'Thomas Bernhard is one of the masters of contemporary European fiction. After Kafka's and Canetti's, his sensibility is one of the most acute, the most capable of exemplary images and gestures, in modern literature.' George Steiner, Times Literary Supplement

Roithamer, a character based on Wittgenstein, has committed suicide having been driven to madness by his own frightening powers of pure thought. We witness the gradual breakdown of a genius ceaselessly compelled to correct and refine his perceptions until the only logical conclusion is the negation of his own soul.