If you’re looking for a happy read, you’ve come to the wrong place.

The Loser by Thomas Bernhard is a chaos of self-loathing, dread, and misery.

It’s the kind of book that makes you want to take a long drag from a cigarette and wonder why the hell you ever got out of bed.

The protagonist, a nameless musician, is caught in a prison of his own making, trapped by the kind of existential despair that makes you question if there’s any point to it all—life, music, or even getting out of bed in the first place.

The whole thing reads like a drunken confession, a whining, bitter man who can’t stop talking about how everything’s pointless.

He talks about wanting to die, but can’t quite pull the trigger. And it’s not because he’s scared—it’s because he’s already dead inside.

He spends his life trying to make sense of things, but there’s no sense to be made.

Life is a series of meaningless events strung together by nothing but the desperate wish that it would end.

It’s the kind of dark humor that Bukowski would nod at, though probably with a drink in hand. What Bernhard does, and does well, is drag you into the muck with him and say, “Hey, it’s all the same crap we’re all drowning in. Might as well drown together.”

The Ugly Truth About People

Let’s talk about people for a minute. Bernhard gets it right when he says, “In theory we understand people, but in practice we can’t put up with them.”

Isn’t that the truth? We think we get each other. We think we know what makes people tick, but when it comes down to it, we’re all just faking it.

Bernhard isn’t some saint, sitting up there in his ivory tower of truth. He knows he’s biased as hell. He knows that when he interacts with people, it’s from his own shitty perspective, the one that’s been warped by years of disappointment and self-doubt.

The problem is, we’re all biased in our own way. It’s like walking around with blinders on and pretending the world looks the same to everyone.

But it doesn’t. You can’t look at someone and claim to understand them. Hell, you can’t even look at yourself and claim to understand yourself.

And that’s what Bernhard’s character realizes—there’s no way to truly connect with anyone.

We’re all too tangled up in our own misery to see things clearly.

Bernhard’s Take on People	Explanation
We think we understand others	We assume we get people because we’re all trapped in our own perspective, but we’re just faking it.
We’re biased in every interaction	Every interaction is colored by our own assumptions, frustrations, and insecurities.
True connection is impossible	We’re all so wrapped up in our own struggles, we can never truly know another person—only project.

Music: A Deadly Joke

Bernhard’s protagonist is a failed musician, obsessed with the idea of creating something meaningful, but ultimately crushed by his inability to connect with the world through art.

Music was supposed to save him, but it only digs him deeper into despair. His struggle is endless: “We’re so arrogant that we think we’re studying music, whereas we’re not even capable of living, not even capable of existing.”

This hits hard. Music, art, anything meant to express the soul, becomes just another arena where he fails.

The tragedy here isn’t just that he can’t play well. The real tragedy is that his art—his attempt to make sense of the chaos—is itself a reflection of how disconnected he feels from everything around him.

His creation is as meaningless as his existence, which is why he clings to it, even though it’s the thing that keeps reminding him of how empty he is.

That’s the kicker: we’re all just pretending, hoping we can fool ourselves into thinking it means something.

Life Is Deadly, But Death’s Just a Fantasy

When you spend your days reading Dostoevsky and the depressing French philosophers, it’s no surprise that you start to think the world’s one big suicide note.

And that’s exactly how Bernhard’s protagonist feels. “All my tendencies are deadly ones,” he says.

He’s drawn to the bleak, the miserable, the hopeless. His world is a never-ending cycle of suffering, filled with books about death and despair, because that’s all he can connect with.

He’s addicted to the idea of destruction, because in a world that’s already destroyed, it feels familiar.

It’s not just that he’s fascinated by death—it’s that death is the only thing that makes sense in a world that doesn’t.

The meaningless, pointless world around him echoes the same bleak themes he finds in the writers he loves.

Russian literature, with all its dark tendencies, speaks to him in a way that no sunshine, no joy, ever could.

In a sense, his obsession with death is the only thing keeping him from completely losing it.

Bernhard’s Take on Death	Explanation
Tendencies toward death	His protagonist is consumed by thoughts of death because life offers nothing but pain and frustration.
Dostoevsky and the dark authors	His love of dark literature reflects his own spiraling descent into nihilism.
Death is the only real thing	Death is the only thing that seems meaningful in a world that offers no hope.

Explaining Nihilism to a Kid

Okay, kid, listen up. You know how sometimes you think you’re in control, like when you play a game and you think you’re winning, but then something happens and you realize you’re not even close to winning?

Life’s like that. You think you’re doing okay, maybe you even feel like you’re winning at something, but really, it’s all just one big game where the rules don’t make sense.

And guess what?

There’s no way to win.

You’re stuck. And the more you try to figure it out, the more you realize it doesn’t really matter. We all want to be happy, but it’s like chasing a rainbow—it keeps slipping away.

People try to make it work, but they don’t, and that’s how it is.

Life’s just a series of pointless events strung together, and you’re stuck in it like the rest of us.

There’s no easy way out.

Got it?

Good.

Go to sleep and dream about unicorns.

Books, Movies, and People Who Go Against Bernhard

Now, not everyone’s on the same page as Bernhard.

There are plenty of books, movies, and people out there that fight back against this nihilistic view of the world.

Some folks actually think there’s meaning to be found, no matter how bleak things get.

Work	Opposing Idea
The Catcher in the Rye	Holden Caulfield may be a mess, but he still clings to the idea that innocence can be saved.
The Great Gatsby	Gatsby’s relentless chase of the American Dream shows that, even in despair, people keep reaching for something.
Good Will Hunting	The main character overcomes his tragic past to embrace life, proving that change is possible.
The Pursuit of Happyness	No matter how bad it gets, perseverance leads to a better life.

The Bitter End

The Loser by Thomas Bernhard ends the way it starts: a punch to the gut, leaving you breathless, with nothing but the taste of defeat on your tongue.

It’s a tragic, unresolved chaotic sensation that drills deep into the soul, hammering in the futility of it all.

The narrator—nameless, faceless, just another ghost drifting through life—keeps stumbling through the wreckage of his relationships with two old friends, both prodigies on the piano, both doomed to drown in their own self-inflicted misery.

And then there’s Wertheimer, the real loser of the story.

He was the best of them all, the one with the most promise, the most talent—at least that’s what they said.

Wertheimer killed himself because he couldn’t bear the weight of perfection, couldn’t handle the pressure of being everything.

The last pages are soaked in bitter resignation, a snapshot of failure after failure, a realization that no matter how hard they tried, how many notes they played or how many hours they spent struggling for something—anything—there was never going to be anything to show for it.

The dream was always hollow. And when the page turns, it’s clear: nothing changes.

You keep dying a little every day, and one day, you’re gone, and the world doesn’t care. It’s an open wound that never heals.

In the end, it’s like trying to breathe underwater.

There’s no salvation, no moment of clarity. Just a dead-end spiral of want and disappointment. No answers, just echoes of all the things that don’t matter.

No closure. No redemption. Just the same old grind.

It’s as if Bernhard’s reminding us: we’re all just losers, pretending we matter.

Lol. That’s depressing.

Final Words For Those Still Reading

Bernhard’s The Loser isn’t a story about redemption.

It’s not a story about overcoming. It’s about coming to terms with the fact that maybe nothing you do will ever matter.

The best you can do is keep going, even when everything tells you to stop.

Maybe that’s the lesson: Life is a labirynth, and we can either succumb to it or fight through it.

And if we do fight, maybe we can change the way it all ends.

Maybe.

But honestly? You’re probably better off flipping a coin.