Product Description

A haunting tale of morbid voyeurism and masochism, The Piano Teacher is one of the greatest contemporary European novels. Erika Kohut teaches piano at the Vienna Conservatory by day. But by night she trawls the porn shows of Vienna while her mother, whom she loves and hates in equal measure, waits up for her. Into this emotional pressure-cooker bounds music student and ladies' man, Walter Klemmer. With Walter as her student, Erika spirals out of control, consumed by the ecstacy of self-destruction. First published in 1983, The Piano Teacher is the masterpiece of Elfriede Jelinek, Austria's most famous writer. Directed by Michael Haneke, the film won three major prizes at the Cannes 2000 Festival including best actor for Beno?t Magimel and best actress for Isabelle Huppert.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10143 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'A brilliant, deadly book' Elizabeth Young 'Moves impressively across that psychic terrain which is born out of maternal fear, fear of the world outside and of the body, and fear of the loss of control' Independent 'A dazzling perfomance that will make the blood run cold' Walter Abish

About the Author
Elfriede Jelinek was born in Austria in 1946 and grew up in Vienna where she attended the famous Music Conservatory. The leading Austrian writer of her generation, she has been awarded the Heinrich Böll Prize for her contribution to German literature. The film by Michael Haneke of The Piano Teacher won the three main prizes at Cannes in 2001. In 2004, Elfriede Jelinek was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Customer Reviews

"Difficult read but thought provoking".
I've just finished reading the German original of this, and although it was not an easy read, it was well worth it. I hadn't read anything by Jelinek before, but have read quite a lot of Christa Wolf and Bachmann, who write on a similar vein,

For me, this book was more lurid and graphic than anything by the other two writers. Jelinek takes the theme of the suppression / silencing of women and creates a character who really only finds expression in music - she is utterly incapable of using conventional modes of expression (language) to voice her thoughts and feelings, and as a result her feelings themselves become distorted - Erika doesn't know how to live as a 'normal' human, and cannot distinguish between love, lust and violence.

The book had an interesting twist in that Erika is suppressed not only by the masculine world in which she lives, but also by her (nameless) mother - when the status of 'mother' is ironically the ultimate representation of woman. The mother becomes a tyrant, subordinating her daughter's desires and very personality to her own needs because she too cannot function in the outside male-dominated world.

This book was never an easy read, or comforting, but gave me a lot to think about, particularly in our world where people (especially women) are so judged on appearances. Erika seemed to be an example of how the outside world can alienate individuals, causing them to harm themselves mentally and physically. Erika comes across as a bizarre and eccentric character, but there is a lot of truth in how Jelinek depicts her.

dark themes
Jelinek has won the Nobel Prize for literature and this book is listed as one of teh 1001 books to read before you die.

It deals in dark themes: a suffocating mother-daughter relationship, self-harm, voyeurism and (potentially) masochism (though it's not clear how far Erika is really looking for this).

Much of this is persuasive, telling and gripping - though I found the central plotting unclear - why does Erika want something different in her relationship with Klemmer than from her previous relationships? And what does she want? (what she says she wants or what the novelist tells us she wants?)

As to the style, I don't read German, sadly, otherwise I would have given this a go. My suspicion is that it's probably quite masterly, alert in every sentence, in the original. In the translation, it's a bit hit and miss - more hit than miss, but quite a lot of infelicities.

Overall: you won't soon forget this book if you choose to read it. Is it a masterpiece of world literature - I'm not sure. I might try to read something else by this author one day.

Disturbingly fascinating
Something written on the cover describes this book very well: "love, fear, and self-destruction".

We follow a late 30-ish woman, Erika, in Vienna. She's a piano teacher ruthlessly controlled by her mother with whom she still lives. Into her life comes a young man, a student of the fine arts she teaches. Perhaps one cannot say he upsets her life, but through this man's encounter with Erika we get to discover some truly unsettling truths about this woman's psyche, relating to sexual identity more than anything. The relationship between Erika and her dominant mother is also an intricate part of the story.

More than anything the language of Jelinek is truly wonderful, like an intricate melody. Might sound like something I am saying to appear clever, but it's not. She knows her alliterations very well and use them freely. A couple of times perhaps a bit too obviously, but most often not. The writings flows from one persons perspective into anothers without pause, line break, or anything to help you, like shadows of the characters melting into each other. Still it was not hard to follow the perspective. A few times I thought she said something only to make a comment or sound clever, that felt a bit besides the point of the story. But maybe I am being too critical. The language is still what I take with me after reading this book. It was truly amazing (even after translation), and I am definitely going to have to read more books by this author!

People with little patience beware, Jelinek can take a couple of pages to get to the climax. More than once she falls into the habit of describing the situation by looking closer at who this person is and why it is doing what it is. I wouldn't say this disturbed me, as I was amazed with the way she writes, but I really felt that I was being held away from know what's going to happen. I guess that was the point, and she managed very well to work up the suspence this way.