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She used to be my favourite pet hate for a couple of years after she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Somehow I was reconciled with her in the year After all, she is an intelligent, talented woman who can write unbearably painful, yet eloquent and sophisticated prose. I don't like her writing, but she undoubtedly is a skilled and interesting author. She may deserve a Nobel Prize in Literature for that. Today I reviewed my I rarely think of Elfriede Jelinek anymore. Today I reviewed my all time pet hate Strindberg, one of the authors I have loved to torture myself with since adolescence.
His vitriolic, evil brilliance just defies my need for rational, aesthetic AND emotional approval. I keep reading him, and hating him, and admiring him, year after year. All of a sudden I realised that I have exactly the same relationship to Elfriede Jelinek, but that I am much less forgiving of her hatred, despite understanding it better than Strindberg's privileged whining.
Am I less tolerant towards brutal women? I don't think so. I was perfectly honest about my dislike of The Wasp Factory for its silly, gratuitous violence. And Banks' writing skills are not even close to Jelinek's. What is it then? My reading of Strindberg's I havsbandet made me come up with an idea. I did not take his hatred seriously, being so closely linked to his fears and need for control, and so little connected to how women actually are in real life.
I do take Jelinek's descriptions of male-female relationships seriously, though. And therefore she causes me to feel more pain. I find it hard to distance myself from her brutal vision of sexual dominance and dependence, from the family relationships she describes that are defined by bonds of eternal hatred and humiliation.
She gets under my skin the moment I start reading. And she is not exactly the kind of person whom I appreciate to feel under my skin. Therefore, as I am afraid of her crystal clear and dark observations, I do what Strindberg did: I hate what I fear. I cannot despise it, however. It is too good for that. She proves her superiority by carefully painting a picture showing her inferiority. View all 26 comments.
Sep 23, Dolors rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Recommended to Dolors by: It sours other effort. Of all artists, they are certainly the most wretched. Her soul has been sucked dry and her mind has been poisoned by a sadistic upbringing, damaging permanently the neuronal connection that unites music and humanity.
Music arises as a metaphor for human behavior and its inclinations. From rebel and sensual Schubert to the safety of technical perfection of Schumann, from passion and pain to intellect and security, from the most cultured, refined and pure musical magnificence to the most dissonant shriek of gruesome violence, Erika embodies a musical bipolarity in a crude first person atemporal narration veering between prose and poetry. Erika Kohut, the piano teacher, is a deeply disturbed woman trapped in an obsessive love-hate relationship with her sickly controlling mother, maximum manifestation of a tainted society, who deprived Erika from her childhood, from her self-respect and her independence because of a perverse and selfish fixation for her daughter to become a talented musician, creating an unnatural bond between the two women, which leads to the complete annulment of Erika as a human being.
She is condemned to a withered existence, devoid of any hint of warmth, where only a vacuous flow of a systematic routine mercilessly torments her and fosters her libidinous instincts rooted deep in her entrails after suffering from decades of repression by her twisted mother. No male members are allowed in their small apartment, only the ghost of a father-husband figure hovering around vaguely with no consequence after his death in a mental institution a long time ago.
Erika Kohut, the piano teacher, paints her life in circular motions framing indistinct moments as theatrical scenes and random shots of a putrescent world, where animal life rules implacably and predators hunt down their prey and copulation is an act of dominance and no spring breezes awaken anything.
Decaying organic material prevails in the sordid streets of Vienna where Erika becomes a voyeur spying couples in public parks or attending peep shows, nurturing her distorted sexuality and her sadomasochistic tendencies. Erika cuts herself to let her blood run in red streams of desperation trying to see past her inert and lifeless carcass of a body, trying to find her inner beauty, trying to prove her heart is still pumping blood into her hollow corpse.
Undefined form of emptiness and vacant glances are the only reflections in the mirror, a vampire of the maternal nest. Erika senses her comfortably familial balance of power threatened by this golden and athletic man, who is ten years her junior and an admirer of Norman Mailer , and resists the temptation of seeking hope and redemption. She reaches the determination to show this sublime male specimen the dear price of his daring to desire her, proving her dominance and supremacy to the world.
