{"product_id":"loser","title":"The Loser","description":"\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\u003e Mid-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\u003e They 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\u003e Written 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","brand":"Unity Books","offers":[{"title":"Loser","offer_id":46548959035589,"sku":null,"price":40.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0625\/6679\/3413\/files\/978-0-571-34997-5.jpg?v=1784258060","url":"https:\/\/unitybooks.myshopify.com\/products\/loser","provider":"Unity Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}