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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
This book not only bites with razor-sharp teeth, you could cut yourself on its edges while picking it up. The language is brutal and uncovers brutality in even the most innocuous, everyday events — just to ride on the bus is to be assaulted and to assault in return. Erika Kohut is the titular piano teacher, a woman so warped by the smothering violence of her relationship with her mother, and the patriarchal repression of Austrian society, that no corner of her person, inside or outside, is untouched. She acts out socially and sexually, seeking to control, to brutalize. The language of the narrator extends the violence done to Erika, always undercutting, constantly distancing, contemptuous and cruel. There's never anyone to root for in this book. Perpetrator and victim are interchangeable in essentials, they've all been shaped by the same hand. Only circumstance separates them. Despite the dehumanization of the characters, Jelinek made me feel tremendous pity for Erika. An instinct towards love still impels her, but it can only be thwarted in the world Jelinek has created. Not recommended for those with delicate sensibilities or weak stomachs.
For a double dose, watch the movie version, directed by Michael Haneke. Any of his oeuvre would go well with this, if you can take it.
For a double dose, watch the movie version, directed by Michael Haneke. Any of his oeuvre would go well with this, if you can take it.
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
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
Good metaphors - but sometimes convoluted.
The dynamic between her and her mother and how it affected her was interesting to read. Everything else wasn't for me.
The dynamic between her and her mother and how it affected her was interesting to read. Everything else wasn't for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Chronic illness, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interestingly this stands out to me more than anything as an original and imperfect read. Jelinek writes in such a lyrical and conversational manner it is breathtaking, spellbinding at times. But her metaphors and abstraction do skew a tad too much at points forcing the meaning to be lost or grappled with, diluting its power.
“No artist tolerates anything incomplete or half baked in his work”
“A world opens up to HER… the pustules with which the world can be joined together release an equally tiny world of music.”
“Health-how disgusting. Health is the transfiguration of the status quo… well, health always sides with the victors; the weak fall away”
I could spend hours typing out quotes I highlighted or finding ones I couldn’t highlight because I didn’t have a pen with me and fell ill about leaving behind as I turned the page on my commute.
It is such a considered and harrowing piece of work that doesn’t shy away from its horror. And even in rereading lines from the earlier half of the book the foreshadowing and inevitability of Erika’s fate - deemed not by her but by Klemmer’s hidden nature of cruelty and narcissism only rocks me more.
I held back from reading the final few pages because I wanted clarification on what the characters were thinking to compare to the later scenes of the film and was almost scared to be proven right but also scared to be proven wrong.
The piano teacher is about abuse. It is about art as shelter and romance as a “Trojan horse.” It is characterised by Erika, whose earnest and repressed longing for mutuality and dictated tenderness, after years of parental imprisonment and arrested development, is met with misunderstanding, cowardice, unwarranted humiliation and abuse.
“If you weren’t a victim, you couldn’t become one.”
Both book and film have taken over my entire January and though it wasn’t exactly “fun” or entertaining to engage with and pick apart, it was necessary.
“No artist tolerates anything incomplete or half baked in his work”
“A world opens up to HER… the pustules with which the world can be joined together release an equally tiny world of music.”
“Health-how disgusting. Health is the transfiguration of the status quo… well, health always sides with the victors; the weak fall away”
I could spend hours typing out quotes I highlighted or finding ones I couldn’t highlight because I didn’t have a pen with me and fell ill about leaving behind as I turned the page on my commute.
It is such a considered and harrowing piece of work that doesn’t shy away from its horror. And even in rereading lines from the earlier half of the book the foreshadowing and inevitability of Erika’s fate - deemed not by her but by Klemmer’s hidden nature of cruelty and narcissism only rocks me more.
I held back from reading the final few pages because I wanted clarification on what the characters were thinking to compare to the later scenes of the film and was almost scared to be proven right but also scared to be proven wrong.
“If you weren’t a victim, you couldn’t become one.”
Both book and film have taken over my entire January and though it wasn’t exactly “fun” or entertaining to engage with and pick apart, it was necessary.
Show, not tell. The eternal plaint of literature. Do not tell us of the parade; bleed our ears to the beat of cacophony. Do not list out the throes of death; pierce our lungs and tie them up behind our backs. Do not speak of emotions with a single word; grip our hearts and plunge them into the carefully calibrated abyss.
Well, alright. Let me give that a try.
People say, oh, the joys of music! People sigh, oh, the mystic devotion of motherhood! People scream, oh, the sacrilegious desensitization of modern society! People mutter, oh, the banal unknowns of sexual proclivity. People think, oh, the place for man, and the place for woman.
Align yourself in pursuit of Art, snip and stretch and crack the lazy spine into proper positioning till you soar high, high above the masses in your ability to listen, replicate, understand. Seek meaning in every pain and pain in every meaning, and you will begin to perceive the discontent that drove the masters, those divinities so much better than the uncouth animals slobbering over the music they left behind. Throw your all into it, gild and grate your sanity into perfect form, and laugh at those whose pitiful minds cannot handle the wondrous Truth. Never mind the banalities of evil that crop up in the beginning, those will soon recede before the tide of the Greater Things in Life. In awareness, at least.
