5 comments about The Loser: A Novel (Phoenix Fiction Series).

1. Read about Thomas Bernhard from an article on Susan Sontag. She was effusive about his work.
   
   The Loser is a meditation on the plight of the genius and his pursuit of artistic perfection. It's a dense novel--be prepared to trudge through a non-linear narrative and condensed prose. Indeed, as the translator points out, Bernhard doesn't use the language in a conventional way. His sentences are extended, complex, and the verb tenses are rarely in agreement. His narrator reminisces incidents from the past based on fragments of thoughts, freely skipping from one event to another, and often recounting an event numerous times.
   
   The Loser in the novel refers to Wertheimer. Both the narrator and Wertheimer were promising classical pianists before they met Elliot Gould in a seminar with Horowitz. Gould's sublime rendition of Bach's Goldberg Variations ended any illusion about their musical talent--not that they're without talent, but they fall short of the defining quality of a genius. For them, they're either the best or they're nothing.
   
   The narrator survives the trauma by building a wall of indifference around him. He gives away his Steinway piano to a girl student without talent and writes thesis and books that have no literary nor scholarly worth. Wertheimer can't deal with living under the shadow of Gould and takes a more drastic way out.
   
   Much of the most illuminating thoughts of the novel are couched in aphorisms. This is a reflection of Wertheimer's ultimate talent--he's a genius of aphorisms and not sustained argument. Wertheimer is supposedly based on Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose best works are extended aphorisms. Be patient with the novel and one or more of these aphorisms would strike you with a truth that holds you breathless.



2. apparently other people think like me! this novel is a witty stream of counciousness writing that happily mimicks the things that run through my head, only in someone else's life. taken without the political context, it is an amusing way to spend a couple of hours, if you are interested enough to spend a moment getting the actual context of the book, it is a steller and intelligent snub. i was pleasantly entertained.



3. I read through the first 90-100 pages of Thomas Bernhard's "The Loser" in one sitting. I enjoyed it that much. However, the second half of the novel was much harder for me to get through. "The Loser" is written as an unbroken, 170 page paragraph in monologue style told by a fictional student of piano virtuoso Glenn Gould about how Gould's greatness drove him and his friend, Wertheimer, to abandon their pursuit of the piano since they believed that they would never attain the greatness of their teacher and friend. The prose is dark, dismal, pessimistic and depressing. But the prose is also quite humorous. The first half of the novel is absolutely wonderful, but somehow, I could not easily navigate my way through the second half. The style of the novel changed from engaging to trying. Just getting through the prose seemed like an impossible task. The style of this novel is innovative and very interesting, but somehow, I could not stay engaged through the whole thing. Bernhard's rambling would have been far more easily tolerable in a shorter novel. The book is an interesting exploration of genius, obsession and greatness, but if you're like me, you may think that after 90 pages you've gotten the point and had enough.



4. 
   
   
   Open to the first page, take a deep breath, and begin reading--if you do it just right, it'll be hard to stop until you reach the end of this extraordinary 170-page diatribe of envy, spite, self-loathing, and misanthropy that plumbs the depth of the narrator's all-inclusive contempt for life and practically everyone living it, including himself. We're talking a novel that is one uninterrupted paragraph from beginning to end, spoken by one character, who's not very reliable, and quite possibly entirely demented. It's as if one of the more troubled heroes of a Dostoyevsky novel escaped to deliver a monologue written by Samuel Beckett. That'll give you an approximate idea of the style of *The Loser,* which is definitely not for everyone, the novel being more about the labyrinthine workings of an obsessed mind than it is about the ostensible events of the so-called "plot." This plot--the intertwined fate of three young musicians, one of whom happens to be the famed piano artist Glenn Gould, and another who commits suicide--becomes the touchstone Bernhard uses to explore his themes of artistic ambition and the destructive power of genius, as well as the double-sided nature of friendship.
   
