The historical past forms a particularly important backdrop for the first volume of Bernhard's autobiographical works, Die Ursache (The Cause; 1975). It spans the years from 1943 to 1946, which the adolescent Bernhard spent in his native Salzburg as a boarding-school student. The analytic intent of the author is to lay bare the origins of what has been called his catastrophic world view, his bitterness toward Austria and Salzburg, his anger at institutionalized education and religion, his uncompromising hopelessness and misanthropy. He is particularly incensed by the memories of the hypocrisy of this period, during which he witnessed the effortless transition from the fascist administration of his school to an equally authoritarian and repressive Catholic administration….

Suicide or escape are the inevitable alternatives toward which the tensions in Bernhard's life build in Die Ursache. Catharsis comes on the day when the fifteen-year-old youth decides to find employment rather than return to...