There is a singular feeling to be found in those who know their mother well, well enough to register their status as a financial investment in her eyes. Step to the beat, clap to the rhythm, and she will assume you functional; a working appliance does not require attention. Break from the track, run around on newfound legs and divest yourself in dividends undesirable to the maternal streak, and watch as the furious threats and emotional gutting chases after the errant child, determined to slap and beat and bunch it back into shape. How embarrassing! It seems, despite all that she has given it in the form of monetary stimulation and business schedule counseling and a dash of 'Iloveyous' when a debt needs to be filled, it has not yet been housebroken. Back to the pruning it goes, fill its head with thoughts of homelessness and disgrace, then place a sack of cash at the end of the track. Who wouldn't do anything for money? Those who value healthy emotional rapport over commercial value? Ha ha, nonsense! Mommie knows best.
Society isn't desensitized. The social construct is simply content with its vague descriptions of horrors in a meaningless void of sound and fury, its fuzzy images that fetishize the physical antagonist, its panderings at atrocious thrills that spawn emulation rather than disgust. Because as soon as a book like this comes along that portrays verbal abuse, emotional manipulation, casual rape, and so many more of the dregs in full relief, in lurid detail lit not by candlelight but a spotlight seeking out the drippings and punctures of every orifice, many shy away. Show, not tell, remember? Careful that you don't eat your words in panicked offense. No one said you were allowed to comfortably watch from the fully furnished box, high up in the usual lofty assuredness of the Reader-God, sanitized and sanctified by virtue of distance. No one said you weren't going to participate.
That includes the sex, and the sexual build up, and the sexual reasoning, and the sexual genders, and the sexual expectations of said genders, and the sexual expectations of who controls whom, and for how long, and what goes where, and how the violence is to be rendered, and the methods by which the violations are to be conducted, and what gets mixed up in the mind and sludges itself down into the genitals, and the pain. Above all, the pain. Who plays, whom they play, and how.
Human being, so confident in your non-objectified status, so content in the unexamined life, so ignorant of your inner mechanisms where bone runs to blood and nurture squares off with nature on the battlefield of desire, rampant where limits are a thing unknown for all the audience may shrill and bleat. Are you sure?
Well, alright. Let me give that a try.
People say, oh, the joys of music! People sigh, oh, the mystic devotion of motherhood! People scream, oh, the sacrilegious desensitization of modern society! People mutter, oh, the banal unknowns of sexual proclivity. People think, oh, the place for man, and the place for woman.
Align yourself in pursuit of Art, snip and stretch and crack the lazy spine into proper positioning till you soar high, high above the masses in your ability to listen, replicate, understand. Seek meaning in every pain and pain in every meaning, and you will begin to perceive the discontent that drove the masters, those divinities so much better than the uncouth animals slobbering over the music they left behind. Throw your all into it, gild and grate your sanity into perfect form, and laugh at those whose pitiful minds cannot handle the wondrous Truth. Never mind the banalities of evil that crop up in the beginning, those will soon recede before the tide of the Greater Things in Life. In awareness, at least.
There is a singular feeling to be found in those who know their mother well, well enough to register their status as a financial investment in her eyes. Step to the beat, clap to the rhythm, and she will assume you functional; a working appliance does not require attention. Break from the track, run around on newfound legs and divest yourself in dividends undesirable to the maternal streak, and watch as the furious threats and emotional gutting chases after the errant child, determined to slap and beat and bunch it back into shape. How embarrassing! It seems, despite all that she has given it in the form of monetary stimulation and business schedule counseling and a dash of 'Iloveyous' when a debt needs to be filled, it has not yet been housebroken. Back to the pruning it goes, fill its head with thoughts of homelessness and disgrace, then place a sack of cash at the end of the track. Who wouldn't do anything for money? Those who value healthy emotional rapport over commercial value? Ha ha, nonsense! Mommie knows best.
Society isn't desensitized. The social construct is simply content with its vague descriptions of horrors in a meaningless void of sound and fury, its fuzzy images that fetishize the physical antagonist, its panderings at atrocious thrills that spawn emulation rather than disgust. Because as soon as a book like this comes along that portrays verbal abuse, emotional manipulation, casual rape, and so many more of the dregs in full relief, in lurid detail lit not by candlelight but a spotlight seeking out the drippings and punctures of every orifice, many shy away. Show, not tell, remember? Careful that you don't eat your words in panicked offense. No one said you were allowed to comfortably watch from the fully furnished box, high up in the usual lofty assuredness of the Reader-God, sanitized and sanctified by virtue of distance. No one said you weren't going to participate.
That includes the sex, and the sexual build up, and the sexual reasoning, and the sexual genders, and the sexual expectations of said genders, and the sexual expectations of who controls whom, and for how long, and what goes where, and how the violence is to be rendered, and the methods by which the violations are to be conducted, and what gets mixed up in the mind and sludges itself down into the genitals, and the pain. Above all, the pain. Who plays, whom they play, and how.
Human being, so confident in your non-objectified status, so content in the unexamined life, so ignorant of your inner mechanisms where bone runs to blood and nurture squares off with nature on the battlefield of desire, rampant where limits are a thing unknown for all the audience may shrill and bleat. Are you sure?