   Bernhard, like Beckett, was a playwright, and it shows in the intricate, serpentine "speech" the narrator delivers in *The Loser*--in fact, it might even be more rewarding if one were to read the text out loud to better "hear" the full intent of Bernhard's lush and cadenced "madman's" prose. For the novel is indeed a soliloquy: contradictory, ironic, by turns concealing and revealing, a confession that confesses the very impossibility of telling the absolute truth.
   
   *The Loser* is ultimately a novel for those who find language more intriguing than story, the mind's interior struggle for meaning more dramatic than physical incident. As such, it's a work of the first order. I cant recommend it highly enough.



5. Nothing great; the most distinctive feature of the book is the run-on sentences, and the fact that the whole thing is one long paragraph. The narrator's repetitions & constant returnings to things already said in earlier pages gets a bit tiring. The subject matter (failure, obsession, suicide) could have been approached in a more interesting, detailed way, but we just hear the narrator repeat the same things again & again, "Gould destroyed him, hearing Gould play was the end for him, after hearing him he couldn't go on..." etc. The Afterword tries to speak well of the author's reputation, but doesn't have much to say about _The Loser_ except how it's a comment on Austria and a semi-autobiographical exercise for Bernhard... Well, so what? I didn't read this to find out about Austria (which I didn't) or about Bernhard, so I find this book lacking (the Afterword even admits that most of Bernhard's works are re-workings of these same themes, so it sounds like this book is more of the same from Bernhard, which makes its repetitions seem all the more repetitious!). I wouldn't recommend it to any friends, and I wouldn't bother reading it again, so I give it 3 stars. The narrative style is entertaining at times, but seems a little superficial at others--as if he's not writing anything particularly deep, so he keeps distracting us with these run-on sentences.

No comments about Early Masters: Inuit Sculpture 1949-1955.

No comments about Buck McNair: Canadian Spitfire Ace, The Story of Group Captain R W McNair DSO, DFC & 2 Bars, Ld'H, CdG, RCAF.

1 comments about Where War Lives.

1. This book is really thought provoking. It should be particularly interesting to photographers with a political interest.

No comments about The Jews of Windsor, 1790-1990: A Historical Chronicle.

No comments about The Man Who Swam into History: The (Mostly) True Story of My Jewish Family (Jewish Life, History, and Culture).

No comments about Black Wolf: The Biography of Ernest Thompson Seton.

No comments about The People Who Own Themselves: Aboriginal Ethnogenesis in a Canadian Family, 1660-1900.

1 comments about Ellen Smallboy: Glimpses of a Cree Woman's Life (Rupert's Land Record Society Series, 4).

1. I got the book in excellent condition and it is very good to read, I would recommend to anyone that would like to order a book. Very good service.

5 comments about Fatal Passage: The True Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Time Forgot.

1. After finishing Fatal Passage, I felt perhaps a twinge of the same frustration that John Rae must have felt in his last years. Rae had the misfortune of delivering the disturbing accounts of cannibalism among the members of the Franklin Expedition. The report was so disturbing, especially to the powerful Lady Jane Franklin, that public opinion turned against Rae, who was only reporting accurately what he had learned. The net result was that Rae became a controversial figure in his time, rather than being recognized as the amazingly adaptive explorer that he was. McCoogan helps restore Rae to his rightful place in history and I am grateful for the author's efforts. The book is well-written and looks at the search for the Northwest Passage from a unique angle. It is a shame that the political climate of the time robbed Rae of the recognition he deserved. As a snowshoer who could cover 50-60 miles in a day, he was also perhaps an athlete of incredible stature and this aspect is well documented in the book as well. I am happy I read the book and recommend it to anyone interested in Arctic exploration.



2. Ashamed of my ignorance of the history of our great neighbor to the north, Canadaland, I resolved to get this book to learn more of one of its greatest unsung heroes. Who, of course, had actually been born in Scotland. But he got over to Canuckia as soon as he could, and stayed a long time. Before going back to Britain. Well...he was still heroic, if not fully Canadian.
   
