Old Masters: A Comedy

In this exuberantly satirical novel, the tutor Atzbacher has been
summoned by his friend Reger to meet him in a Viennese museum. While
Reger gazes at a Tintoretto portrait, Atzbacher--who fears Reger's
plans to kill himself--gives us a portrait of the musicologist: his
wisdom, his devotion to his wife, and his love-hate relationship with
art. With characteristically acerbic wit, Bernhard exposes the
pretensions and aspirations of humanity in a novel at once pessimistic
and strangely exhilarating.

"Bernhard's . . . most enjoyable novel."--Robert Craft, New York
Review of Books.

"Bernhard is one of the masters of contemporary European fiction."
--George Steiner