Concrete by Thomas Bernhard

First published:Beton, 1982 (English translation, 1984)

Type of work: Philosophical novel

Time of work: The early 1980’s

Locale: Peiskam, an estate in Austria, and Palma, Canary Islands, Spain

Principal Characters:

• Rudolph, the narrator, a musicologist obsessed with writing a monograph about Felix Mendelssohn
• His Sister, a socialite
• Anna Hardtl, a young woman the narrator meets in Palma

The Novel

Like many of Thomas Bernhard’s novels, Concrete is written in the first person. It is a long, meandering monologue that has no paragraph breaks. The narrator, Rudolph, is an aging and sickly man who lives alone and is preoccupied with writing intellectual, scholarly treatises. He has tried to write essays on various musicians, philosophers, and writers such as Blaise Pascal, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Alban Berg. His great torment is that he can never complete his work. He has been struggling for ten years with an essay on the Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn but cannot put down the first sentence. Instead, he spends his time collecting materials and making notes. He is a gloomy and self-obsessed individual who harbors bad feelings against the society around him.

As the novel begins, he is railing against his sister, who, he claims, torments him and whose presence keeps him from writing. She comes to visit him and teases him about his presumed “work.” At the same time, he is very much dependent on her. When she invites him to visit her in Vienna, he begins a diatribe against the boredom and sameness of the place, Austria’s greatest city. He claims that the people, its culture, and “society” nauseate him. When he was a younger man, he had lived there and studied music. She continually taunts him about his failed writings. He ridicules her involvement in charity work, and he speaks vehemently against the Church. He also speaks against the Socialist government, which leads its people around by the nose. Then, he decides, with much hesitation, that he must travel to Palma, his favorite place to visit. He hopes that there he can begin work on his essay. His health is poor, and he is a resolute hypochondriac. Sitting in his favorite chair, he is devoted to morbid introspection and constantly berates himself while simultaneously blaming others.

He finally flies to Palma. There, he meets a young woman, Anna Hardtl, whose tragic story preoccupies him for the rest of the novel. She and her young husband were from a suburb of Munich, where they had opened an appliance store. The business had been plagued with numerous problems. They had taken a cheap vacation to Mallorca, where they had a nice room with a high balcony. She awoke early one morning to find a body on the ground below their balcony. Her husband was dead, and she was left alone with their child. The narrator does not finish his treatise, and when, several years later, he returns to Palma, he finds that the woman has committed suicide. He spends the next day in a state of heightened anxiety.

The Characters

The narrator of Concrete is typical of the protagonists in Bernhard’s novels. He is highly neurotic and unable to come to terms with himself and his existence; his alienation is suggested by the way in which, in the novel’s opening sentence, he refers to himself as if he were another person: “From March to December, writes Rudolph, while I was having to take large quantities of prednisolone....” His preoccupation with intellectual work suggests his entrapment within the confines of his own mind. His constant hesitation and his inability to complete any of his projects also indicate his estranged consciousness. Other Bernhard characters, such as Konrad in Das Kalkwerk (1970; The Lime Works, 1973), are obsessed with intellectual or scientific treatises, which they are unable to complete. They are, because of their acute intellects, indecisive human beings who cannot take a final and effectual step into the real world. Too much thought inhibits action. They fear and despise the hypocrisy and superficiality of everyday reality.

The narrator’s mocking sister represents the society of individuals for whom taking action can be simple and unproblematic. A society woman, she is clearly the polar opposite of the intellectual narrator. Their relationship is a sick and sadistic one of mutual dependence. They hate each other, but one cannot do without the other.

Like the sister, the unfortunate woman, Anna Hardtl, is not a fully developed character but is seen only through the narrator’s reflections. Her sad fate represents the despair and futility of life that the narrator sees all around him. Her story illustrates a deeply pessimistic view of existence.

Critical Context

The narrator of Bernhard’s Concrete continues in the same vein established in his previous narrative monologues such as Verstorung (1967; Gargoyles, 1970), The Lime Works, and Korrektur (1975; Correction, 1979). Like the narrator, the characters of the latter two works are obsessed with writing treatises that they can never complete or even begin. They are preoccupied with composing the definitive text in their fields, with finding the ultimate truth. This vision of existence is a bleak one in which torment and suffering seem to be the norm. Bernhard’s characters are all deranged by the horror of life. Yet these figures do not commit suicide; they all possess a spirit of resistance to the nihilism they see around them. The attempt to write a treatise or essay of some kind, to create meaning, is indicative of their efforts to resist the meaninglessness they perceive. This is a literary parallel to the spirit of Bernhard’s own writing. His novels are documents of a profound pessimism, and their composition is the attempt to resist that despair by transforming it into art. Unlike the efforts of his characters, his works are completed. The characters’ failed attempts are testimony to the author’s own obsession and struggle with his writing.

Concrete is part of a tradition of monologue narratives which includes works such as Dostoevski’s Notes from the Underground (1864) and Samuel Beckett’s trilogy Molloy (1951), Malone Dies (1951), and The Unnamable (1953). Like the Underground Man of Dostoevski’s novel, Bernhard’s narrator is an obsessive, neurotic intellectual who exists on the fringes of society, unable to participate. He harbors vindictive feelings toward everyone and everything. Both are tormented and crippled by their heightened awareness of their existence. The protagonists of Beckett’s novels are much the same: all caught within the confines of their minds and desperately seeking an exit where there is none. Dostoevski’s, Beckett’s, and Bernhard’s characters are typical representatives of modern existential literature, which details the dilemma and paradox of human consciousness in a universe that resists all efforts to give itself meaning.

Sources for Further Study

Bartsch, K., et al., eds. In Sachen Thomas Bernhard, 1983.

Book World. XIV, August 26, 1984, p. 7.

Booklist. LXXX, May 15, 1984, p. 1292.

Dierick, A.P. “Thomas Bernhard’s Austria: Neurosis, Symbol, or Expedient?” in Modern Austrian Literature. XII (1979), pp. 75-93.

Fetz, Gerhard. “The Works of Thomas Bernhard: Austrian Literature?” in Modern Austrian Literature. XVII, nos. 3/4 (1984), pp. 171-192.

Kirkus Reviews. LII, March 15, 1984, p. 261.

Library Journal. CIX, May 15, 1984, p. 994.

Los Angeles Times Book Review. June 17, 1984, p. 1.

Meyerhofer, Nicholas. Thomas Bernhard, 1985.

The New Republic. CXCI, August 13, 1984, p. 37.

New Statesman. CVII, April 6, 1984, p. 35.

The New York Times Book Review. LXXXIX, July 1, 1984, p. 9.

Publishers Weekly. CCXXV, April 6, 1984, p. 68.

Quill and Quire. L, October, 1984, p. 37.

Wolfschutz, Hans. “Thomas Bernhard: The Mask of Death,” in Modern Austrian Writing, 1980. Edited by A. Best and H. Wolfschutz.