Reviews - The Piano Teacher

189 reviews for:

The Piano Teacher

Elfriede Jelinek

3.53 AVERAGE

tyann's review against another edition

3.0

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

After seeing the film adaptation, I always want to see where film and novel compare. Plus Michael Haneke directed the film and I remember just in such awe of it. The book didn’t really do it for me. It took about halfway to get used to the style of writing but that could be due to translation. I’m going to revisit the film but I’d say “The Piano Teacher” is good just wasn’t enjoying reading it. I really did like how Jelinek describes emotions and actions in extremely subtle ways. That was challenging but beautiful once I got used to it.

devitalise's review against another edition

2.0

can’t recall any major thoughts or feelings i had about reading this. something about how it didn’t flinch from gory mutilation as an outlet for self hatred made for uncomfortable reading. unsure if some of the repetitive sentences is something present in the original German version, or added in the translation.

hating your mother so much you hate yourself? eldest daughters go crazy in media.

chingonareads's review against another edition

5.0

The question is not whether or not there is someone that’ll match your freak, but whether or not that freak truly needs to be matched.

josie_davies's review against another edition

I need to digest this first. I don’t know how to feel.

cthedan's review against another edition

5.0

The most romantic book I've ever read.

latebutcoming's review against another edition

5.0

More than anything, THE PIANO TEACHER is about the yawning gap between two things: youth and age, man and woman, art and ambition, fantasy and actualization. Between these things, over that gap, is a landbridge that requires traversing. If you can meet in the middle, there's something like understanding. I'm reminded of Marina Abramović's "Great Wall" walk where she and her lover walked the entire length of the Great Wall of China from opposite ends, greeting each other finally with an embrace--the treacherous reality of what it takes to truly join two separate things. The only thing that can make this union possible is the existence of love, and a shared investment in that love. Without it, somewhere on that landbridge between two solid things, you'll drown, you'll become lost, or you'll be consumed. By the end of THE PIANO TEACHER--an unwalkable passage between differences--Erika Kohut and Walter Klemmer are both consumed. An ending is coming, for all of us, no matter what. "...if something lasts and lasts, it eventually erupts." A knife stuck in the shoulder is as good an ending as marriage, or love, or happiness. And for some of us, that's as good an ending as we'll ever get.

THE PIANO TEACHER film by Michael Haneke is one of my favorite films of all time. I am so happy to have finally read this book, an even more brutal and pummeling text than its adaptation. Haneke distills and organizes the essence of this book into a stark, chilling portrait of Erika that retains her spirit. I am now going to die :)