Where to draw the line between the guilty and the innocent? Should parents be blamed for the miseries of their children? Should current generations pay for the sins committed by their ancestors? Can art redeem the ones beyond salvation? View all 40 comments. Erika, the piano teacher, has issues. To say much more would risk taking away the gasps a reader is entitled to when reading this. Of all the foul and sadistic events in this book, a small, animalistic scene between mother and daughter in bed haunted me the most.
This book gets on you like slime. The breathless narrative is ugly-beautiful. She tortures, taunts, cowers. View all 4 comments. May 08, Hadrian rated it liked it Shelves: The Piano Teacher is an unbearably gruesome read. It starts off with a brutal spat of domestic violence with fistfuls of pulled hair and ends with two of the most disgusting sex scenes I've read in modern literature. This is not a novel about personal growth or development, but about the opposite.
Our main character, a piano teacher living with her hovering parasite of a mother, experiences personal destruction and the conflation of sex and romantic pleasure with pain. Unhealthy obsessions wit The Piano Teacher is an unbearably gruesome read. Unhealthy obsessions with sex, disease, filth, hatred, self-mutilation, all these other grimy little details. I can't exactly call this pornographic for who would voluntarily enjoy such stories for their sexual arousal?
Actually never mind sorry I asked , but it is obscene. I can't say I enjoyed reading this, but it asks the harshest questions about sex and violence. If you're that sort of literary masochist, please go on. View all 11 comments. In many ways, Elfriede Jelinek's Die Klavierspielerin is amazing. Visceral, explosive, descriptive in a horrifying, yet also curiously enticing manner, the novel presents a massively cracked and crumbling, distorted mirror of society not just Austrian society, but society in general and how stranglingly vigorous and seemingly impossible to fray and sever the patriarchal structures and fibres of power and might are and continue to be and how they consume and infiltrate everything and everyone In many ways, Elfriede Jelinek's Die Klavierspielerin is amazing.
Visceral, explosive, descriptive in a horrifying, yet also curiously enticing manner, the novel presents a massively cracked and crumbling, distorted mirror of society not just Austrian society, but society in general and how stranglingly vigorous and seemingly impossible to fray and sever the patriarchal structures and fibres of power and might are and continue to be and how they consume and infiltrate everything and everyone. Erika Kohut's mother might seem a harridan and even rather like a monster and she is that and more , but in many ways, she is also just another spoke in the wheel so to speak, and Erika herself, even though she has faced her mother's abuse and dictates all of her life including more than creepily having to share a bed with her , also deliberately and often maliciously chastises and degrades her piano students, transferring the abuse and thus keeping the wheels of power, of societal embattlement and dysfunctional family structures spinning and continuously flourishing.
Die Klavierspielerin is a novel that I most definitely am glad to have read three times now and I can certainly understand why and how Elfriede Jelinek won the Nobel Prize in literature for her oeuvre , but it is also a novel, I would not likely ever willingly read a fourth time unless it were required of me academically ; not comfort reading by any stretch of the imagination Die Klavierspielerin is a novel that makes you think, and that should make you think, albeit also and always leaving a necessary, but rather nasty and bitterly nauseating aftertaste.
Dec 16, Josh rated it really liked it Shelves: I cut myself with razors and bleed out, I consume it back, which is me, part of me, it is mine. Sitting down in a pasture full of slimy eels, crushing them as they discharge their squeamish bits all over me. Letting the gelatinous barrage of honey overwhelm me, while ants gnaw at my skin. Breaking glass and running my fingers over it, crushing it in my bare hands, letting it stick out from every pore it manages to puncture.
This orifice of mine is not just mine, but someone else's; it can't tell me I cut myself with razors and bleed out, I consume it back, which is me, part of me, it is mine. Own me, Rape me, Gag me, Bind me, Devour me. The above is given for the effect it had on me, it affected me in ways that no book ever has made upon me and I'll never forget it, it's highly unforgettable.
It engages you in a story of a repressed adult, as you see her rip herself apart sadistically as she tries to figure out what love is. What is love, exactly? Is it being suffocated by the one who loves you or beaten by the one you think you love? She doesn't know and will never know. The book offends you in many ways as it makes you cringe for your sanity, your breath becomes labored, but you read on, you read on until it's over with a statement; a glorious statement that she is free and wants wants WANTS, bleeding for you, for her love.