   They certainly built people different back in olden pre-Internet times. These days, of course, most of us regard a trek to our mailboxes as an epic ordeal, but back in the day, it was nothing to go hiking about for miles and miles. Of course, there was no TV, so entertainment options were few, and if you were living in the remote northern Canadian woods for months on end, you really had nothing better to do than hike about and push aside the native peoples to "discover" things. But even amongst the hardy traders and trappers, John Rae was an anomaly.
   
   Pretty much, anything you could do, he could do better. I mean, he was a proficient sailor and hunter virutally out of the womb, then became a doctor at a very young age, then rose through the ranks of the Hudson's Bay Company. And the dude could walk! Thirty miles in a day would be a disappointing outing for him. Plus he could totally snowshoe, and he learned all sorts of cool stuff from various Native American tribes and the Inuit. He was like a one-man Winter Olympics, except with somewhat less luging.
   
   We would find him notable for all of his exploring, but what was more remarkable about him was his enlightened attitudes toward the assorted indigenous peoples he encountered. Whereas your average Victorian regarded the original inhabitants of North America with, at best, amused contempt, Rae realized that they were perfectly adapted to their environment and that they could teach him a great deal about how to survive in the far north. Consequently, whilst various British expeditions to find the Northwest Passage, and then to find the vanished Sir John Franklin and company, were blundering about the Arctic, crashing and sinking and starving and freezing, Rae was moving about with comparative ease and was seldom in any jeopardy.
   
   His major accomplishments were to discover the final link of an ice-free navigable Northwest Passage and to uncover word at long last about the Franklin Expedition, which he basically did by the simple expedient of asking some passing Inuit, "Hey, what happened to Franklin?" Unfortunately for Rae, the truth was not palatable to his waiting British audience. As it turns out, the crews of Franklin's ships had been forced to abandon their icebound ships to set off on a doomed trek to reach a far-distant trading outpost, mysteriously declining to head toward a much closer and more easily accessible known cache of supplies left by a previous group of explorers. But it was the news of the extremities to which they had been forced that most upset the public. At least some of the Franklin Expedition had resorted to cannibalism (which assertion has subsequently been proved in modern times by forensic analysis of some of the remains later discovered scattered here and there across the Canadian coast).
   
   It was easier for the outraged British to claim that Rae was a liar or a fool and that the Inuit had either murdered the Franklin crews or selfishly hogged all the caribou to themselves and declined to help the starving explorers. It never really sunk in for most of Rae's critics that the Inuit weren't exactly carting around surplus tons of food or that the land wasn't at all capable of supporting dozens and dozens of people at a time. And so the vilification of Rae began in earnest, orchestrated by the Widow Franklin and ably abetted (to his eternal shame) by one Charles Dickens.
   
   This is a handsomely illustrated volume with an assortment of helpful maps. Since it was originally published in Canada, to some very minor degree it presupposes that the reader has some small knowledge of certain Canadian-type things, but that's only the most insignificant of impediments to American readers. My real quibble is that the author sometimes takes an overly novelistic approach in describing certain scenes (down to details of facial expressions) and recreating dialogue. The bibliography is slim and I would've felt on more solid ground had he better documented his materials for some of these "you are there" passages.
   
   Also, his forward for the American edition is so unabashed in its effusive praise for Rae that it spirals at the end into a quasi-hysterical screed for public worship of this great man. He would have been better advised to follow the basic rule of "show, don't tell", and let us draw our own conclusion without demanding our obeisance to all things Rae. Still, this is a most entertaining and well-told tale of a figure who indeed deserves much greater acclaim and a more prominent place in the annals of Arctic exploration.



3. A biography of John Rae in more capable hands could have been a fantastic read. This is a mediocre presentation. Informative but annoyingly contrite and difficult to read unless you enjoy reading mattress pad labels.



