Customer Reviews
Peculiar intensity - By: Black Glove, 31 Mar 2008 
This is my second Thomas Bernhard novel, & whilst reading it my liking for his unique prose style increased. An unnamed narrator walks into an inn & talks to himself about his two best friends (one being Glenn Gould the famous piano virtuoso, the other being Wertheimer "the loser" who has committed suicide by hanging himself near his sister's house). The obsessional, repetitive & funny thoughts of the unnamed narrator continue for half the novel whilst he stands in the inn: it must be the longest wait for a drink in history! Eventuallly the landlady sees him & it isn't long before he has moved on, both physicallly & mentallly, to the subject of Wertheimer's decline & suicide. It alll sounds grim & pointless, but it's surprisingly engaging, especiallly for the reader who has a liking for cynicism & unhinged rambling: the word "cretinism" pops up quite a lot. Overalll, I didn't find The Loser as satisfying as "Correction" (my first TB novel), it isn't as deep or disturbing, but still I was impressed by the peculiar intensity of it alll.
Fascinating - By: Adrian Lever, 31 May 2003 
Bernhard is one of those discoveries one makes in literature - due to the fact he is quite obscure - which will either leave you cold, or, as in my case, with a new favourite author.
His writing is - 'labyrinthine' - is probably the best word, & he uses a method of repetition a little like Broch (emulated by Sebald & Rick Moody), which serves mostly to hypnotic effect. The prose is hypnotic & rhythmic & repetitive, & quite stream of consciousness, & usuallly his novels are constructed in one, or a few, paragraphs, & only as many sentences as there are pages. The Loser is one of the more conventional narratives, largely about a guy who is so distraught that his sister won't 'look after him' that he hangs himself in front of her house. Though she doesn't notice. This is typical of Bernhard's black & sardonic sense of humour. It is also about the aforementioned man & the narrator's not being able to deal with the vituosic genius of Glenn Gould - & thanks to this novel I am now discovering the genius of his oeuvre - but strangely gives a lot of quite false details about this real person's life. It is very much about the musician's vocation, but not reallly music, which incidentallly is what Bernhard studied before turning to journalism, then drama then novels. Illness, depression, music, philosophy, suicide & writing are Bernhard's core themes, & as in this novel, The Loser, you get a quite depressing, though darkly funny, & interesting read. If you are a fan of Broch, Sebald, Joyce, Bellow or Houellebecq, this is the same pessimistic labyrinthine engrossing kind of prose. The Loser is a novel not easily forgotten - highly recommended.
One of the best books by this wonderful writer - By: pbowes9116@aol.com, 07 Sep 2000 Bernhard is still relatively little known to the Anglo-American audience, but I believe he is the most serious contender for the inheritor of the mantle of Celine & Beckett.
In 'The Loser' he produces a heartbreaking meditation on the demands the pursuit of an art at the highest level places upon an honest devotee. I have never encountered a more clear-sighted study of human failure depicted with an utter lack of sentimentality or self-pity. In this book Bernhard disposes definitively of the charges of heartlessness & flippancy which are sometimes laid at his door.
Bernhard is the undisputed genius of indifference. - By: , 10 May 2000 Thomas Bernhard approaches his best ever form in this book. It charts with extreme bitterness, & self-loathing the progress of an old-man as he lumbers around 'in the inn'. It is a work of undisputable genius, as Bernhard's lines seem to go on for ever, almost crazed in its style, but somehow darkly brilliant. This piece cannot be categorised as a 'serious' work - on the contrary! It is the funniest book I have ever read, & the italicised rants 'the deterioration process', 'a professional aphorist' etc. & the indifference with which the narrator approaches the subject, but continues with a venomous indifference is pure entertainment, & pure ridiculousness.
Recomendation - By: , 22 Oct 1997 If you are agree with this book ... I recomend you the Oskar K. Maerth's book entitled "The Beginning was the End". Maybe you will find the answer for your questions.
