274
PARTISAN REVIEW
corresponding resonances, a few others make this point abundantly
clear. In describing the purposely deceptive landscaping of the grounds
around the Limeworks
to
increase its inaccessibility, Bernhard writes,
"The actual thing is always actually different, the precise opposite of
what it actually is."
Korrektur
ends with the speculation by Roit–
hamer, on his last train ride from London back
to
Austria: "All he had
written about Altensam (his home village), and everyone there, was
different, other, than he had described it." And from
Verstorung:
"Probably everything that I think is different from what I think it to be,
I thought."
Or again, the themes of solitude and ruthlessness in the pursuit of
one's goal: ruthlessness toward all human beings but especially toward
oneself is the
sine qua non
of all creative work. Madness is the dog
barking at one's door, but until one has finished the job, one must close
one's ears
to
it.
"It
is enough to drive one crazy," says the hero of
Kalkwerk,
"but I will not allow myself to go crazy." And, just a page
earlier, "One must be willing
to
commit any monstrosity, any crime
even, in order to achieve one's aim. Without ruthlessness, nothing."
Similarly, in
Korrektur:
"Then we awake and see that we have achieved
what we set out
to
achieve, because we were uncompromising, and
above all, uncompromising toward ourselves."
All the rooms of all the plays and all the novels, regardless of size
or shape, are in effect prison chambers. Some are self-imposed confines;
others not.
But it is the way in which motifs are worked and reworked that
demonstrates Bernhard's growing artistry and its consummation in
Korrektur.
Earlier we noted his description, in connection with
The
Italian,
of his way to school, already then regarded by him as being of
the greatest significance for his later life. In
Korrektur,
we see this
theme elaborated on; the dark foreboding landscape of the rock caverns
and narrow river bed of the great woods give mythic shape
to
the
hidden treacheries and
I
uminous terrors of that childhood path.
The form of the fugue was derived from the earlier "ricercar,"
"to
seek again." Each new book of Bernhard's should be read with this in
mind.
In his thought-provoking essay on Handke in
The Making of
Modern Drama,
Richard Gilman shows how Handke uses dramatic
conventions and traditions against themselves "in a judo-like action"
and wins. Similarly, in an article on Kroetz
(Partisan Review
#3, 1976),
Gilman shows how
that
young man, equally deploring the conven–
tions of the theater, follows in the venerable tradition of Pirandello,
