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Old Masters

A Comedy

In this exuberantly satirical novel, the tutor Atzbacher has been summoned by his friend Reger to meet him in a Viennese museum. While Reger gazes at a Tintoretto portrait, Atzbacher—who fears Reger's plans to kill himself—gives us a portrait of the musicologist: his wisdom, his devotion to his wife, and his love-hate relationship with
art. With characteristically acerbic wit, Bernhard exposes the pretensions and aspirations of humanity in a novel at once pessimistic and strangely exhilarating.

"Bernhard's . . . most enjoyable novel."—Robert Craft, New York Review of Books.

"Bernhard is one of the masters of contemporary European fiction."—George Steiner

160 pages | 5-1/4 x 8 | © 1992

Phoenix Fiction

Fiction

Reviews

“Thomas Bernhard might be the perfect novelist for our moment . . . . Old Masters is Bernhard at his most tender, and at his most incisive.”

Ed Winstead | BOMB Magazine

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