“The writer is always devoid of shame. Only a person who has no shame is qualified to take hold of sentences and bring them out and throw them down. Only the most shameless writer is authentic. But that too is a delusion, like everything else.”
Bernhard, Evidence 303
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If “EVERYTHING is a delusion,” that suggests to me that there is a strong possibility that nothing is a delusion or, at a minimum, that “delusion,” as used by Bernhard, has become a meaningless term . (I guess Bernhard and I wouldn’t agree about much. I hate hair-splitters, but I think Bernhard is waaay too broad in his pronouncements. )
Shameless Phil
he overstates everything on purpose. His ultimate aim is satire, Swiftian, comprehensive. By condemning everything in one way or another, going to extremes,
he manages to get back to the real value at hand—keeping on with life and writing and whatever all else anyone uses to keep going. He gets in the end into a fine comic vision of everything, all paradoxes canceling one another out and onward and upward.
Fair enough. But if, as you suggest, you had to read a half dozen or more books by and about Bernhard in order to finally understand his satire and voice, is he, then, a successful artist? Perhaps he is. Obviously he interests a fair amount of people. But personally, I remain a tad sceptical of any artist who requires that much attention to get his point across successfully.