The Voice Imitator

\ The Voice Imitator\ \ \ \ By Thomas Bernhard\ \ \ University of Chicago Press\ \ \ \ Copyright © 2003\ \ \ University of Chicago\ All right reserved.\ \ ISBN: 0-226-04401-7\ \ \ \ \ \ Chapter One\ \ \ The Voice Imitator\ The Voice Imitator The voice imitator, who had been invited as the guest\ of the surgical society last evening, had declared himself-after being\ introduced in the Palais Pallavinci-willing to come with us to the\ Kahlenberg, where our house was always open to any artist whatsoever who\ wished to demonstrate his art there-not of course without a fee. We had\ asked the voice imitator, who hailed from Oxford in England but who had\ attended school in Landshut and had originally been a gunsmith in\ Berchtesgaden, not to repeat himself on the Kahlenberg but to present us\ something entirely different from what he had done in the surgical\ society; that is, to imitate quite different people from those he had\ imitated in the Palais Pallavinci, and he had promised to do this for us,\ for we had been enchanted with the program that he had presented in the\ Palais Pallavinci. In fact, the voice imitator did imitate voices of quite\ different people-all more or less well known-from those he had imitated\ before the surgical society. We were allowed to express our own wishes,\ which the voice imitator fulfilled most readily. When, however, at the\ very end, wesuggested that he imitate his own voice, he said he could not\ do that.\ * * *\ \ Pisa and Venice\ The mayors of Pisa and Venice had agreed to scandalize\ visitors to their cities, who had for centuries been equally charmed by\ Venice and Pisa, by secretly and overnight having the tower of Pisa moved\ to Venice and the campanile of Venice moved to Pisa and set up there. They\ could not, however, keep their plan a secret, and on the very night on\ which they were going to have the tower of Pisa moved to Venice and the\ campanile of Venice moved to Pisa they were committed to the lunatic\ asylum, the mayor of Pisa in the nature of things to the lunatic asylum in\ Venice and the mayor of Venice to the lunatic asylum in Pisa. The Italian\ authorities were able handle the affair in complete confidentiality.\ \ * * *\ \ The Tables Turned\ Even though I have always hated zoological gardens and\ actually find that my suspicions are aroused by people who visit\ zoological gardens, I still could not avoid going out to Schonbrunn on one\ occasion and, at the request of my companion, a professor of theology,\ standing in front of the monkeys' cage to look at the monkeys, which my\ companion fed with some food he had brought with him for the purpose. The\ professor of theology, an old friend of mine from the university, who had\ asked me to go to Schonbrunn with him had, as time went on, fed all the\ food he had brought with him to the monkeys, when suddenly the monkeys,\ for their part, scratched together all the food that had fallen to the\ ground and offered it to us through the bars. The professor of theology\ and I were so startled by the monkeys' sudden behavior that in a flash we\ turned on our heels and left Schonbrunn through the nearest exit.\ * * *\ \ Hotel Waldhaus\ We had no luck with the weather and the guests at our\ table were repellent in every respect. They even spoiled Nietzsche for us.\ Even after they had had a fatal car accident and had been laid out in the\ church in Sils, we still hated them.\ * * *\ \ Warning\ A businessman from Koblenz had made his life's dream come true by\ visiting the pyramids of Giza and was forced, after he had done visiting\ the pyramids, to describe his visit as the greatest disappointment of his\ life, which I understand, for I myself was in Egypt last year and was\ disappointed above all by the pyramids. However, whereas I very quickly\ overcame my disappointment, the Koblenz businessman, took vengeance for\ his disappointment by placing, for months on end, full-page advertisements\ in all the major newspapers in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, warning\ all future visitors to Egypt against the pyramids and especially against\ the pyramids of Cheops, which had disappointed him most deeply, more than\ all the others. The Koblenz businessman used up his resources in a very\ short time by these-as he called them-anti-Egypt and anti-pyramid\ advertisements and plunged himself into total penury. In the nature of\ things, his advertisements did not have the influence upon people that he\ had hoped for; on the contrary, the number of visitors to Egypt this year,\ as opposed to last year, has doubled.\ \ * * *\ \ True Love\ An Italian who owns a villa in Riva on Lake Garda and can live\ very comfortably on the interest from the estate his father left him has,\ according to a report in La Stampa, been living for the last twelve years\ with a mannequin. The inhabitants of Riva report that on mild evenings\ they have observed the Italian, who is said to have studied art history,\ boarding a glass-domed deluxe boat, which is moored not far from his home,\ with the mannequin to take a ride on the lake. Described years ago as\ incestuous in a reader's letter addressed to the newspaper published in\ Desencano, he had applied to the appropriate civil authorities for\ permission to marry his mannequin but was refused. The church too had\ denied him the right to marry his mannequin. In winter he regularly leaves\ Lake Garda in mid-December and goes with his beloved, whom he met in a\ Paris shop-window, to Sicily, where he regularly rents a room in the\ famous Hotel Timeo in Taormina to escape from the cold, which, all\ assertions to the contrary, gets unbearable on Lake Garda every year after\ mid-December.\ (Continues...)\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ Excerpted from The Voice Imitator\ by Thomas Bernhard\ Copyright © 2003\ by University of Chicago.\ Excerpted by permission.\ All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.\ \ \

