CELEBRATION OF THE ACFNY LIBRARY's NEW MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM
APRIL 12, 2011 | 6:30PM
The Austrian Cultural Forum NY marked its new Library Membership Program with a slew of special guests and a discussion on Thomas Bernhard
In April 2011, the Austrian Cultural Forum New York celebrated the new membership program of its library. To mark this occasion, author Rick Moody and critic Dale Peck, both based in New York, discussed iconic Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard in a discussion of his latest English-language release, My Prizes: An Accounting. The English volume’s translator and senior vice president at Knopf, Carol Brown Janeway joined the conversation, and read excerpts from her translation. Award-winning author Daniel Kehlmann was also on hand to read excerpts from the original German version of My Prizes. Writer, translator, and Columbia University scholar Susan Bernofsky moderated the event.
A paragon of Austrian postwar literature, Thomas Bernhard is one of Rick Moody’s favorite authors. Bernhard and Moody have a great deal in common: First and foremost, their love for music, which translates into their writing, is mirrored in their long, elaborate sentences, italicized words, and narrative rhythm. Both tend to focus on their respective native countries and the demons and hypocrisies they hide. Concepts of the past pervade the prose of both authors. Both are interested in describing how people behave rather than how things look.
Despite those commonalities, differences abound in the two writers. Apart from the obvious cultural distinctions and Moody’s postmodernist inclination versus Bernhard’s modernistic slant, what comes to mind first and foremost is author and critic Dale Peck’s opinion of the two as writers. In a recent New York Times review, he calls Bernhard a “master” who is “vastly” superior to Günther Grass and Elfriede Jelinek, whereas he once famously called Rick Moody “the worst writer of his generation” in a 2002 review in The Republic. This almost theatrical animosity – which is, incidentally, one of the aspects that made the notoriously grumpy Thomas Bernhard such a compelling figure in Austrian culture – guarantees yet another exciting evening at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York.
My Prizes: An Accounting includes Bernhard’s State Prize acceptance speech, which famously caused an offended Austrian Minister of Art, Culture and Education to walk out of the room. Quite obviously, not everyone can take belligerent methods in stride. In an interview, Bernhard once blamed people’s lack of humor for their antagonistic attitudes toward him: “I have always provided plenty of material to make you laugh. [My writing] is all laugh-out-loud funny, really. But I don’t know: don’t people have a sense of humor? I don’t know. It’s always made me laugh, still makes me laugh today. Whenever I’m bored, or it’s a tragic period in my life, I open a book of mine, that’s the thing that’s most likely going to make me laugh.” In the same vein, Rick Moody and Dale Peck may duel with words, but that does not mean it will not be funny. Conversely, it also does not mean they are not serious.
To contextualize the cut-and-thrust arguments of these two literary greats, Carol Brown Janeway was on hand to discuss the book she translated. Along with My Prizes, Janeway also translated Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, upon which the eponymous Academy Award-winning movie is based, as well as Daniel Kehlmann’s popular Me and Kaminski. Janeway has previously lent her support at an ACFNY event with Daniel Kehlmann in September 2010.
Daniel Kehlmann also lent his support at this event: the acclaimed German-Austrian author's book Die Vermessung der Welt (translated into English by Carol Brown Janeway asMeasuring the World, 2006) has become one of the most successful novels in the German language since 1945. In its praise of the book, the New York Times called Kehlmann a "very smart, deft artist."
Moderator of the event was Susan Bernofsky. Acclaimed translator of works by Robert Walser and Hermann Hesse and co-curator of the Festival Neue Literatur, Bernofsky takes particular interest in the influence of eighteenth and nineteenth century German thought as well as modern and contemporary literature in the German-speaking world and beyond. Readings, engaging discussions with the audience, and arguments just shy of physical altercations show that literature is alive and well, and that libraries such as the one at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York are places where ideas are exchanged and attitudes are negotiated.
Now a lending library, the ACFNY Library offers free membership, which gives patrons access to more than 11,000 volumes in German and English, with a focus on contemporary and classic Austrian literature, including a wide range of literature in translation, as well as contemporary Austrian art and art history, and Austrian history and politics. One of the largest collections of Austriaca in the United States, the ACFNY Library subscribes to a number of Austrian periodicals, magazines, and journals. Additionally, it offers a wide selection of audio-visual media, and nationwide long-distance loans are available upon request. For more information please visit www.acfny.org/library/
Following the event, which took place in the auditorium of the ACFNY, all guests were invited to enjoy a glass of wine in the two level library, on the 4th and 5th floors of the building.
> Read ACFNY Director Andreas Stadler's statement here.
> The Winter 2010/2011 print edition of transforum included an article by Dominik Rodak about the library, entitled Never Totally Silent In The Forest. Photographs of the event are available here.