Sep 05, Brian rated it really liked it Recommended to Brian by: The opposite sex always wants the exact opposite. Jelinek writes in perfect compact sentences; streamlining and buffing those collection of words between periods to contain only what is needed, nothing more. She knows that her mother's embrace will completely devour and digest her, yet she is magically drawn to it. She packs those sentences full with minor motifs, brilliant characterization, startling imagery and sends them hurtling through the narrative. But there's a jack-knifed wheeler of a The opposite sex always wants the exact opposite.
But there's a jack-knifed wheeler of a theme that all this traffic must encounter: And when all of these sentences and the Theme collide, it is a powerful display of destruction; beautiful and unpredictible, like a volcanic eruption. In Erika's piano class, children are already hacking away at Mozart and Haydn, the advanced pupils are riding roughshod over Brahms and Schumann, covering the forest soil of keyboard literature with their slug slime.
Reading this book while in Vienna was a special treat. My wife and I went to the Albertina museum to see a Gottfried Helnwein installation; his famous "48 Portraits" of important women was one of the works, and right there in the middle of the beautiful prints was one of Elfriede Jelinek. I had never heard of her before friend Aubrey recommended this book to me; how great it was to read her most famous work in the city where it was penned - and to see her painted portrait by another famouse Viennese artist: View all 9 comments.
Jan 12, Isidora rated it really liked it. I have made my way through this painful and upsetting novel.
Elfriede was classified as pretentious, difficult, a woman, yes, but hermetic and hyper intellectual, or so I got it from the reviews. How wrong I was. Her writing is very alive, yet to the darkest side. Both of them have issues, and to say that their relationship is disturbed would be an understatement. It is in no way an easy read. Usually books I like do not hurt that much. This one left me sad, upset, shocked, hopeless, and miserable. When I eventually came back to reality, all I wanted however was to applaud to Elfriede Jelinek. What a great writing, what a power and courage.
Sorry, Elfriede, for my mistrust. I am so very content with your Nobel, after all. The music is without melody or harmony, but it is a stunning piece of virtuoso writing. The sounds are jarring, violent, cacophonous. Much of the techn 'The Piano Teacher' is like a piece of chamber music; a dissonant, serial composition with cold, confused Erika on piano, Mother on violin always fiddling away even, or especially, when uncalled for by the score and, supplying the lower notes, Walter Klemmer on cello a little arrogant regarding his abilities and too keen to wave his bow about.
Much of the technique the musicians use is unorthodox: There isn't a moment of beauty in the entire work. Its most unusual feature is that it has a conductor, Elfriede Jelinek. More unusual again is that she is not just conducting the trio, she is conducting us the readers as well and she appears a little over anxious that we should view everthing exactly as she does. The musicians must keep to the score and we must keep to the written notes.
On the upbeat Ms. She breaths in all of the air in the room. We are hers until she chooses, if ever she does, to breath out again. Mother, progenitor of all that occurs in the novel, is an appalling creature.
Her determination to keep her daughter within her control at all times - to the extent that they share a bed - must result from a deep fear of which we are ignorant. She lived through the World war 2, but we know nothing of her experiences, nor those of the man she married, a man who may, at that time, already have had the mental-health problems which would, later in his life, result in his being confined in a mental institution. Mother's overbearing need to control her one child must be the result of a deep trauma in her own life.
Her fear of being left alone is beyond any normal uneasiness at such a prospect. This woman is psychotic. It is with her husband that she should be finding company. The two of them on different floors of that big building on the hill. Erika, born from the one dribble of seed that man implanted in that woman. Mama saw early on that she might just have the talent to be a concert pianist.
But more than technique is needed to be a concert pianist. To play Schubert, Schumann, Chopin you must know something of the range of emotions which were freely available, and known, to the composers. Erika has heard of such emotions, but has no first-hand experience of any of them. Gradually feeling can only be located through extreme actions. Cutting herself brings forth a feeling - pain - so that seems worth doing occasionally. She feels a kind of lust, but has no means to express or expunge it. Peep shows and pornography become a fascination, a means of being in the vicinity of this activity of which she knows little.
