Ten New Thomas Bernhards
(New Thomas Bernhards, I mean, in the same way that singer-songwriters were once billed as “new Bob Dylans.” It’s a not-uncommonly-held view—and one I probably share—that Bernhard is one of the most powerful influences on contemporary literary fiction. The people who admire him seem to absorb him into their bloodstream. Anyway, my judgements here are mostly instinctual, but I think the boldest qualities I perceive in both Bernhard and the writers he’s influenced are the long breaths of their prose, along with an inwardness, an obsessiveness, a certain astringency in the way they view the world. I’ve arranged these writers in something like their birth order, adding what I consider to be their most Bernhardian title in parentheses. It is, I can’t help but notice, a very male list.)
Peter Handke (A Sorrow Beyond Dreams)
Enrique Vila-Matas (Mac’s Problem)
Geoff Dyer (Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D. H. Lawrence)
Stig Sæterbakken (Invisible Hands)
Éric Chevillard (Demolishing Nisard)
Ben Marcus (Notable American Women)
Tom McCarthy (Remainder)
Adam Ehrlich Sachs (The Organs of Sense)
Bennett Sims (A Questionable Shape)
Sam Riviere (Dead Souls)
— January 10, 2022