The Lime Works (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)

At a glance:

Characters Discussed

Konrad, an eccentric scientist who is working on the definitive scientific treatise on the sense of hearing. He is a highly intelligent and sensitive man in late middle age. Konrad lives in an abandoned lime works in Upper Austria with his handicapped wife. He subjects her to endless experiments in which he forces her to make ever more subtle aural discriminations. She torments him by constantly making requests that interrupt his train of thought. He is obsessed with writing his great work, which he claims to have worked out in his head, but remains unable to put anything down on paper. One day, he loses his mind and kills his wife with the rifle that is strapped to her wheelchair. He is found by the police several days later, nearly frozen and cowering in a manure pit. He is awaiting trial for her murder.

Konrad’s wife, a woman who is handicapped and confined to a wheelchair. In late middle age, she is forced to serve as a subject in her husband’s ongoing experiments on the sense of hearing.

The narrator, an unnamed local insurance salesman who is gathering information on the Konrad couple. He interviews the local people and the police, but much of what he gathers as evidence is merely hearsay and rumor.

Fro and

Wieser, two local estate managers who provide much of the information concerning the Konrads to the narrator. They often report what they have heard from others.

Bibliography

Craig, D.A. “The Novels of Thomas Bernhard: A Report,” in German Life and Letters. XXV (1970/1971), pp. 343-353.

Dierick, A.P. “Thomas Bernhard’s Austria: Neurosis, Symbol, or Expedient?” in Modern Austrian Literature. XII (1979), pp. 73-93.

Fetz, Gerhard. “The Works of Thomas Bernhard: Austrian Literature?” in Modern Austrian Literature. XVII, nos. 3/4 (1984), pp. 171-192.

Goodwin-Jones, Robert. “The Terrible Idyll: Thomas Bernhard’s Das Kalkwerk,” in Germanic Notes. XIII (1982), pp. 8-10.

Lindenmayr, Heinrich. Totalitat und Beschrankung: Eine Untersuchung zu Thomas Bernhards Roman “Das Kalkwerk,” 1982.

Rossbacher, Karlheinz. “Thomas Bernhard: Das Kalkwerk (1970),” in Deutsche Romane des 20. Jahrhunderts: Neue Interpretationen, 1983. Edited by Paul M. Lutzeler.

Schwedler, Wilfried. “Thomas Bernhard,” in Handbook of Austrian Literature, 1973. Edited by Frederick Ungar.

Sorg, Bernhard. Thomas Bernhard, 1977.