But combined with her already distorted and grotesque idea of human relations what was home life like when both her father and mother were present? Walter Klemmer, by being interested in Erika, provides a point of fixation for her; a means by which she can attempt to process physical connections which will break through into those feelings she has never known.
But what does she know? He is a student in the music academy where she now teaches, so she has some modicum of authority - the element of her character to which he is responsive - but she has no agency within the realm of her own emotional range. All of her receptors are malfunctioning. The gramophone of her mind is running down; the soprano is becoming a bass and nothing is making any sense. She has a screw loose. Let's call the whole thing off. Breath out again please Frau Jelinek.
I have followed your every word, fascinated, repulsed, upset, confused. I understand too that we are all quiescent in the face of state brutality and too meek before a state system which keeps us in our place. But please put your baton down. I can't take any more. Colpisce quindi quando invece questo accade. Mi ha colpito la presenza di metafore nel romanzo e l'assenza invece di una introspezione dei protagonisti, il cui sentire si deve dedurre dai comportamenti, spesso aberranti e perversi.
Nessuna concessione da parte della Jelinek, nessun dettaglio omesso, nessun lieto fine. Lo dico sempre, certe cose uhhh possono essere narrate solo dalle donne. View all 7 comments. Jul 21, Ema rated it liked it Shelves: Elfriede Jelinek's novel is a painful, brutal experience. I cannot say that I enjoyed this incursion in the grotesque, tenebrous entrails of the human psyche.
I came back to reality saddened and disgusted, having tasted the extent of destruction which overbearing parents can have on their children's lives. And yet, the novel is well written, with surprising moments of lyricism; I cannot deny its value, despite the depressing story it contains. There is almost no sign of beauty, goodness or hope Elfriede Jelinek's novel is a painful, brutal experience.
There is almost no sign of beauty, goodness or hope in the crooked, distorted world of the piano teacher. She is accompanied by music, it is true, but this music is silent and abstract, being perceived only by means of words. And yet, on the story backdrop, I could clearly hear the faint pop of needles piercing the skin or the barely audible swish of the razor blade cutting into flesh. I came to fear the return of these sounds, while the beautiful music was meant to remain silent. Erika, the piano teacher, lives with her mother in a closed, isolated universe, from which relatives and friends were expelled.
Along the years, a sickly and peculiar symbiosis has formed between the two of them; it is a mixture of love and hate, a rapport of forces a bit more difficult to discern and understand. Dependent on one another, the two women are connected through invisible, yet strong filaments.
Mother, jealous and possessive, keeps Erika's life under observation; she has devoted her entire life to Erika's well being, asking obedience and loyalty in exchange. She has taught Erika not to feel regret and instilled in her the belief that she is unique, superior to others. The girl's sexuality is reprimanded; her senses have become numbed and, in an attempt to feel something, anything, Erika inflicts pain on herself. It is, at the same time, a discharge valve which helps her survive a suffocating relationship which has crippled her spirit.
Mother appears as a tyrannical force, assuming the act of a destructive creation, molding, according to her own whims, a broken doll that she controls through the threads of the mother-daughter bond. I wondered why Erika doesn't leave her despotic mother. It is true that she revolts, sometimes, through buying of dresses, through the secrets she keeps, through bursts of violence which she regrets afterwards. But she never revolts completely; she resembles a caged animal, which has a limited space to manifest itself. She cannot go further, because mother is the one who confirms Erika's own identity.
Mother represents the refuge and solace, she is the measure of value and uniqueness. In the absence of the creator, the creation - unauthenticated by external factors - would lose its worth. I hated the characters in this novel with all my heart. I couldn't connect to any of them, not even through the pity that I could feel for Erika, from time to time.
But even this pity wilted when faced with her cruel and evil nature. Erika is not the helpless and inoffensive human being she may appear to be at first.
Following in her mother's footsteps, she exerts control over students and inflicts pain without remorse. What her mother has done out of love and possession, Erika is doing out of a cynical, calculated, almost experimental predisposition. Her road to dehumanization seems to be without return; apparently, nothing and nobody could save her from the monstrous dimension into which she sinks even deeper.
