Not rarely the main characters in Thomas Bernhard's literature fail with their intentions to write scientific works. Instead they go through a fruitless writer's cramp for decades, until they perish. With this background this essay will analyse the motive of failure in Bernhard's novel The Lime Works from 1970. The main character Konradaims to write the ultimate treatise on the subject of hearing, though he comes to nothing.It will be shown that Konrad's failure has many reasons and that the motive of failure can be related to many aspects in Bernhard's texts. The analysis identifies Konrad's dead-end situation.Thisessay intends to convey an insight into Bernhard's literature but also to reflect about the nature of failure in general.