Thomas Bernhard: Una biografía

by Miguel Sáenz

Artista de la exageración, maestro de la nada, monómano incorregible, moralista, aguafiestas, vulnerable, depresivo, sensible, alegre, satírico, contradictorio..., la lista de epítetos que, en algún momento, se ha aplicado a Thomas Bernhard llenaría varias páginas. Y todos ellos le convenían. Sin embargo, la figura de Thomas Bernhard sigue agigantándose después de su muerte y es ya indiscutible que se trata de uno de los grandes escritores del siglo XX. Pero, curiosamente, su vida presenta todavía abundantes zonas de sombra, sobre todo desde que la crítica reparó en que sus así llamados libros autobiográficos eran tan literarios y ficticios como cualquiera de sus novelas. Thomas Bernhard. Una biografía, escrita por Miguel Sáenz, traductor al castellano de su obra y uno de los primeros y más profundos conocedores de Bernhard, pretende trazar un retrato de éste lo más completo posible ;destacando aspectos hasta ahora inéditos, como el de sus relaciones con España;. Bernhard, considerado en un principio como escritor eminentemente maldito, objeto de culto para iniciados, después como un satírico y, finalmente, como un verdadero humanista, se ha convertido en el escritor nacional austríaco... Algo que él hubiera rechazado con todas sus fuerzas.

Genres: Biography

263 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2004

About the author

Principal traductor del alemán en español, ha traducido la obra de escritores de esa lengua como Thomas Bernhard, Günter Grass, Bertold Brecht o Franz Kafka entre otros. Además también es traductor de inglés, profesor de traducción, general en la reserva y, cómo experto en derecho, también es jurista en el Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aerospacial y Fiscal de la Sala Quinta del Tribunal Supremo.

Desde Noviembre de 2012, además de ser miembro de la Academia Alemana, también ocupa el sillón "B" de la RAE española.

Reviews

[Vendedor de rápida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuando Miguel Sáenz público esta biografía de Bernhard quizás no hubiera ninguna otra en castellano. Su autor es también traductor del escritor austriaco y eso permite conocerlo de una manera muy particular, quizás más en sus pensamientos que en sus acciones. Aunque Sáenz se documenta bastante, es su lectura de las obras de Bernhard donde encuentra el material vital que luego ordena por temas. El biógrafo no renuncia a relatar las miserias, contradicciones y limitaciones, lo que hace mucho más creíble su admiración

[Raúl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imprescindible para todo Bernhardiano. Sobre todo, porque Sáenz era traductor de Bernhard. Quizá sea la mejor biografía publicada en España sobre Bernhard.

[Valentín Serrano García · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leer a Bernhard se torna más significativo y enigmático después de masticar este ensayo.

Imprescindibles para bernhardianos

[julucha · Rating 3 out of 5]

[1996] Mi reconocimiento a Miguel Sáez, nuestro traductor titular del idioma alemán. Te da la bio del terrible austriaco y te da las contradicciones de su personaje con una honestidad exquisita.

[Francisca · Rating 4 out of 5]

🖤🥀

[ariastoteless · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,25/5. No aporta mucho pero leer sobre Berni es leer sobre un Genio. Un Genio loco, para ser exactos.

[Axel Ainglish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surely the best biography I've read about the singular, even weird, author Bernhard was. He may not catch you, but if he does, he is a fascinating and unique one. Very different to any other. Liked specially The Looser and his short stories, not to forget his excellent autobiographical novels as The Origin, The Cave, The Cold and another one. The Wittgenstein nephew is another good book of his. I would recommend you to start with this short one. This obsessive and obsessed Austrian writer had a deep sense of humour, too. His technique in writing consist in long monologues about what he observes and thinks about the others in the plot. He reiterates what he thinks and states, never afraid of insisting or overexplain himself as the action advances. For it's part of the always obsessive style and matter. His dark tales of sickness, suicide, death and failure remain in one's brain as pictures hanged in a wall. It's exaggerated matters are really important, and there, in its exagération lies his black humour, his lucidity and his strong protest against his own society, too. Nothing explains what really happened to Bernhard to develop such a protesting character as his, such fearful critic to Austrians as he became. He never knew his father, that's a fact. He suffered from tuberculosis, that's another one. His mother never seemed to love him much. Instead his anarchist dilettante writer did, and became a substitute of his unknown father. And the only one who seems to have valued and loved him as a child. Truth he knew a bit a sort of Nazi leftovers education that may partially explain his rebel kind of character. But many others of his generation passed through that also, and did not become such a strong contender to any and every Austrian Government, as he became afterwards. It is funny to observe, that the more critical he went against Austrian society and whatever government in power, the more theater or literature prices they gave him. He then decided not to accept any, no matter how much money those prices would imply. And kept on with his terrible critics. Apart what said, there was nothing neither in his life that could explain the suffering degrees that his characters all time have to bear with. He had chronified tuberculosis, yes, but you see him in photos and places where he travelled to, you see him in his not so many allowed interviews, and he doesn't seem at all a suffering or depressed man. Instead, he was a kind of dandy, apparently. Kind, too. There are other misteries this biography tries to solve. His lack of sexuality is one of them. There are no female affairs in Bernhard live. He had just a friend, a woman older than him, but no sex there. The search of his Bibliothèque, from where his clever quotes were supposed to come from, this one, yes, is a solved mistery this book deals well with. As a whole, an interesting story of a weird writer. As interesting as his works.