As we delve deeper into the novel, we start to discern different threads, which manipulate all the others: My pick for Erika's image, as chosen in the discussion with knig, Trav, Dolors and Declan. Portrait by Amedeo Modigliani View all 33 comments. Perfetto accompagnamento in stile sofferenza, mi sono sono somministrata il vortice livido e oscuro delle parole delle Jelinek.
Una musica angosciante, sordida e disperata. Devo dire che tanta violenza, tanto malessere, tanta stortura, mi hanno lasciato dapprima perplessa. Protagonista una donna, Erika, pianista con un trascorso di concertista fallita alle spalle, che si guadagna la vita facendo l'insegnante. Visione distorta generata forse dal fallimento, dalla relazione ambigua con la madre, dalla mancanza di esperienza della tenerezza.
Ma non ci sono risposte certe. Una lettera allo studente, con richieste esagerate, esasperate, in cui la manifestazione d'amore viene completamente travisata. Una satira feroce e violenta questa della Jelinek. Ben nascosti abitualmente ma esibiti dalla Jelinek come una bandiera. Una lettura che lascia atterriti. Davvero ottima la postfazione di Luigi Reitani che segue la lettura.
Che orienta e contestualizza. Che mi ha aiutato a capire ed ad apprezzare, questa opera spiazzante e crudele, davvero molto bizzarra e al limite. Ma sicuramente di pregio. Una lettura per stomaci forti. View all 8 comments. Oct 10, Lee rated it liked it. This reads a bit like a shrill reboot of an old underground fable and also like overcooked Angela Carter.
As Meike suggests, it's a little too eager to pre-empt all speculation about what might be motivating either of the protagonists. It's as though the author is a little bit worried that we might be overwhelmed without her careful guidance, and as though she is actually quite tame, and presumptive of our being likewise.
I don't know what else to add to the issues already outlined This reads a bit like a shrill reboot of an old underground fable and also like overcooked Angela Carter. I don't know what else to add to the issues already outlined, other than to say I felt equally hectored and patronised and can't be doing with any more of it.
View all 10 comments. Apr 13, Marc rated it liked it Shelves: This is a tough one to rate and review. From a literary-technical point of view this book is phenomenal: The detached way of storytelling very Canetti-like underlines the strong sarcastic tendency. Thematically this novel seems more like a psychological study of an extremely deviated personality r This is a tough one to rate and review.
Thematically this novel seems more like a psychological study of an extremely deviated personality rather than a fictional story. The year old piano teacher Erika Kohut is the central character; she still lives with her mother and is completely controlled by this mother, or rather, lets herself be controlled by her mother. Erika has been perverted in such a thorough way that she is not capable of normal, open relationships. Instead she develops a passion to maniacally observe other peoples sexual behavior, going to peep shows and porn movie theaters, or secretly watching a man and a woman making love in a park.
In the second part of the novel she tries to break loose of her mother in trying to engage in a sadomasochist relationship with her pupil Walter Klemmer, himself symbol of masculine arrogance and narcistic love. This develops into a very nasty finale. No easy subject, for sure. And Jelinek excels in making the reader uncomfortable. She uses a very detached point of storytelling Erika, the mother and the pupil are always described in the third person , but she mixes this with a very ingenious form of independent inner monologue.
In this way the actions are recorded in an ice cold way, but enhanced with the inner motivations of the involved characters. All this strongly strengthens the effect of brutal harshness in the relations between the characters, stripped of every human emotion. And so the focus is on the power-relationships, with only two options: As a reader Jelinek pulls you into a gruesome, harsh world, belittling a misanthrope like the French writer Celine into a chorister.
In other reviews a link is suggested with the marxist analysis of Jelinek, presenting the 3 main characters as alienated personalities, products of the capitalist system. But, honestly, I don't recognize this very ideological reading. In short, this is a novel you cannot love, it is a story that seems repulsive and continually abhors the reader. But at the same time you keep on reading just because it presents an extremely perverse, but very interesting aspect of mankind.
