Thomas Bernhard - Correction

That I told myself from time to time, even though I was in Cambridge just now, I’m in the Kobernausser forest now of necessity, conversely, of necessity now in Cambridge, although in reality I’d been in the Kobernausser forest. I could always switch my head from one place to the other, instantly, even as a child I could switch instantly from one thing to another. And the very fact that I could be most effective especially in Cambridge for the Kobernausser forest, most effective in the Kobernausser forest for Cambridge, the fact that my intensity is greater for the one when I’m in the other place, and vice versa, and I could exercise this ability because I had complete control of this mechanism from earliest childhood on, so Roithamer.

To build the Cone without teaching and studying in Cambridge, studying as I teach, studying by teaching, and conversely, to have intensified my achievement in Cambridge as I did without the actual building of the Cone is unimaginable. We very often make headway rapidly and with the greatest assurance in some (most strenuous) work or occupation or passion andsoforth, so Roithamer, because we’ve started or become involved or planned another, similar work or occupation or passion and never abandoned it, so Roithamer. The one work or occupation or passion which very often takes us to the very edge of despair, often solely because we are in fact involved in another such strenuous effort simultaneously. I alone could have conceived such an idea, the idea of building such a cone, planning it and actually building it, everybody said so and they’re right. The need to understand what led to this idea, most likely everything led to this idea.

What led to this idea and the realization of the idea as the effect of its original cause, so Roithamer, a matter of consistency, just as the realization of the idea led to perfecting the idea andsoforth. To build is the most wonderful thing in the world, it’s the supreme gratification, “supreme gratification” underlined. It’s what everyone longs to do, building, but not everyone gets the chance to build, and everyone who does build gets this gratification out of it. Especially in building something no one has ever built before. It’s the supreme gratification, “supreme gratification” underlined, to complete a work of art one has planned and built oneself. To complete a philosophical work, or a literary work, even if it’s the most epoch-making and most important work of its kind, can never give us this supreme gratification, nothing like the gratification that comes with actually accomplishing the erection of an edifice, especially an edifice such as no one ever has erected before. With this one has achieved all that is humanly possible. Even if going all the way in perfecting this work is sure to cost one all he has and has, in fact, destroyed him. The price for such an edifice as a work of art of one’s own, the only one of its kind in the world, cannot be less than everything, “everything” underlined. At first we shy away from even conceiving such an idea, we’re terrified that it may in time take possession of us utterly and end by crushing us altogether, so Roithamer, while on the one hand we rise up against ourselves for the sake of the idea, on the other hand we resist the idea in self-defense, yet in the end it turns out to have been a revolt against ourselves and for the idea. The idea demands fulfillment, it demands realization and never stops demanding to be realized. One always wants to give it up, but one ends by not giving it up because one is by nature disinclined to give it up and in fact one sets about realizing the idea. Suddenly one’s head is full of nothing else, one has become the incarnation of one’s idea. And now one begins to reap the benefit of all one’s suffering, of one’s origins and everything connected with one’s origins, in my case everything connected with Altensam, everything being primarily and to begin with the story of one’s origins, even if it all consists of nothing but martyrdom. It all turns out to be useful, and the worst of the horrors are most useful of all.

There’s a chance of realizing one’s idea, because it is precisely the torments of one’s family history and the torments of the present, which is as much of a torment as one’s history has been, torment and nothing else, it is precisely these past and familial torments, if they are bad enough, the worst possible, which enable one to realize one’s idea to a high and even the highest degree.

The greater the idea and the higher our aim by way of that idea, the greater our historical and our familial torments are required to have been. Suddenly I realized what an enormous capital my idea could draw upon, in the accumulated capital of torments I had suffered from my family origins and my personal history and all the history connected with me in any way, and I was able to put all these resources to work, in full possession of my faculties, once I had them suddenly at my disposal. For what was Altensam to me other than family as a torment, history as a torment, the present as a torment, leaving out of account the few bright spots such as the quite extraordinary natural conditions here, the extraordinary rock formations, animals, plants andsoforth, as the only chance of retreat andsoforth, so Roithamer. Human, natural, and art history as torment, as the possibility of reaching my aim, so Roithamer. At the terminal point of the conditions that have always prevailed here. The basis, Altensam, “basis” underlined, on which I have been able to realize my idea, finish the Cone, hence Altensam and everything connected with Altensam was absolutely necessary, because each thing always derives from all the others, so Roithamer. The Cone, as it is, is unthinkable without Altensam, just as everything is unthinkable without everything else andsoforth, so Roithamer. The terrifying idea, so Roithamer, which, the more terrifying it is, the closer to realization it is. And so everything at the terminal point of my observations made in my childhood and youth in Altensam has been necessary toward the realization and completion of the Cone, everything about (and in) the Cone, everything else andsoforth, so Roithamer. By studying Altensam and my sister and trying to think Altensam and my sister through and by continuing to extend these efforts on and on until they could be extended no further, I enabled myself to build the Cone and realize and complete it. Because I let myself in for the sheer terror of this undertaking to build the Cone, let myself in for the monstrousness, “the monstrousness” underlined, of my life, so Roithamer. As if I had lived, existed, all along, all those years of development, which were nothing else than my development in the direction of the Cone, the direction of this monstrousness. One is called upon to approach and realize and complete the monstrousness, and everyone has some such enormity in his life, or else to be destroyed by this monstrousness even before one has entered into it. In this way people always tend to waver at a certain point in their lives, and always at the particular crucial point in their lives when they must decide whether to tackle the monstrousness of their life or let themselves be destroyed by it before they have tackled it. Most people prefer to let themselves be destroyed by this monstrousness rather than to tackle it, because they aren’t equipped by nature to tackle and realize and fulfill their monstrousness, they’re rather inclined, by nature, to let themselves be destroyed by their monstrousness before they have tackled it. The matured idea is enough in itself to destroy most people, so Roithamer. And such an enormity as a work of art, a lifework of art — regardless of what this monstrousness is, everyone has such a possibility in him, because his nature is in itself such a possibility — can only be tackled and realized and fulfilled with the whole of one’s being. In so tackling such a monstrousness we have entered into pure defenselessness, into being alone with ourselves within ourselves, alone with our idea as an enormity, and everything is against us.