my coat No amount of ridicule lifted my heavy heart I’m going to forget that bar There’s nobody like him in the world In such a cramped place I lost my love
The trees were lethargic and dry. A certain reluctance in the budding. The mechanism of biology cranked forward in time. The earth spun on its axis. People stuffed their ears full of filthy rags to become deaf to the age-old screams. The screams, along with the prayers, floated up, pierced the atmosphere and went up to God on his tarnished throne.
The backstreets heading toward the sea were combing out hairstrands of moonlight. No, the moon itself was a fat wooden comb. Passing through Heung-bu’s wattle gate, along the backstreets, our breathing full of dreams escapes to the sea. Know that much.
When a person dies, does he not become water, fog, rain and go to the sea? In the work of living in our backstreets, surely the work of shedding tears is much and right. The night that has forgotten, like afterlife, that work of shedding tears; really and truly the sound of our poor breathing is combed out in the moon’s combing and is the sparkling of the sea where our tears have pooled.
*Heung-bu is a well-known character from a Korean folktale. In the story, he is swindled out of his inheritance by his brother Nor-bu and lives in poverty. One day he saves a swallow that is being attacked by a snake and helps the injured bird recover. In repayment for his kindness, the swallow brings him a gourd seed, which he sows. The plant grows and bears a large gourd. When Heung-bu splits open the gourd, precious jewels spill out and he becomes a rich man.
When the light of the street lamp roundly pushing up the darkness is a ten-won coin when the rising moon is a spoon that’s lost its handle when the customer turns his back cursing because there’s no embossed toilet paper when you watch a person buy gum just to get change when saliva someone has spit while talking on the phone, slides down the store window like a shooting star when a child comes to buy ice cream and upon opening the freezer door, enters nirvana when the display case and Mom’s economy totters every time the store door opens and closes when the guys are sitting on the store bench drinking and talking noisily and then when their voices become two bottles of soju when a miss, with hip and lips pouting after looking for something, goes out and seeing them, takes fright for free when I shout at Mom to sell the damned store when she whacks me on the back of the head without a word
What will you fill up with a spoonful of rice, a teardrop even if you were to make rice soup from the tears?
No matter how much you love me no matter how much I may love you I’ll have to chew today’s chicken I’ll have to swallow today’s tears. Therefore let’s stop speaking in metaphors everything is definite like concrete everything is a concrete wall. It’s not a metaphor but a fist, and there’s only the fist’s pulverizing.
Let’s stop trying to achieve what can’t be achieved Let’s not say we have achieved the vanity of vanities
Go — be it love or lover, to love is not to die for you. To love is to live for you, and to wait.
Only, to be mercilessly broken.
In that way, one day, love, tear my body to pieces. Break off my arms and legs and place them in your vase.
Cardiac Slaves of the Stars 