Book Review: "Frost" by Thomas Bernhard

I am going to be perfectly honest with you here: I bought this book because it was cheap on Amazon and I wanted to read something that was a bit tragic and a bit nihilistic. This seemed to have both of those tones down to a nail and so, I devoured it in one night when I couldn't really sleep too well. I didn't really want to read my copy of Kafka's letters because I haven't had such a great time with Kafka at the moment as you know, but this book had the correct mixture between darkly depressed emotions and dark comedic undertones. Erratic behaviours and madness in friendship are probably not the greatest way to go about the ordeal, but we get sucked into it all the same. Let's explore what this book is really about then...

The protagonist, an unnamed young medical student, is chosen by his mentor, a famous surgeon, for an unusual task. His mentor's brother, Strauch, was once a renowned painter but has fallen into mental disarray, isolating himself in a remote mountain village. The student’s assignment is to stay in the village and observe Strauch secretly, recording his behavior and mental condition in detail for scientific and psychological study.

When someone says 'isolated remote village' to me, it automatically sounds unsettling. If I'm too far away from civilisation for too long I get angsty and so, reading about it is probably the best way to remain calm, but that didn't work either. Bernhard's writing fleshes out all the anxieties of having to go away and leave the familiar for something entirely different.

The village is grim, nearly barren, with few inhabitants. It is perpetually shrouded in snow and mist, which limits visibility and heightens the sense of isolation. The frigid, oppressive cold and the inhospitable landscape are almost tactile, mirroring the emotional frost Strauch projects.

This harsh setting is populated by suspicious, weary villagers, who are also affected by the harsh climate, and who view Strauch as an unwelcome, eccentric outsider. This felt very 'Shutter Island' and eerie. I loved the sense of atmosphere created by the writer, the creeping gothic that leads us into an unexpected storyline begets wondrous ideas in the mind of the reader about what may happen next.

The student meets Strauch, who is wild in appearance and deeply antisocial. Strauch lives in a small, filthy room above an inn, where he spends most of his time alone, reading or brooding. His hostility toward others is immediately apparent, as is his unpredictability. Strauch has rejected not only society but also art, which he once valued.

Now, he is disillusioned, believing that art has no power to capture or redeem the ugliness of the human experience. The misanthropic worldview of the madness in this book is brilliantly worked into the atmosphere. We have a dark and gloomy atmosphere mixed with the malcontented character and I know it sounds really sad and kind of irritating but its fantastically written.

Strauch relentlessly rants about his hatred for humanity, viewing life as devoid of meaning. He believes that existence is absurd and that all efforts to find beauty or purpose are delusional. He speaks of a "frost" within himself—a perpetual emotional and spiritual coldness that has frozen his ability to connect with others. He rails against any form of happiness, calling it superficial and dishonest.

His language is scathing and unfiltered, painting a bleak picture of human nature as inherently vile and hypocritical. Now, I can't lie that he is probably right - but he is also probably wrong because of the fact we have a protagonist who is still willing to go along with this after knowing what he knows about our malcontent. As we learn more about the characters, there is also more learnt about the mood of the text - it is crushing yet, soulful.

Once an artist who found solace in creation, Strauch now views art with disdain, calling it a “cheap trick” that cannot address the depth of human misery. He describes how he burned his last paintings, claiming that nothing can capture life’s ugliness honestly. To him, art has become a hollow gesture, and he sneers at the idea of beauty, seeing it as a distraction from the truth of life’s horror. He speaks about his past achievements with scorn, having erased his identity as a painter and reduced himself to a mere observer of despair.

This is honestly one of the best things about the book because our malcontent basically describes how his worldview became this way. He does not have a sense of beauty and happiness anymore and since he has become secluded within himself - he lives more and more in his own head. What we learn is that this is what happens when we rely on our own minds and nothing else - for sometimes it will play tricks on us and convince us of things that maybe are not entirely true.

I'm not going to tell you what happens at the end of the book but as you can tell, these two characters do become friends (if you can call it that) and they start the learn things from each other. As the story progresses, the characters change to some degree but by far the most captivating part of it is the fact that we have a misanthrope with such a bleak and horrific worldview that you do wonder about what is going to happen to him. The ending is beautifully written and yet, leaves us with unresolved problems and a conclusion that does not really conclude.