Bernhard, Thomas - Robert Acker (review date Winter 1981)

Robert Acker (review date Winter 1981)

SOURCE: A review of Vor dem Ruhestand, in World Literature Today, Vol. 55, No. 1, Winter, 1981, p. 92.

[In the following negative assessment of Vor dem Ruhestand, Acker contends the play reinforces several of Bernhard’s recurring themes and stylistic techniques.]

At first glance it might appear that Thomas Bernhard has written a drama [Vor dem Ruhestand] that is vastly different from his previous contributions to this genre, for the play is a direct allusion to recent political events centering around the former Minister President of Baden-Württemberg. It is set in the concrete milieu of contemporary Germany and seems to take a committed stance against aberrations in the West German political system. Yet a sublayer of ideas emerges which remains consistent with the pattern Bernhard has established in his other nine plays.

Each year on the 7th of October Rudolf Höller,...

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