4. What kind of man, at 45 years of age, slogs 60 kilometres through a Canadian January to give a lecture on icebergs?

   The Victorian era has endured much hostile press in recent years. Cultural mores have been challenged, essential ideas decried as "social artefacts" and the reputations of heroic idols, nearly universally male, demolished as shams. It's become a novelty to encounter the celebratory resurrection of a forgotten icon. McGoogan relates the life and accomplishments of Scotsman John Rae, who joined a Hudson's Bay Company ship as surgeon, travelled to Canada in 1833 and remained for twelve years - on the first stay. McGoogan has surveyed many of the resources dealing with Arctic exploration, but Rae's own accounts provide the essential framework for this compelling narrative. The book is nearly two stories in one: Rae's ranging explorations along the Canadian Arctic coast, and the mysterious disappearance of the John Franklin expedition. McGoogan keeps this paired account nicely balanced until they merge to determine Rae's future reputation.

   John Rae was a departure from the usual explorer of the Victorian age. Instead of heading complex expeditions, he travelled with a small support group. Instead of ships or extensive caravans, he travelled by canoe or small boat, on land using snowshoes. He was extraordinarily hardy, traversing extensive distances, often alone. He adapted many features of Aboriginal life in his travels when "going native" was disdained by most. He kept his associates fed when other British explorers were starving on government rations. He found the route of the elusive Northwest passage and determined the fate of the lost Franklin expedition seeking that route. Later, he turned from Arctic adventures to the survey of a telegraph line site across the Rocky Mountains. Why have we heard so little of him?

   According to McGoogan, one individual maintained a steady campaign to reduce Rae's reputation. Jane Franklin, Sir John's quasi-widow [she refused to admit her husband's death for years], irked by the possibility her husband had turned to cannibalism in extremity, actively challenged many of Rae's accomplishments. She fostered Leopold McClintock as the verifier of Sir John's finding of the Northwest Passage. In her zeal, she even managed to secure the aid of no less a figure than Charles Dickens to her cause. McGoogan contends Dickens' virulent racism aided this assault when the novelist asserted the Inuit were consummate liars and the true cannibals. In the event, John Rae stands out as the only explorer of note that failed to achieve knighthood for his achievements.

   McGoogan has produced a noteworthy study, done with lively wit and solid research. This book restores John Rae's position as the true finder of the Northwest Passage and as man with few peers. This book can be read by anyone seeking knowledge of the North or as a model of perseverance and sacrifice. Illustrated with photographs and engravings and including a fine bibliography, this is a real treasure to read and possess.




5. I bought this book to learn more about John Rae himself. In the history of arctic and antarctic travel and exploration, Rae was unequalled in his ability to travel lightly and quickly. He covered unheard of amounts of ground in short time. On snow shoes he was without peer. He shot game as he went. He could stand huge amounts of fatigue. Amundsen might come the closest for swift and efficient movement but he mostly travelled with skis and with dogs. Rae was mostly on foot, or canoe, where he also was without peer. On one long journey he actually gained weight. He was one of the few who understood the eskimo or inuit and spoke favorably of them which earned him the scorn of his peers and the leading snobbery in England. Yet his peers didn't live with the eskimo as Rae had and did. History has proven Rae honest and accurate in his portrayal of the eskimo and of his reports of cannibalism among the Franklin Expedition. Because he refused to recant this tale of cannibalism (The eskimo had told him this and he knew them to be truthful and stood up for them) he was ostrasized and critisized and lost a knighthood. He stuck with the truth and his principles. Further explorations and discoveries have proven him to be correct. This was a man sans pareil when it came to back country traveling and exploring. A man of integrity and honesty. You don't hear much about such heros. Instead, you hear of so called "heros" among the inept and...Scott of the Antarctic. This book will introduce you to Rae and his explorations and discoveries. I also highly recommend "The Last Place on Earth" by Huntford (about race to the South Pole--shows the stupidity of Scott and genius but flaws of Amundsen) and "Arctic Grail" by Berton (Arctic Exploration).