In the organizer's words:

Wolfgang M. Schmitt in conversation with Achim Truger about "Holzfällen" by Thomas Bernhard

We live in an outrage society, is one of many diagnoses of the present. It is associated with a public that is constantly upset, often over trivialities, and that allows itself to be constantly incited by algorithms as well as by certain politicians and media professionals. There is a great longing for well-tempered discourse and books, but Thomas Bernhard is not playing along. The Austrian enfant terrible of literature could hate and be outraged like no other, but he did so at the highest aesthetic level - oscillating between existential bitterness and bold wit. "Eine Erregung" is the subtitle of Bernhard's masterpiece "Holzfällen", in which the protagonist observes from his wing chair a Viennese evening society that is frozen in cultural condescension and whose opportunism seems boundless. With this novel, published in 1984, Thomas Bernhard once again proves himself to be a great provocateur and an even greater stylist. The economist Prof. Dr. Achim Truger, member of the German Council of Economic Experts, is an admirer of Bernhard's literature, as is host and podcaster Wolfgang M. Schmitt. They talk about their shared fascination and about the topicality of writing that does not want to conform to the prevailing order in terms of form or content. What if we don't have to be less outraged, but just more elaborate?