Woodcutters

Thomas Bernhard · 1931–1989 · Austria

Originally Holzfällen (German)

Why it matters

A guest at a Viennese dinner party sits in an armchair silently eviscerating the pretensions of everyone present in one furious, unbroken interior rant. Bernhard's essential mode: relentless, incantatory contempt for Austrian cultural hypocrisy.

At a glance

One extended, breathless, paragraph-free rant with almost no scene breaks.