Stalking the Truth and Death [1]
If we are stalking the
truth without knowing what this truth is, this truth that has nothing in common
with reality but the truth, it is failure, it is death, that we are
stalking…our own failure, our own death, as far back as we think or feel or
fantasize or [as far forward as we] look into the future, [our quarry
is] death, [is] restlessness or rest as the phenomen[al cover] of weakness, the
phenomen[al cover] of failure…we are dealing with the sciences, with the arts,
with nature herself, with signs of death…a lethal analysis is possible
for us, when we talk about life, draw attention to life, preoccupy ourselves
with life as a perpetual conceptual disenchantment that is nature, we, nature’s
theatrical elements…
[It is, as we hear and think and see and feel, a concept of infinity at which the lines of moribundity, of morbidity, the lines of decay, intersect, a concept in which they are simply extinguished, in which everything in between ultimately and conclusively animates fatality; unoriginally, goal-lessly, and purposelessly animates the pathological pros and cons of our innate contemplativeness, uprightness, {in which everything} is a method, {2}] a method of
death: what we are fleeing is, as we know for a fact, within us, what we fear
is within us, what we are is within us etc…We promise ourselves much and learn
everything and gainsay and learn again and again and we oxidize, putrefy from
the bottom up and from the very top down [and] from the outside in and we pass
away, constantly from one nature into another, into death…what we
possess is the experience, a metaphysical one, about which, when we have time
to be worried, we are worried, to which, being the epitome of intemperance, we
capitulate: we are withering away, individualist shapers of our own impotence,
which is us, orphans of history, necrotized sinews of nature…we are stalking a
consequence, circumstances, suppositions of death, corporeal conditions,
intellectual conditions of death…
We are born into an
anamnesis, tangential to the universe, regenerative of nothing but death.
Death declares itself to
me as natural history, as the possibility of understanding. If we have a goal, it seems to me that it is
death; the thing that we are speaking of is death…
And so I am speaking to
you today about death, but I am not going to speak to you directly about
death; that is too pretentious, fruitless, I am now going to speak indirectly
about death, in allusion to this experience that we possess, that we are
constantly making, that we shall continue to make ad infinitum, I am speaking
now about death because of course you have scheduled me to give a speech about
life, but I speak, no matter what I’m speaking about, even if I am speaking
about life, about death…everything spoken [today] will be [spoken] about death…But
I shall not be speaking today about a specific site of death, about anything of
a detailed character; that would be, as I said, too pretentious, we have of
course not convened here to listen to [the reading of] an essay; that would of
course be an infamy and too depressing; I have no intention of painting this banqueting
hall with my gloominess, in the common hues of gloominess and darkness, even
though you have of course scheduled a speech, and what is more, a speech to be
given by me, and even though I am dazzled blind by this hall, this hall
blinds me, all banqueting halls blind me, you understand…and even though I
needn’t show the faintest trace of consideration [for anyone], I shan’t be
coating this hall in gloom and I shan’t be coating you in gloom…and yet
I am speaking about death, because I am speaking, because I’m speaking about
life, about the death, for example, of human beings and their achievements,
because we enjoy hearing about achievements, about States and their
achievements, about the macrocosmos, of the microcosmos…About
capability, about incapability, about terminal illnesses, about the remains of
the Empire…About its remains!, you understand…as together we all make the worst
impression imaginable, and it would be necessary here, now, to say everything
that we otherwise say only amongst ourselves amongst everyone, amongst all
selves…but that would be to carry things too far…to carry them to the point of
catastrophe…but I am also not going to speak of our lakes, of our montane
valleys, [I’m] not [going to speak] of how our landscape is being ruined, as
everything is being ruined, by tasteless and money-grubbing engineers, about
our petit-bourgeois literature, about our lily-livered intellect, no, if [I
speak at all], then [I’ll speak] about death…I [shall] allude to life and I
[shall] speak of death…I [shall] speak not of intellectual history, but of
death, not of physiological, psychological approximations, but of death, not of
orders of magnitude, harrowing realities, of genius and martyrdom, idiocy and
sophistry, of hierarchy and embitterment, I [shall] merely allude to all these
things and speak of death… I [shall] not talk of religions, of parties,
parliaments, academies, [nor] about apathy, sympathy, aphasia…but I ought to
talk of everything here, of everything simultaneously, but to talk of
everything simultaneously is impossible, it is preposterous, and so I can only
tell you of everything I could say here and today, allude to what I am
in truth holding my peace about, because I absolutely cannot talk about
it, I am merely alluding to, for example, the essence of philosophy, to the
essence of poetry, to ignorance and ignominy… in your presence it is senseless
to escort into the depths a single one of these themes that I have in mind, to
develop a single one of these themes here in this banqueting hall… we lack the extraordinary
and superlative powers of concentration that are required for such [a task] and
that we no longer have, no longer have, we no longer have extraordinary and
superlative powers of concentration…but I could, as you must [surely] imagine,
speak here about the State, about federations of States, the decline of States,
about the impossibility of the State, and I know that you are glad that I am
not speaking about that, you have been afraid all the while that I might utter
something that you were afraid of and you are basically glad that here I am really
not speaking about anything, in actual fact I am of course speaking here
literally about nothing, because I only ever speak about death…I [shall] allude
in passing to dictatorships, felonious jurisdiction, socialism and Catholicism,
to our cant-spouting Church…You needn’t worry…I shall allude in passing
to sarcasm, idealism, sadism…to north and south…[to] something even more
ridiculous: the fact that the city of Vienna is the dirtiest of all capital
