Gargoyles
SynopsisPlot
Gargoyles (originally titled Verstörung, meaning “Disturbance”) is one of Thomas Bernhard’s early novels. It follows a single day in the life of an unnamed country doctor and his son, a university student home for a break, as they make their rounds through a remote, mountainous region of rural Austria. Along the way, they encounter a series of patients — each trapped in different forms of suffering, whether physical illness, madness, isolation, or despair. These visits gradually reveal the bleakness and absurdity of human existence. The novel culminates with an extended monologue by Prince Saurau, a reclusive aristocrat living in a crumbling castle. His speech is a torrent of paranoia, lamentations, and reflections on decay — of himself, his family, and the entire social order. Rather than a conventional plot, the book offers a meditation on death, alienation, and the collapse of communication, with the son serving as a detached observer of the desolation around him.
Story
About this book
Published under its original German title Verstörung, meaning disturbance, Gargoyles is an early novel by Thomas Bernhard. It follows a country doctor and his university-age son through a single day of medical rounds in a remote, mountainous region of rural Austria. Each visit introduces a patient caught in a distinct form of suffering: a diabetic industrialist living in seclusion with his half-sister, three brothers in a gorge-set mill who have strangled exotic birds, and a young musical prodigy whose sister keeps him confined in a cage.
The son, home from university, observes without intervening. The rounds lead finally to a crumbling castle occupied by Prince Saurau, a reclusive aristocrat whose extended monologue fills much of the novel's later pages. His speech circles through paranoia, grief, and reflections on the decay of his family and the wider social order.
Rather than following a conventional storyline, the novel builds its effect through accumulation and atmosphere. Bernhard uses the Austrian mountain landscape and a procession of isolated, damaged lives to examine alienation, the failure of communication, and the psychological condition of a society shaped by the Second World War.