View all 3 comments. Dec 19, Neal Adolph rated it liked it Shelves: Can I keep this short and sweet? Elfriede Jelinek is, perhaps, one of the most controversial of the Nobel Prize Winners from the 21st Century. I think that drew me to her. This one literary message board that I am a member of has a constant hate-on for her contribution to letters and her prize. I can see, after reading this book, why she won the prize.
She dabbles in really complex relationships, and here we see several. Erika Kohut, the protagonist, Can I keep this short and sweet? Erika Kohut, the protagonist, is at the center of all of them. She isn't a very likeable figure, but she demands your attention and, eventually, your sympathy. Her mother abuses her financially and emotionally, and her student, a young piano player, is a source of frustration and fascination for her - and eventually also a source of abuse.
Though the abuse is different. I don't want to say very much about it to be honest. I'm trying to keep this short for two reasons - my own lack of time, and my desire to have you read this book. What you witness in this book is the complexity of domination and rebellion born out in everyday relationships, and the agency of a single woman as she works through these challenges and attempts to creates challenges for some of those around her.
There is no innocence here. It would be out of place in this novel, just as it is often out of place in humanity. I liked this exploration a lot, at times even more than a lot. But the writing, which is at times revelatory and brilliant and important, holds back the story when it is also repetitive, poorly structured, not particularly well paced. A bit more editing may have gone a long way here. But it could be the translation, which is at times a little jagged and awkward. But maybe that is also the writing style. Jelinek is famous for translating Gravity's Rainbow into German, and has claimed that the process was inspiring for her.
I wouldn't want to translate Pynchon to another language, it would be tough, but if she did it, if her language and prose was altered as a result, maybe her work is equally difficult to translate. Regardless, I ended up feeling as though the ideas and characters in this story were more consistently intriguing than the writing.
But, if you haven't yet read the book, I hope you will. It is worth the moments of frustration. I look forward to more of Jelinek's brutalism in my future reading. And ultimately I'm comfortable with her Nobel. Not that it matters, anyways. Erika va per i quaranta. La bambina venne al mondo solo dopo lunghi e duri anni di matrimonio.
Die Klavierspielerin (German Edition) [JELINEK] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Book by JELINEK. Editorial Reviews. Language Notes. Text: German Buy Die Klavierspielerin ( German Edition): Read 1 Kindle Store Reviews - www.farmersmarketmusic.com
Sfreccia attraverso la porta di casa come uno stormo di foglie in autunno, decisa a raggiungere la sua stanza senza farsi vedere. Erika, tu credi che io non sappia dove sei stata. Madre- Matrona schiaccia ogni volere che non sia il proprio, spegne ogni minimo fuoco di passione filiale, frena ogni movimento che non sia diretto al virtuosismo musicale. He comes early to class and watches Erika perform. He eventually becomes Erika's student and develops a desire for his instructor. Erika sees love as a means of rebellion or escape from her mother and thus seeks complete control in the relationship, always telling Klemmer carefully what he must do to her, although she is a sexual masochist.
The tensions build within the relationship as Klemmer finds himself more and more uncomfortable by the control, and eventually Klemmer beats and rapes Erika in her own apartment, her mother in the next room. When Erika visits Klemmer after the rape and finds him laughing and happy, she stabs herself in the shoulder and returns home. Much of the criticism has been directed at the mother-daughter relationship; less attention has been paid to the aspect of music in the novel. According to Larson Powell and Brenda Bethman, musicality is a very important aspect of the book: Erika's failure as a pianist is a sign of her perversion: Thus, Erika remains the object of her mother's desire, unable to attain subjectivity which the principles of her musical education had denied her in the first place.
Other criticism has been directed toward the lack of a father figure within the novel. Just as much as Erika's mother is suffocatingly present, so is her father noticeably absent. This provides her mother with sole psychological discretion as to Erika's upbringing. Worth noting is that:. Aside from the fact that the exclusive bond between mother and daughter remains uninterrupted and maternal domination obstructed, his displacement suggests the cause for Erika's failed separation from the mother and her excessive masochistic drive.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Piano Teacher Cover of the first edition. Women Writers in German-Speaking Countries. Journal of Modern Literature. Monatshefte in English and German.