cities, lame-limbed and addle-brained and racked-nerved…[allude] in passing to
my uncle the butcher, my uncle the sawyer, my uncle the farmer , etc….about my
farm at Natal, the people there, their beauty, about cripples, about
grain[-silos] and pig-fattening, the deer in the forest, about appearances of
the circus in the country…about Alexander Blok, Henry James, Ludwig
Wittgenstein…how one rubber-stamps honest people into criminals overnight, how
one goes to prison and comes back out of [it]…about insane asylums and how one
divides and multiplies…about the concept of dilapidation and about
socio-political neuralgias…about the State and about the Antistate, or
even about awarders of prizes..how one involves simple people in enormous
perplexities…Or should I even deliver a thank-you speech here, tell a
little story about world-weariness?...or a little story about industrialists or
about misunderstood genius perhaps…about unscrupulousness, ignobleness, a
little moral tale, I don’t know…about an old man as a cautionary example, about
a young man as a cautionary example…about suicide…collective national suicide…I
could even tell a story, because I have a couple of stories in mind, or a fairy
tale like The Fairy Tale of Fair Austria When She Was Still Something or
The Fairy Tale of the Fair City of Vienna When She Was Still Something…or
The Fairy Tale of the Voyage on the
High Seas That Is No Longer Worth Taking, the Fairy Tale of the Pig That Is No
Longer Worth Fattening, of the Magic Incantation EEC…or Of the Literature That
Is No Longer Worth [Reading], of the Art That Is No Longer Worth [Seeing], of
the Life That Is No Longer Worth Living…or would you like to hear
The Fairy Tale of the Future…I speak of lies and of ridiculousness, and
I [shall] not tell The Fairy Tale about Pensiveness. I [shall] merely
touch on all that and speak a couple of words into this hall, for example the
words “isolation,” “degeneration,” “vulgar,” the English word “sensibility”…I
[shall] make note of senescence, obsolescence and the fact that at our very
early age we have already had quite enough of comedy, of the spectacle of
existence, of the entire art of the drama…one fine day, in a single moment, at
the decisive moment, we plunge head over heels to our deaths…Death is my theme,
as death is likewise your theme…and so I speak about life, allude to it, to the
intellectual torpor of the present, for example; for example to the
catastrophic incompetence of this government, to this whole enormous
governmental scandal in which we are now participating…this whole absurdity
known as democracy for example, this incessant, repellent kaleidoscope of peoples…but
I [shall] of course not be giving any speech about the masses of soil and people,
about these colossal nonsensical masses, nor about a new theory of life, for I
do not see any [such theory], I [shall] say nothing about atomic [theory], [nor
shall I say] anything about the leper hospitals and the unrest among the
Negroes, about “Help!”-crying England Germany America Russia China Austria
All of this, whether you
believe it or not, whether you want to believe it or not, has [everything] to
do with death, whether I am thinking of you or myself, goading [you or me] on
along the wrong path, it is death, we are goaded on by death…whether I have
something against governments or against the downtrodden, against Black or White,
against this government for example, which like every government is the worst
government imaginable, against our members of parliament, against the
chancellor of our republic, against our university professors and against our
artists, against Heine et alia, against Marx et alia, have something against
all these gentlemen, it is death, it is irreparability…it is the
catastrophe…it is everything that is impossible, incredible…
But I believe that by now
I have said or spoken enough, as you believe, alluded, as you believe, held
my peace on certain themes, as you can see for yourselves, held my peace on
practically everything, as you can manage to convince yourselves, and I [shall]
now say nothing more than my thanks for the couple of thousand schillings that
you mailed to me at my Upper-Austrian address a short time ago, for the splendid
holiday that I shall arrange [for myself] with this donation; I shall treat
myself to an interval of dissipation, a couple of weeks on the Mediterranean or
a couple of mad splurging sprees in Brussels or Paris or London, I don’t know
yet…in any case, far from here, far from Vienna, far from Austria, from my
fatherland, which I love…I thank you even though of course I have absolutely no
idea of what I’m thanking you for, it’s possible I’m actually
thanking you for a mad splurging spree…for a worthy cause possibly, because
life is a thoroughly worthy cause, something that has, as you now know, a great
deal to do with death…and with the indication thereof… namely of the fact that
everything has [everything] to do with death, that everything is death, the
whole of life is of course nothing but death; I shall wish you a good, if possible a remarkable evening, [I shall] walk out of this hall, leave Vienna, leave
Austria for a time, [leave] it [and head] for pleasure and for work, and I say
once again: I thank you for this award, for this misunderstanding, which this
award undoubtedly is, because, as you know, everything is a misunderstanding,
and [let me] once again remind you of death, of the fact that everything has [everything]
to do with death, don’t you forget about death, don’t you forget about it,
don’t you forget about it…
[THE END {esti mutandis non mutatis}]
[1] First published (along with the acceptance speech for the 1967 Austrian State Prize) in Neues Forum, Vienna, Vol. XV, No. 173, p. 347-349.
Thomas Bernhard wrote this speech for the acceptance ceremony for the 1968 Anton Wildgans Prize of the Association of Austrian Industry, which was canceled owing to the events [that took place] during the awarding of the Austrian State Prize on March 4, 1967. Under the above title, chosen by the editors [of Neues Forum], the speech written for the Wildgans Prize ceremony was first published immediately below the speech for the State Prize ceremony. The editors graced the pair of speeches with the following preliminary note:
{2} Work on this passage suspended pending consideration of some highly insightful suggestions from flowerville.
Translation unauthorized but Copyright ©2013 by Douglas Robertson
Source: Der Wahrheit auf der Spur. Reden, Leserbriefe, Interviews, Feuilletons. Herausgegeben von Wolfram Bayer, Raimund Fellingerund und Martin Huber [Stalking the Truth. Speeches, Open Letters, Interviews, Newspaper Articles. Edited by Wolfram Bayer et al.](Frankfurt : Suhrkamp, 2011).
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