Hamsun The Voice Imitator Character Assassination Fourati Brochure Pisa and Venice Fear One-Way Journey Inner Compulsion Speleologists In Lima Almost Example Charity Good Advice Prejudice Suspicion Exchange Early Train Beautiful View The Tables Turned Hotel Waldhaus Haumer the Logger In Earnest Too Much Prescription Disappointed Englishmen The Most Successful Concert Scientific Purposes Profound and Shallow Character Moosprugger's Mistake Mail Claim Comedy Warning Emigrated Unworldly At Their Mercy De Orio Photographers Schluemberger Discovery Mimosa A Famous Dancer Guilty Conscience Forgotten Piccadilly Circus Increased In the Frauengraben The Panthers Wrong Note The Auszugler The Milkmaid The Needlewoman The Loden Coat Papermakers Boundary Stone Two Brothers Natural Giant Natural History Question in the Provincial Parliament Two Notes Unrequited Love Party of Tourists True Love Impossible Feeling A Self-Willed Author Unfulfilled Wish Presence of Mind Supplemental Income Silo Famous No Soul The Prince Prince Potocki Lec The Royal Vault Contradiction Fruitfulness Coming to Terms Decision Civil Service After You Imagination Expedition Legacy Double Luck Political Science Consistency Near Sulden Perast Madness Care In Rome Withdrawn Like Robert Schumann Respect Genius 998 Times Returned

\ Thomas McGonigleThomas Bernhard is one of the indispensable writers of the 20th century. . . .He provides an overwhelming sense of intellectual and emotional exhilaration unmatched by any contemporary American author. —Los Angeles Times Book Review\ \ \ \ \ Ben MarcusIf you are foolish enough to think that things will all work out in the end, or if you look for the so-called silver lining in each "cloud," believing that there's a good side to everything, etc., etc., then steer clear of Thomas Bernhard's books -- and of this review. You'll only be offended, and it's time the rest of us had our turn. Those still reading can be assured that simperingly positive attitudes, blind faith, feel-good philosophy and deluded optimism -- all of which have become like a new form of oppressive American weather -- will never show up in the brutal darkness of Bernhard's work.And thank God for it.\ Best known as a novelist, Austrian Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989), who spent most of his life rehearsing his eventual death from lung disease, wrote what might well be termed the literature of bitterness: a credo based on thoroughly articulated misery. This newly translated collection is no exception, although it's the first chance for readers of English to see Bernhard at work in the short story form. Small doses of astonishing cruelty might be less forbidding to those readers previously intimidated by Bernhard's ranting, single-paragraphed novels, and they present a chance for the curious to sample facets of his mad voices, his mirthful pleasure in every form of disintegration.\ None of the stories here extend beyond a page, yet as the dust jacket warns, these 104 stories will amass "18 suicides, six painful deaths, one memory lapse, four disappearances, 20 surprises, three character attacks, five early deaths, 26 murders, 13 instances of lunacy, four cover-ups and two instances of libel." A big agenda for a small book, leaving no room for the traditional bother of plot and character development, putting these pieces more in line with Kafka's parables or the sketches of Elias Canetti. And keep in mind that many of the above-named delights -- the attacks, surprises, deaths and lunacy -- will erupt in the same story, while unlisted fascinations can be seen in such stories as the 47-word "Hotel Waldhaus":\ "We had no luck with the weather and the guests at our table were repellent in every respect. They even spoiled Nietzsche for us. Even after they had had a fatal car accident and had been laid out in the church in Sils, we still hated them."\ These are blistering anecdotes, negative distortions of news items, stories of severity that portray depths of hatred with a casual comic touch. They do not, thankfully, attempt dumb suddenness, in the style of this country's most predictable fiction writers, who fake revelation to make you think you just read a real story. At their least compelling, Bernhard's stories sound like scraps from abandoned novels, yet even his fragments, which should lead readers to his best books -- Correction and i>Woodcutters -- are hair-raisingly cynical screeds against the folly of living, fearlessly confronting the futility of anything so presumptuous as taking a breath. This book affirms the satisfaction, the truth, in thinking the worst. -- Salon\ \ \ \ Peter FilkinsPart diatribe, part black comedy and part philosophical investigation, the book strikes all the major themes in Bernhard's novels and plays. . .A highly artistic undertaking. -- The New York Times Book Review\ \ \ \ \ Thomas McGonigleThomas Bernhard is one of the indispensable writers of the 20th century. . . .He provides an overwhelming sense of intellectual and emotional exhilaration unmatched by any contemporary American author. -- Los Angeles Times Book Review\ \