When [Thomas Bernhard] was awarded the Austrian State Prize he accepted with the words 'Everything is ridiculous when one thinks of death'. The Minister of Education stormed out of the hall …' Can't say I blame him. On that showing Herr Bernhard is a silly show-off; on the showing of The Force of Habit [Die Macht der Gewohnheit] he is a plodding and derivative writer with no light to throw on the old ideas he nurses—I was going to say at such length, but in fact, though it seemed much longer, the piece lasted barely two hours, an expensive ordeal for the audience as well as for the company. It would seem that Bernhard intended to write a play about the eroding power of dedication and about the stifling pressure of past masterpieces—two perfectly legitimate subjects, had they arisen out of the characters of his imagination...