''Correction'' is a novel by

Thomas Bernhard Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, poet and polemicist who is considered one of the most important German-language authors of the postwar era. He explored themes of death, iso ...

, originally published in German in 1975, and first published in English translation in 1979 by

Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Blanche Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Sr. in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers ...

. Correction’s setting is a

garret A garret is a habitable attic, a living space at the top of a house or larger residential building, traditionally small with sloping ceilings. In the days before elevators this was the least prestigious position in a building, at the very to ...

in the middle of an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n forest, described by the narrator as the "thought dungeon" in which the main character, Roithamer, will pursue his project of constructing an extraordinary habitation, the ''Cone'', as a present for his beloved sister. Roithamer is deeply attached to his sister; this does not, however, prevent his provoking her death, which occurs on the very day that she moves into this conic house that he has built for her with formidable effort, in the Kobernausser forest. Roithamer has unwittingly killed his sister by forcing her to inhabit a house that was completely contrary to her own nature.

Plot summary

The Austrian main character Roithamer, lecturer at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, after years of paroxysmal projects, builds for his sister, the only person he ever loved, a house in the shape of a cone, right in the geometrically precise middle of the Kobernausser forest. Her answer to the present is death, her traumatic death on entering the Cone. The symbolism of the cone is ambiguous, as it could represent either a refuge, a

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type o ...

, a

phallic A phallus (: phalli or phalluses) is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history, a figure with an erect penis is described as ''ithyphallic''. Any object that symbo ...

icon, the perfect mathematical centre of existence and thought, etc. The cone is then destined to disappear, absorbed by an invading Nature. A typical Bernhardian maniacal character, Roithamer corrects his building project ''ad infinitum'', and ultimately corrects it to its extreme self-correction: suicide.

Imagery and themes

The first part of the book has the narrator telling Roithamer’s story in the third person; the last part opens with the narrator still nominally telling Roithamer’s story in the third person, but gradually begins to speak directly in Roithamer’s voice, reading portions of his manuscript, where a sort of diary was kept whilst planning and building the Cone. This manuscript was in fact the focus of Roithamer's thousands of corrections, and it becomes apparent that it is being rewritten, “corrected” once again, this time through the voice of the narrator, who begins, ominously, to disappear into the language of the text. Roithamer’s story becomes increasingly obsessive and mad as it describes the construction of the Cone and the death of his sister. It concludes with the rationalisation of suicide, ending with the sentence, “The end is no process. Clearing,” and the narrator’s own voice totally dissolved into the text.

Allusions/references to actual events

Bernhard used

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...

’s biography to intersperse aspects of Roithamer’s life with similarities and create at times a parallel narration. Wittgenstein was born into great wealth, taught at

, lived austerely, worked obsessively, and spent years carefully designing and building a house for his sister (currently the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

: ''

Haus Wittgenstein Haus Wittgenstein (also known as the Stonborough House and the Wittgenstein House) is a house in the modernist style on the Kundmanngasse, Vienna, Austria. It "shows remarkably similar characteristics in its obsession with detail and complete disr ...

''). Other elements of Roithamer come from Bernhard’s own troubled life: his love of the Austrian countryside, his hate of the Austrian state (in his famous will, he prohibited the publication or production of any of his works in Austria), and the bitter relationship with his mother.

Narrative style

Literary critics often compare Bernhard’s writing with

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

’s or

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

's. But Bernhard’s style has its own peculiarities, a profoundly innovative form, and a much darker edge. While the characters and situations in ''Correction'' are as comical and sometimes as absurd as those in works of the above two

modernists Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and social issues were all aspects of this moveme ...

, they are also based on historical reality and a precise geography. This results in a surprising weight and closeness to the existential ground his characters tread upon. When Bernhard’s

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

bends into horror as the novel progresses, there is little

allegorical As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughou ...

distance for the reader to retreat into. The culminating tragedy feels both personal and

claustrophobic Claustrophobia is a fear of confined spaces. It is triggered by many situations or stimuli, including elevators, especially when crowded to capacity, windowless rooms, and hotel rooms with closed doors and sealed windows. Even bedrooms with a l ...

References

''Bernhardiana'', a Critical Anthology of Bernhard's works
(''

Boston Review ''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...

'', 2001)
"Reconsidering Thomas Bernhard's ''Correction''", by David Sepanik
('' The Quarterly Conversation'', 2005)
''The Novels of Thomas Bernhard'' by J.J. Long
(2001)

(2001)

External links

''Haus Wittgenstein''
the house built by

for his sister Margarethe Stonborough-Wittgenstein, in Vienna (Austrian website in German). {{Authority control 1975 Austrian novels Novels by Thomas Bernhard Alfred A. Knopf books Novels set in Austria