‘Ja’ (‘Yes’) by Thomas Bernhard (Review)

Whenever I get around to drawing up a list of potential reads for German Literature Month, something by Thomas Bernhard is usually near the top of the list.  My first taste of the grumpy Austrian writer came in the 2013 GLM event, and I’ve gone back for more several times, including a rather memorable excursion to an art gallery the following year.  It’s only fitting, then that I’ve kept my latest Bernhard read for November, so let’s take a trip to the Austrian provinces, where we’ll go for a walk, meet new friends and scream in the face of existential angst – all in a day’s work for Tommy B. 😉

*****
Ja (Yes)* is a short novel told by a familiar Bernhardian narrator/alter-ego, a man with poor physical and mental health living in an old house he rebuilt somewhere in the Austrian countryside.  After a period of self-imposed seclusion, he finally leaves the house with the intention of unloading his woes on Moritz, an estate agent who leaves nearby and, in the absence of any real friends, acts as the narrator’s friendly ear.  In the course of this visit, though, this ‘discussion’ is interrupted by the arrival of die Schweizer (‘the Swiss couple’), clients of Moritz who recently bought a plot of land in the area, and the impromptu therapy session turns into a pleasant dinner for everyone involved instead.

Intrigued by the female half of the couple, a woman known only as die Perserin (‘the Persian woman’), our friend invites her for a walk in the woods for the following evening, an event that repeats itself often in the ensuing months.  The two have a lot in common, including a love of Schumann and Schopenhauer, which is a rare combination in this corner of the world.  However, the similarities they share also extend to their problems, and the more they talk, the more the narrator realises that he’s looking into a mirror of his own experiences, and doesn’t really like what he sees…

The main drift of Ja will be familiar to anyone who’s read Bernhard’s work, a story of a tortured intellectual, starting off with some navel-gazing before slowly widening the scope until he (and we along with him) sees what’s happening outside his usual blinkered gaze.  The novel features the usual tense yet meandering style, taking a long time to get anywhere despite the intensity of the journey.

Our poor narrator presents the usual problem of the thinking man and how he handles his drive to focus on his work, to the detriment of everything else:

Ja, ich hatte tatsächlich geglaubt, nur mit meiner Arbeit und also mit meiner wissenschaftlichen Arbeit allein, ohne einen einzigen Menschen existieren zu können, lange, sehr lange hatte ich das geglaubt, jahrelang, möglicherweise jahrzehntelang, bis zu dem Augenblick, in welchem ich eingesehen habe, daß kein Mensch ohne einen Menschen und nur mit seiner Arbeit allein existieren kann.
p.19 (Suhrkamp, 2018)

Yes, I had truly believed I was able, just with my work and with my scientific work alone, to exist without a single person, I believed that for a long, a very long time, for years, possibly for decades, right up until the moment in which I recognised that no person can exist without another person and only with their work. ***
(my translation)

Like many other Bernhardian protagonists, our friend has committed a fatal error with his (mistaken) belief that isolation will help his work, and health.  Instead, shutting himself away from the world only ends up stifling him, and slowly killing him.

The difference, the selling point if you will, of Ja is die Perserin, who represents that rare thing, a strong(ish) female character in Bernhard’s fiction.  While not as prominent as I would have expected from what I’d read about the book before starting it, she’s the second main figure here, and late in the novel we learn more about her life, and the decades spent at the side of her Swiss husband.  Having sacrificed her own plans, she devoted herself to supporting and pushing him, helping him reach great heights.  Only now, as her life nears its close, does she realise how futile it all was, pouring her heart out to her new friend on their walks.

There are, of course, a number of nods to other Bernhard works here.  The house the Swiss couple are building in a swampy meadow is a folly reminiscent of the unforgettable Cone from Korrektur, and the narrator’s own house may well be an autobiographical touch (c.f. Meine Preise).  Then there are the usual attacks on the writer’s homeland’s anti-intellectual atmosphere, along with the disdain shown at times for the minor characters: ambitious, money-hungry and shallow they may appear to the narrator, but they’re usually far happier than him…

Another often overlooked Bernhardian trait is his humour, and as dark and miserable as the book can become (and let’s be clear, there are some fairly sombre moments), the self-deprecating humour always brings us back.  Throughout the novel, a picture is drawn of a haughty, arrogant man, who nevertheless is keen for company; aloof, yet secretly desperate for gossip.  The way die Perserin unloads on the narrator makes him realise that perhaps he had the same effect on Moritz when he burst in with his own woes:

Ich habe sehr oft in meinem Leben die Grenze der Verrücktheit und auch des Wahnsinns überschritten, aber an diesem Nachmittag glaubte ich, nicht mehr zurückzukönnen.  Ich redete und redete und mißhandelte indem ich ununterbrochen auf ihn einredete, den Moritz auf die niederträchtigste Weise. (p.26)

In my life, I have frequently crossed the threshold of insanity, and also of madness, but on this afternoon, I thought I would not be able to cross back.  I talked and talked and mistreated Moritz, in the way I incessantly talked at him, in the basest of manners. ***

He’s so self-obsessed that only now does he see that perhaps Moritz didn’t appreciate his visit all that much…

In the end, though, just as was the case with mid 1990s R.E.M. songs, yes, kids, it’s another one about death:

Wie ich, auf meinem Eckplatz im moritzchen Leitzordnerzimmer, gesessen war an dem Nachmittag, an welchem die Schweizer aufgetaucht waren, hatte ich in Betrachtung und in Beobachtung der Schweizer diesen Gedanken gehabt.  Alle diese Menschen, gleich wer sie sind, sind von diesem Vorgang, sich von dem in jedem Falle bevorstehenden Tode abzulenken, beherrscht, hatte ich gedacht.  Alles an allen Menschen ist nichts als Ablenkung vom Tode. (p.81)

As I sat, in my corner seat in Moritz’s home office, on the afternoon on which the Swiss couple had shown up, while considering and observing the Swiss couple I had the following thought.  All these people, no matter who they are, are dominated by the need to distract themselves from their, in every case, inevitable death, I thought.  Everything about every person is nothing but a distraction from death. ***

Ja sees Tommy B. as cheerful as ever, counting down the days until his torture is over.  The new playmate does provide a temporary second wind, allowing the grumpy recluse to read and write again, but you can rest assured that this reprieve will be fleeting.

All in all, Ja makes for another enjoyable ramble with the Austrian writer, a man whose company is always fun for a couple of hours, even if it’s best not to get too attached for fear of being infected by his isolationist tendencies…

…and that’s where I’ll leave you today.  You see, it’s finally stopped raining after days of miserable weather here in Melbourne, which means that I think it’s time for a walk – see you next time 🙂

* Ja is available in English as Yes, in Ewald Oser’s translation, from the University of Chicago Press.