Donald Trump has wandered into a Thomas Bernhard novel and made vanity great again
The Austrian writer understood the absurdity of human vanity and our endless hunger for recognition. Trump’s furious response to the Nobel peace prize could almost have come from one of his novels – except that this time the narrator is the president of the United States of America.
The Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard understood the absurdity of human vanity and our endless pursuit of recognition. Donald Trump's furious reaction to the Nobel peace prize awarded to South African jurist Navi Pillay almost resembles one of Bernhard's novels, though the narrator is now the president of the United States. Deon Snyman, a political theologian, found parallels between Trump's exaggerations, repetitions, and unwavering certainty of being right, and the style of Bernhard's writing.
While Bernhard ridiculed literary institutions and took the money they offered, Trump dismissively ridiculed the Nobel Committee for not recognizing him and claimed to have ended eight wars. However, fact-checking shows that some of these conflicts remain unresolved, and his role in others is disputed. Trump's claim to have ended eight wars is questionable, and even if true, does not necessarily grant him eight Nobel peace prizes.
Navi Pillay's work, on the other hand, represents an understanding of peace grounded in justice and the rule of law. Both Trump and Bernhard share a penchant for vanity and contradictions, creating irony in their respective reactions to recognition.
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