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ing the end in both the action as described (stalling outside
the gates of the estate) and in the act of storytelling
itself (spinning variations of anecdotes and opinions).
Long says these delaying tactics are achieved through
“embedded narratives” and “retarding elements”. As a
successful doctoral candidate, ‘pleasure’ is not an issue
for him, but for those of us who turn to Bernhard for
this reason, it is interesting to note how these techniques
create an experience similar to the reading of
a thriller or detective novel. In those genres, pleasure
comes from the growth of mystery and suspense before
the inevitable denouement.
Extinction is similar in that one reads to find out what
happens next. However, the distinction is that the thriller
cannot reproduce the same pleasure on re-reading.
A new story is required every time. Extinction on the
other hand positively demands to be re-read in order
to enjoy that delay again and again. In fact it becomes
more enjoyable as we join with the narrator repeating
stories and opinions in order to delay our return to the
mundane world. Unfortunately for him, the delay has
more serious import for the narrator. For a time, we
feel more alive even if our noses are ‘buried in a book’.
This is the great problem and potential of storytelling.
Long’s analysis, which is richer and more complex than
I have space (or patience) to detail, manages to elucidate
Bernhard’s method and highlight his remarkable
technical achievement. One cannot go away from this
BUY Thomas Bernhard books online from and
book and still believe, as so many do, that Bernhard is
merely a ranting egoist. Those who already know better
will perhaps understand more clearly how Bernhard
maintained his high-wire act, though we would still
like to know more in physical detail.
In one brief insight to his working process, Honegger
quotes Bernhard as saying he wrote “with full commitment”;
his entire body took part in the creative process.
Perhaps this is why he preferred to call his novels
“prose texts” as this suggests a script for performance.
Indeed, Bernhard’s many plays are not greatly different
from the novels. It seems Bernhard himself felt most
alive when writing, like an actor on stage even at his
writing desk. Honegger observes that each work was a
reassertion of that early decision to live. Appropriately,
some way into Extinction, the narrator reflects on the
frustrated lives of those stuck in small-town provincial
misery from which he, the narrator, had escaped. He
says they fail to better themselves, to “get away from
their real selves” because “they lack the intellectual
energy, because they have not discovered the intellect
– the intellect around them or the intellect within them
– and have therefore not taken the first step, which is
the precondition for taking the second.”
So, we might assume that in writing, Bernhard got
away from his real self. But “full commitment” means
he did it with his mortal body as well as his intellect.
Despite his early escape from death, Bernhard was al-
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