I find his work to be exceptionally unique, like a perfect mix of Dostoevsky and Kafka, who are some of my favorite authors alongside Bernhard. I have read the majority of Bernhard’s work and in an effort to preserve what’s left a little while longer I’ve been finding myself wondering what other authors would suit this niche I like. I searched other reddit threads and seen names like Sebald and Krasznahorkai pop up several times and while they are very fine authors, I don’t find the same strengths in the works I’ve read of theirs that I found in Bernhard.
What I most like about his work is the deeply acidic tone of his narrators, the heavy use of irony and the long reflection on philosophical ideas and art.
While every artist is unique surely there must exist other authors with similar pros.
by ALittleFishNamedOzil
1 Comment
All that comes to mind as being stylistically similar is Samuel Beckett’s trilogy (if you want more book long paragraphs) and Ingeborg Bachmann’s “Malina” (a close friend and mentor to Bernhard). Regarding bitter and acidic writers, Elfriede Jelinek and Louis-Ferdinand Céline probably rank alongside Bernhard.