''Woodcutters'' (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

title: ''Holzfällen'') is a novel by

Thomas Bernhard Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilizat ...

, originally published in German in 1984. A ''

roman à clef ''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship be ...

'', its subject is the theatre and it forms the second part of a trilogy, between ''The Loser'' (1983) and ''Old Masters'' (1985) which deal with music and painting respectively. Its publication created an uproar in Austria, where it became a bestseller before a defamation lawsuit by the composer resulted in a court order to pulp the remaining copies; Lampersberg, a former friend of Bernhard's and the model for the character Auersberger, subsequently dropped the suit. In his ''

Western Canon The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, ...

'' of 1994, American literary critic

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...

lists ''Woodcutters'' as Bernhard’s masterpiece.

Plot summary

It’s 11:30 at night in an aristocratic

Viennese Viennese may refer to: * Vienna, the capital of Austria * Viennese people, List of people from Vienna * Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna * Music of Vienna, musical styles in the city * Viennese Waltz, genre of ballroom dance * V ...

home in the 1980s. A group of people are awaiting the arrival of a famous

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

tic

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

from the Burgtheater, the guest of honor, who is coming from a performance of Ibsen’s ''

The Wild Duck ''The Wild Duck'' (original Norwegian title: ''Vildanden'') is an 1884 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is considered the first modern masterpiece in the genre of tragicomedy. ''The Wild Duck'' and ''Rosmersholm'' are "often ...

.'' The place is that of the Auersbergers, a married couple whom the narrator hasn’t seen for twenty years: she’s a singer, he’s a "composer in the Webern tradition". While sitting in an arm-chair, and later at the dinner table when the actor arrives, the narrator observes the crowd around him, reliving the last two decades, his connections and ties with the various guests, and particularly his relationship with a woman, Joana, who had committed suicide and been buried earlier that day. Eventually, the

begins an aggressive rant at one of the guests, Billroth, a self-styled "

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

" of Vienna and the narrator's fierce literary rival. He then becomes sad and reflective and laments that he often believes he would have been better off to have lived a rural life and to have been a woodcutter. When the actor lashes out at Billroth, the narrator momentarily turns from derogatory to sympathetic, having previously condemned the Burgtheater actor as vapid and self-centered. The novel ends as the guests disperse, with the narrator leaving the dinner and deciding to write about it.

Epigraph

The epigraph of the novel is a quote from

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...

: :''Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them.''

Translations

* The novel was translated into

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

by David McLintock as ''Woodcutters'' in 1987; and by

Ewald Osers Ewald Osers (13 May 1917 – 11 October 2011) was a Czech translator and poet born in Prague, Austria-Hungary. Career He translated several important Czech poetry works of the 20th century into English, including Jaroslav Seifert, Vítězsla ...

in 1988 under the title ''Cutting Timber: An Irritation.'' *The book is translated into Georgian language as ''ტყის ჩეხა'', by Maia Panjikidze.ბერნჰარდი, თ. (2020). ''ტყის ჩეხა''. თბილისი: ბაკურ სულაკაურის გამომცემლობა. *The novel was translated into Spanish language as "Tala" by Miguel Sáenz in 1988.

References

External links

''Bernhardiana'', a Critical Anthology of Bernhard's works
(''

Boston Review ''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...

'', 2001)
"An Introduction to Thomas Bernhard", by Thomas Cousineau
(2001)
''The Novels of Thomas Bernhard'' by J.J. Long
(2001)

{{Authority control 1984 novels Novels by Thomas Bernhard Alfred A. Knopf books Suhrkamp Verlag books 20th-century Austrian novels Novels set in Vienna