Yes (novel)
Encyclopedia
Yes is a novel by Thomas Bernhard
, originally published in German
in 1978 and translated into English
by Ewald Osers
in 1992.
This novel is about suicide
, a topic that permeates overtly or covertly all of Bernhard’s work. A Persian
woman is the central character of narration, and the narrator prepares for her suicide by his own preoccupation with suicide
. This motif of the surrogate victim is clearly established in the novel's opening sentence (see excerpt below), where the narrator describes himself as in the process of "dumping" his problems on his friend Moritz. Later, he will persist in making these revelations even though he recognizes that they have "wounded" Moritz. Similarly, he will underline the Persian woman's role as a surrogate victim when he refers to her as the ideal "sacrificial mechanism".
One could easily perceive that the woman fascinates the narrator, who finds in her a suitable companion in his solitary walks into the nearby forest, where he obsesses her with interminable disquisitions and philosophical rants. She is "an utterly regenerating person, that is an utterly regenerating walking and thinking and talking and philosophising partner such as I had not had for years".
Gradually the narrator goes back in time and recollects his first meetings with the Persian woman, uncovering a universe of loneliness where the only existential act left is confession. However, self-exposure not always engenders a benefit. Whilst the narrator undergoes a positive reaction, becoming once again attached to life and thus discarding suicide, the Persian woman is unable to unravel the knots of her painful social isolation and says a definitive "yes" to annihilation.
Literally, the woman arrived in this comically benighted corner of Upper Austria
because her companion, a Swiss
engineer
, had chosen it as the ideal location in which to build his new house, right in the middle of a nearby thick forest. But the reader recognizes this realistic motivation as simply a pretext for arranging the sacrificial death that Bernhard intends for her. We glimpse this archetypal pattern from the very beginning of his narrative, when the narrator describes the woman as "regenerating" and perceives the arrival of the couple as signifying his "redemption". While the narrator himself has never been able to act on his own suicidal impulses, it was his insinuating words, as we learn in the novel's closing sentence, that provoked the woman's suicide. After she has committed suicide (by throwing herself in front of a cement truck), he remembers discussing the frequent suicide of young people and asking her if she would kill herself one day, to which she replies, in the novel's closing word, "Yes".
This opening sentence
of Yes continues on and is an uninterrupted 477 words long.
Thomas Bernhard
Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet. Bernhard, whose body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II," is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era.- Life :Thomas Bernhard was...
, originally published in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
in 1978 and translated into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
by Ewald Osers
Ewald Osers
Ewald Osers , was a Czech translator born in Austria-Hungary. He was one of the most outstanding translators of Central European literature into English.-Career:...
in 1992.
Plot summary
-
- Characters
:
- Characters
- 1. The narrator, a scientistScientistA scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
- 2. Moritz, an estate agentEstate agentAn estate agent is a person or business that arranges the selling, renting or management of properties, and other buildings, in the United Kingdom and Ireland. An agent that specialises in renting is often called a letting or management agent...
, and his family - 3. A Swiss engineerEngineerAn engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
- 4. His wife, a PersianPersian peopleThe Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
born in ShirazShirazShiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...
This novel is about suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, a topic that permeates overtly or covertly all of Bernhard’s work. A Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
woman is the central character of narration, and the narrator prepares for her suicide by his own preoccupation with suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. This motif of the surrogate victim is clearly established in the novel's opening sentence (see excerpt below), where the narrator describes himself as in the process of "dumping" his problems on his friend Moritz. Later, he will persist in making these revelations even though he recognizes that they have "wounded" Moritz. Similarly, he will underline the Persian woman's role as a surrogate victim when he refers to her as the ideal "sacrificial mechanism".
One could easily perceive that the woman fascinates the narrator, who finds in her a suitable companion in his solitary walks into the nearby forest, where he obsesses her with interminable disquisitions and philosophical rants. She is "an utterly regenerating person, that is an utterly regenerating walking and thinking and talking and philosophising partner such as I had not had for years".
Gradually the narrator goes back in time and recollects his first meetings with the Persian woman, uncovering a universe of loneliness where the only existential act left is confession. However, self-exposure not always engenders a benefit. Whilst the narrator undergoes a positive reaction, becoming once again attached to life and thus discarding suicide, the Persian woman is unable to unravel the knots of her painful social isolation and says a definitive "yes" to annihilation.
Literally, the woman arrived in this comically benighted corner of Upper Austria
Upper Austria
Upper Austria is one of the nine states or Bundesländer of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders on Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as on the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg...
because her companion, a Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
, had chosen it as the ideal location in which to build his new house, right in the middle of a nearby thick forest. But the reader recognizes this realistic motivation as simply a pretext for arranging the sacrificial death that Bernhard intends for her. We glimpse this archetypal pattern from the very beginning of his narrative, when the narrator describes the woman as "regenerating" and perceives the arrival of the couple as signifying his "redemption". While the narrator himself has never been able to act on his own suicidal impulses, it was his insinuating words, as we learn in the novel's closing sentence, that provoked the woman's suicide. After she has committed suicide (by throwing herself in front of a cement truck), he remembers discussing the frequent suicide of young people and asking her if she would kill herself one day, to which she replies, in the novel's closing word, "Yes".
Excerpt
^ Incipit:
"The Swiss and his woman friend had appeared at the real-estate agent Moritz’s place at just the moment when, for the first time, I was trying not only to outline to him the symptoms of my emotional and mental sickness and eventually elucidate them as a science, but had come to Moritz’s house, who in point of fact was then probably the person closest to me, in order quite suddenly and in the most ruthless manner to turn the inside of my, by then not just sickly but totally sickness-ridden, existence, which until then he had known just superficially and had not therefore been unduly irritated let alone alarmed by in any way, turn that inside of my existence out, and thus inevitably alarmed and appalled him by the very abrupt brutality of my undertaking, by the fact that, on that afternoon, I totally unveiled and revealed what, over the whole decade of my acquaintance and friendship with Moritz, I had kept hidden from him, indeed concealed from him throughout that period with mathematical ingeniousness, and kept continually (and pitilessly towards myself) covered from him, in order not to grant him, Moritz, even the slightest glimpse into my existence, which profoundly horrified him, but I had not allowed that horror to impede me in the least in my revealing mechanism which had, that afternoon and of course also under the influence of the weather, gone into action, and step by step, that afternoon, I had, as though I had no other choice, all of a sudden pounced upon Moritz from my mental ambush, unveiling everything relating to myself, unveiling everything that there was to unveil, revealing everything there was to reveal; throughout the incident I had been seated, as always, in the corner seat facing the two windows by the entrance to Moritz’s office, to what I always called his box-file room, while Moritz himself, after all this was the end of October, sat facing me in his mouse-grey winter overcoat, possibly by then in a drunk state, which in the falling dusk I had been unable to determine..."
This opening sentence
Opening sentence
At the beginning of a written work stands the opening sentence. Considered "most important", the opening sentence needs to entice the reader and sets the subject, the tone and possibly the style for the whole work, although this does not have to be obvious. David Lodge describes the opening...
of Yes continues on and is an uninterrupted 477 words long.