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  • Published: 2 August 2010
  • ISBN: 9780141956251
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256

Old Masters

A Comedy





'I hate walking, he says, it seems so pointless to me. I walk, and while I am walking I keep thinking how I hate walking'

Old Masters (1985) is Thomas Bernhard's devilishly funny story about the friendship between two old men. For over thirty years Reger, a music critic, has sat on the same bench in front of a Tintoretto painting in a Viennese museum, thinking and railing against contemporary society, his fellow men, artists, the weather, even the state of public lavatories. His friend Atzbacher has been summoned to meet him, and through his eyes we learn more about Reger - the tragic death of his wife, his thoughts of suicide and, eventually, the true purpose of their appointment. At once pessimistic and exuberant, rancorous and hilarious, Old Masters is a richly satirical portrait of culture, genius, nationhood, class, the value of art and the pretensions of humanity.

  • Published: 2 August 2010
  • ISBN: 9780141956251
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256

About the author

Thomas Bernhard

Thomas Bernhard was born in Holland in 1931 but grew up in Austria. His interest in music and theatre led him to study at the Akademie Mozarteum in Salzburg. He has written a quantity of poetry, several novels, short stories and plays and three volumes of autobiography. He died in 1989.

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Praise for Old Masters

Bernhard is one of the masters of contemporary European fiction

George Steiner
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