Three-Part Inventions

by Cousineau, Thomas J.

• ISBN13: 9780874130188
• ISBN10: 0874130182
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-06-30
• Publisher: Univ of Delaware Pr

Summary

The epigraph to Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard's masterpiece, a novel entitled"Correction, reads: 'A body needs at least three points of support, not in a straight line, to fix its position'. Three-Part Inventions finds in this simple geometrical axiom a surprisingly complex key to an understanding of Bernhard's major novels, beginning with his first 'fugal' novel, The Lime Works, and ending with the posthumously published Extinction. It argues that each of them, although firmly anchored in Austrian history, emerges from an archetypal story involving a trio of figures: a protagonist who, having been deprived of a desired object by a more powerful adversary, displaces his frustration on a scapegoat who suffers in his place. It further shows that Bernhard transforms this destructive protagonist-adversary-scapegoat pattern into a creative trio formed by the author himself, the artistic precursors who serve as his models, and the readers who receive the finished work.

Author Biography

Thomas Cousineau is Professor of English at Washington College in Maryland.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 11
Acknowledgments	p. 15
The Making of a Writer	p. 19
Fugal Beginnings in The Lime Works	p. 46
Genetic Mutations in Correction	p. 62
Becoming Bach in The Loser	p. 80
All Vienna's a Stage in Woodcutters	p. 101
Owning Tintoretto in Old Masters	p. 124
The Three-Personed Guide in Extinction	p. 143
Afterword	p. 165
Notes	p. 171
References	p. 173
Index	p. 179
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