"'You see,' said the painter, 'the brain is capable of nourishing itself on the inventions , the great inventions of little and lesser and infinitesimal dread ...it can make itself roar ...make itself a world, an original world, an ice age, a vast stone age of organization ...One proceeds from a very small and insignificant instance, from a little individual who falls into one's hands ...From the principle of some desecration, the justness of such desecration, into the desecration itself ...one leaves the victim lying there, one has snow fall on him, one has him decompose, dissolve, an an animal might dissolve that one once might have thought oneself to be ...Do you understand? Life is the purest, clearest, darkest, most crystalline form of hopelessness ...There is only one way to go, through the snow and ice into despair; past the adultery of reason.'" - pg 265

So the painter, Strauch, as you can tell, is really fun to be around and in this first novel by Bernhard you're around him a lot. He never goes away. His pain and suffering, his insanity, his desperate yearning for joy that can never exist, his sudden outbursts of miserable poetry, his disorganized mind - they never dissipate, come to a conclusion, enlighten or erupt. This is a novel of insistent suffering and the reader is left to find meaning wherever they can, amid the natural desolation of a snow covered village, Strauch wouldn't blame you if you decided there was nothing to find in the first place. The artfulness of this novel is captured in the nonsensical, poetic urge to go "past the adultery of reason." Unpacking that phrase is a waste of time, just as assessing a madman artist against the standards of medical norms is a waste of time, just as searching for meaning in the assessment of that student of medicine is a waste of time. It all amounts to no aims or conclusions. It exists in meaningless misery and deceptions layered with deceptions.

So, yeah, great book. Something to read the kids before bed. Bernhard's project came on strong and never let up. It is a difficult book, a painful book, and a necessary seedling for themes that resonate and develop throughout his career. Though this is Bernhard's first novel, I don't think it is the best place to start. In fact, I think this is a terrible place to start. I read Gargoyles first and it brought me here. I will likely read more of his work only because of the dialogue created between this and his other novels.