{"product_id":"9780571349975-loser","title":"The Loser","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLRB BOOKSHOP'S AUTHOR OF THE MONTH \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'If you haven't read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce .\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLRB BOOKSHOP'S AUTHOR OF THE MONTH \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'If you haven't read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce . My advice: dive in.' Lucy Ellmann\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'I absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers . A must read for everybody.' Karl Ove Knausgaard\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMid-century Austria. Three aspiring concert pianists - Wertheimer, Glenn Gould, and the narrator - have dedicated their lives to achieving the status of a virtuoso. But one day, two of them overhear Gould playing Bach's \u003ci\u003eGoldberg Variations,\u003c\/i\u003e and his incomparable genius instantly destroys them both. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey are forced to abandon their musical ambitions: Wertheimer, over a tortured process of disintegration that sees him becoming obsessed with both writing and his own sister, with whom he has a quasi-incestuous relationship culminating in death; and the narrator, instantly, retreating into obscurity to write a book that he periodically destroys and restarts. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten as a monologue in one remarkable unbroken paragraph, Thomas Bernhard's dazzling meditation on failure, genius, and fame is a radical new reading experience: musical, paralysing, raging, and inimitable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":30323715768417,"sku":"9780571349975","price":8.41,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_36326505_0f531500-bec0-483e-8493-8adf8c9dee8e.jpg?v=1759409796","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780571349975-loser","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}