Then again, the allusions to Western philosophy in which the novel is steeped (Heidegger’s notion of “clearing” as a positive space for being is lampooned, for instance, in Roithamer’s choice of a forest clearing to hang himself) are only another trap. The last notes Roithamer scribbles on some slips of paper are: “in the end nothing matters all that much” and “it’s all the same.” When the narrator catches himself searching for significance in a yellow paper rose, he cuts himself off: “If we keep attaching meanings and mysteries to everything we perceive... we are bound to go crazy sooner or later.” Bernhard avoids description; he uses hardly any adjectives. Yet an undercurrent of “meanings and mysteries” persists despite the absence of anything in the text to suggest it.

¶ 10:54 AM