{"product_id":"the-loser","title":"The Loser","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLRB BOOKSHOP'S AUTHOR OF THE MONTH \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'If you haven't read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce ... My advice: dive in.' Lucy Ellmann\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'I absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers ... A must read for everybody.' Karl Ove Knausgaard\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMid-century Austria. Three aspiring concert pianists - Wertheimer, Glenn Gould, and the narrator - have dedicated their lives to achieving the status of a virtuoso. But one day, two of them overhear Gould playing Bach's \u003ci\u003eGoldberg Variations,\u003c\/i\u003e and his incomparable genius instantly destroys them both. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey are forced to abandon their musical ambitions: Wertheimer, over a tortured process of disintegration that sees him becoming obsessed with both writing and his own sister, with whom he has a quasi-incestuous relationship culminating in death; and the narrator, instantly, retreating into obscurity to write a book that he periodically destroys and restarts. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten as a monologue in one remarkable unbroken paragraph, Thomas Bernhard's dazzling meditation on failure, genius, and fame is a radical new reading experience: musical, paralysing, raging, and inimitable.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePaperback \/ softback | 192 pages | Published January 1970\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Faber \u0026 Faber","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":63172012507485,"sku":"9780571349975","price":13.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0978\/3459\/8749\/files\/9780571349975.jpg?v=1769040453","url":"https:\/\/www.thebookmark.ie\/products\/the-loser","provider":"The Bookmark ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}