In this exuberantly satirical novel, the tutor Atzbacher has been summoned by his friend Reger to meet him in a Viennese museum. While Reger gazes at a Tintoretto portrait, Atzbacher-who fears Reger's plans to kill himself-gives us a portrait of the musicologist: his wisdom, his devotion to his wife, and his love-hate relationship with art. With characteristically acerbic wit, Bernhard exposes the pretensions and aspirations of humanity in a novel at once pessimistic and strangely exhilarating. "Bernhard's . . . most enjoyable novel."-Robert Craft, "New York Review of Books." "Bernhard is one of the masters of contemporary European fiction." -George Steiner | Old Masters by THOMAS BERNHARD, Paperback | Indigo Chapters