Re: Book recommendation

[Jost Ammon <Jost.Ammon@t-online.de>]

I have split feelings about the Ostwald book. It is interesting as the view
of someone having a special relationship with Gould, especially the medical
angle. On the other hand it shows an ever present substrate of
mecontentement - presumably the attitude of the deceived lover. What stirrs
me most is Ostwalds "down to earth character". I frequently have the
impression Ostwald is too simple a character to understand Gould's
attitudes. For example:

Addressing the graduates of Royal Conservatory Gould says:

"All aspects of the learning you have acquired...are possible of the
relationship with negation - with which is not, or which appears not to
be.The most impressive thing about man...is the fact that he invented the
concept of that which does not exist..."

Ostwald comments on this paragraph " I wouldn't call that a particular
upbeat message for music students about to enter the professional world as
teachers, performers and composers. But in the view of the difficulties
ahead...for work opportunities in the field of music were discouragingly
limited in the 60ies..."

I think Ostwald totally missed that Gould may most probably have referred to
the dichotomy of existence and non-existence - of the concept of Scio Ut
Nescio. Considering the very personality Ostwald wrote about, he should have
been able to conceive that he was dealing with an ever contrapuntally
thinking person, who was always perceiving fact as well as its inversion. In
that sense Ostwald in my view doesn't leap long enough. Nontheless I would
recommend reading this book.

As far as Bernhard is concerned:

> >From what I can tell, Bernard is a consistent name-dropper
> that rarely goes into detail about the people me mentions and the ideas
> behind the names, which is okay in the context of his work,
> which deals with how obsessions affect the mind of on
> particular person, that is, he writes about how a person
> struggles with obsession, not with the objects of their obsessions.
>
> Bernhard, by the way, if often funny in a black sort of way.

I totally agree with your view. It even becomes more obvious if one
considers that Bernhard wrote many pieces having in mind the actor Bernhard
Minetti, who was the ideal actor to play these obsessed and shrewed
characters. All this is not very far from Samuel Beckett.

Jost