This play is Thomas Bernhard's satire on the business of literature. The novelist Moritz Meister, after years of neglect, has finally achieved the status of Grand Old Man of German literature. With breathtaking regal condescension he receives his minions: a graduate student writing a thesis on him, a journalist preparing an adulatory article, his publisher arranging the publication of his magnum opus. He regales them - and the audience - with noble, high-flown thoughts on art and life, while exploiting his situation to the full to gain honors and material comforts.