STEVE DOWDEN
625
Decline is Bernhard's pervasive theme, and Austrian decline in par–
ticular. Sometimes it is obliquely expressed in attacks on symbolic institu–
tions, as in the above example, and sometimes he attacks directly.
Bernhard did not hesitate to turn his verbal wrath against the government,
its officials, or various other Austrian dignitaries and celebrities. Libel suits
were a part of his daily life. He was an unrelenting critic of a homeland
that he showed no interest in improving. In marked contrast to his
German counterparts, Bernhard was not an advocate of reform. Writers
along the order of Gunter Grass or Christa Wolf, to name but two
champions of progress through reasoned critique, make large social and
political claims for fiction and drama. They are genuine reformers,
"Weltverbesserer," a species of writer with whom Bernhard felt no par–
ticular solidarity. Nevertheless, there is good reason to believe that
Thomas Bernhard's fiction is probing, revealing, and fundamentally right–
headed in its attitude toward Austria and the Austrians. But he must be
understood as a satirist in the tradition of Jonathan Swift, who likewise
felt little sympathy for his own countrymen. The two writers share a
deeply held, uncompromisingly moralistic approach to fiction. In
Bernhard's case it can be demonstrated most easily in his last major piece
of fiction, yet to appear in English translation,
Ausloschung (Obliteration),
published in 1986.
Ausloschung
pulls together and makes explicit themes merely symbolic
in other books. It is characteristic for Bernhard to symbolize Austria as the
family of the chief protagonist. In
AlIslOschung
the family is that of Franz–
Josef Murau, an expatriate Austrian bachelor living in Rome. The Murau
clan resides on its ancient estate, Wolfsegg, which since the end of the
monarchy, but especially since the end of the Second World War, has
been falling into decay. The principle agent of its decline, according to
Franz-Josef, is his mother. The awful mother is another of Bernhard's
stock figures. In
Frost
she is the slovenly landlady; in
Correction
she is the
low-minded and brutal daughter of the village butcher, mother of the
protagonist Roithamer; in
Ausloschung
she is a similarly dim-witted, grasp–
ing female responsible for tainting the bloodline of the family with her
despicable character traits. Bernhard links her directly to the Nazis - she
was a sympathizer during and after the war, though mainly she is an op–
portunist who will sway with the powers that be. By portraying her as a
reactionary who never left Nazi thought behind her, Bernhard retrospec–
tively clarifies the significance of a whole series of similar characters. The
"tainted bloodline" metaphor recurs frequently in Bernhard's fiction and
drama. It is often linked to incest, as in
The Lime Works
and
The Eve oj
Retiremeltt.
Its significance is plain: the Nazi era, Austria's unwholesome
union with Hitler's Germany, has meant the degradation and even oblit-
