Chop wood

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Chop wood. A Excitement is a novel by Thomas Bernhard , published in 1984 , which is about a Viennese evening party, which the first-person narrator , an unmistakable alter ego of Bernhard, comments on a wing chair in a monologue.

content

The Auersbergers organize an “artistic dinner” and invite friends, acquaintances and a castle actor to it . Society is entertaining, only the first-person narrator is bored. The castle actor is a long time coming, and society is getting increasingly drunk. On the wing chair, the narrator reflects on his motives, which seem increasingly inferior to him, for actually accepting the invitation of the Auersberger couple, and notices that he has nothing but disgust for the people of this society, most of whom he has not seen for years feels. The boredom changes with increasing hour to more and more excessive inner excitement, which ultimately leads to an abrupt departure.

Style and execution

As usual in Thomas Bernhard's works, also lives Holzfällen his from the typical monologue statements protagonists . The thoughts of the first-person narrator are described on approx. 320 pages, and with each repetition his aversion to this society increases. The formal appearance of the text is also remarkable: the content is already outlined on the first page, the remaining text does not have to be divided into chapters or paragraphs.

The title of the work comes from a statement made by the actor from the castle - late at night, in a drunk state - in which he asserts the value that untouched nature has for him and how much he would like to be part of it. Grotesquely enough, he ends his speech with the words “Wald, Hochwald, Holzfälle”, which for a short time make the first-person narrator almost feel sympathy for the actor.

interpretation

The literary scholar and director Kay Link provided a comprehensive presentation of the artificiality and the theatrically charged atmosphere of the story Holzfalls in his book Die Welt als Theater - Kunstlichkeit und Künstlertum with Thomas Bernhard . After clarifying what Bernhard understands by nature, art and artificiality, Link shows all theater elements (actors, spectators, lighting, costumes, props, etc.) in Bernhard's oeuvre based on woodcuts . One of the findings of the study is that his prose appears much more dramatic than Bernhard's dramatic works. Finally, Link finds a prime example of Bernhard's idea of ​​life in wood cases. "Ultimately, it's less about Bernhard's concept of theater than about his idea of ​​life: life as theater."

motto

Bernhard puts the following quote in front of his work:

"Since I wasn't able to make people more sensible, I preferred to be happy away from them."

- Voltaire

The staff of the novel

The figures described in the work are based on the following real people:

  • the composer, the "Auersberg" = Gerhard Lampersberg (1928–2002)
  • the singer, the "Auersbergerische" = Maja Lampersberg , b. Weis-Ostborn (1919-2004)
  • the castle actor = Walther Reyer (1922–1999)
  • the choreographer Joana = Joana Thul , b. as Elfriede Slukal (1922–1976)
  • her husband, the tapestry artist Fritz = Fritz Riedl (1923–2012)
  • the poet Jeannie Billroth = Jeannie Ebner , married. Allinger (1918-2004)
  • her husband: The "Ernstl": the chemist Ernst Allinger
  • the poet Anna Schreker = Friederike Mayröcker (* 1924)
  • her friend, the "poetic partner" = Ernst Jandl (1925–2000)

publication

The publication of logging caused a scandal that drove sales of the book in the air, not least because a friend and former friend of Bernard, the Austrian composer Gerhard Lampersberg , thought he recognized Auersberger in the figure of the Lord and defamation lawsuit filed . The verdict of the subsequent trial ordered the confiscation of the printed copies. Surprisingly, however, Lampersberg withdrew the lawsuit a short time later. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , an out-of-court settlement is said to have been reached. In Zeit-Magazin , Lampersberg said before:

“He's a totally lonely person, almost like an outcast person. His reaction, everything he writes, is that of an outcast. I am the opposite. I'm in the middle of it. [...] I find that hilarious, in reality I just have to laugh anyway. "

Along with Heldenplatz, Holzfalls is one of the most scandalous works by the Austrian author.

Stage version

In 2014, the Teatr Polski we Wrocławiu , the Polish Theater in Wroclaw, presented a stage version of the prose text.

literature

  • Thomas Bernhard: Felling wood. An excitement . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1984, ISBN 3-518-39688-9 .
  • Jens Dittmar (ed.): Thomas Bernhard work history . 2nd edition, updated new edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1990, ISBN 3-518-38502-X .
  • Hans Höller: Thomas Bernhard . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-499-50504-5 .
  • Kay Link : The world as theater - artificiality and artistry with Thomas Bernhard . Akademischer Verlag Stuttgart, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-88099-387-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Link p. 45
  2. ↑ Polskie Radio : Kogo Krystian Lupa uśmierca w "Wycince"? , October 29, 2014, accessed on September 3, 2016. (Polish)

Web links