#istmos

Ingmar Bergman | through @istmos instagram account!

by istmos

Thomas Bernhard: Monologe auf Mallorca (Krista Fleischmann & Wolfgang Koch, 1981) Via.

FLEISCHMANN: How do you work?

BERNHARD: Very concentratedly.  As much as possible early in the morning.  From five to nine a.m., then I go for a walk, fetch the newspaper, and drink a cup of coffee, take pleasure in doing absolutely nothing, in the splendor of the sun, the cloudlessness of daylight, the mountains; and other people are also suddenly splendid.  At noon I have an ample lunch; I eat as much as possible, as heartily as possible; I really tuck in.  And then from four onwards, I work again, usually even better than in the morning.  And then, at around seven, seven-thirty, I’ve had enough; I take another walk, and then eventually it’s suppertime.  But supper is really just a snack.  A sip of wine, a glass of mineral water, a half a melon, a bit of cold ham, and that’s it.  And then a bit of television.  Even if it’s in Spanish.  You watch the faces on the screen and try to imagine what’s going on.  And if you don’t understand the language, it’s quite refreshing, because you always read more into the images than what they’re actually saying.  Whereas back home you watch the images and you understand everything, and it’s pure bullshit.  And here it’s probably also pure bullshit, but you don’t notice that because you can’t understand it.  And then as far as work goes it’s of immeasurable importance, for me at least, of course everybody’s different, to be in a country where you don’t understand the language, because you have the feeling that people are only saying pleasant things and only speaking on truly important philosophical subjects. Whereas if you understand the language they’re simply talking bullshit. And so in Spain bullshit becomes philosophical for me.  Imperial or royal bullshit—Spain is, after all, a kingdom.

FLEISCHMANN: Don’t you at least occasionally need to be around unpleasant things in order to write?  Around things that annoy you?

BERNHARD: I don’t need to worry about that, because of course unpleasant things will follow you wherever you go, even to Spain.  And at bottom I only write only on account of what’s unpleasant, on account of the presence of things that are exceedingly unpleasant.  The sorts of things everybody deals with.  Just getting up in the morning is unpleasant, right?  And then when you think about everything that’s going on back home, about what has maybe gone on there, that’s all exceedingly unpleasant.  And that is essential.  At bottom I really only write from the bottom, because a lot of things are unpleasant. Because if everything were pleasant then I probably couldn’t write at all. Nobody would write if that were the case. You really can’t write from the point of view of someone in a pleasant situation. Besides, you’d have to be an idiot to write if everything were pleasant, because you pretty much have to give yourself up completely to whatever is pleasant, right? You really are obligated to take advantage of it. And if you’re in a good mood and sit down at your desk, then you actually destroy that good mood. And why should I destroy a thing like that? I could even imagine myself living an entire lifetime being always in a good mood and not writing anything at all. But since, as [I] said, you enjoy good moods only by the hour, or for brief intervals, you always come back to writing. FLEISCHMANN: Have you ever occasionally been angry at your fellow men and women?

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